Mental exercise strained the boy’s eyes. “Dude gave Duboff something. Duboff looked happy.”

“What’d he give him?”

“Envelope.”

“What color?”

“Dunno-white. Yeah, white.”

“Big or small?”

“A regular envelope.”

“And Duboff looked happy.”

“He shook dude’s hand.”

“Then what happened?”

“Dude drives off.”

“In what?”

“Mercedes.”

“Color?”

“Black? Gray?” said the boy. “Who the fuck remembers?” Staring defiantly and calling to his mother: “C’mon, Susie. Give it your best shot.”

Susan Brandt wept.

Milo said, “We’re going to show you some pictures, Chance.”

As we drove away from the country club, Reed said, “One day, there’s going to be a domestic violence call to their house.”

Milo said, “Good bet… unfortunately, what the kid had to say boils down to nada. Blond guy who drives a Mercedes and who the kid swears ain’t Huck.”

I said, “Unless the guy was paying Duboff off for something.”

“Like what?” said Reed. “Swimming privileges in the marsh?”

Milo laughed. “Congrats, Detective Reed.”

“On what?”

“Bitter sarcasm, you have now achieved optimal workplace adjustment. My bet is the guy was making a donation to the herons and gulls. Chance saw him at an ocean benefit, we’re talking eco-sensitivity.”

“Water guy,” said Reed.

“Meanwhile, we drown.”

CHAPTER 25

A flurry of message slips crowded Milo ’s desktop.

Three halfhearted media follow-ups on the marsh murders, two deputy chiefs requesting confirmation that Milo had gotten the message about no BOLO on Travis Huck.

He played target practice with his wastebasket, kept reading. “All right, here’s a keeper. Mr. Alston ‘Buddy’ Weir, and another one, Selena’s brother Marc, up in Oakland.”

“Brother probably wants follow-up.”

“Grab yourself a phone in the main room and find out.”

After Reed left, Milo called Weir, switched to speaker. “So we can share the misery.”

The usual paralegal answered, but Weir came on quickly. “Lieutenant, thanks for getting back to me.” Weir’s smooth voice sounded higher, tighter.

“What’s up, sir?”

“I’m getting concerned. Simon hasn’t responded to my calls or my e-mails and when I phoned the Peninsula in Hong Kong, they informed me he checked out last week. I immediately got in touch with Ron Balter at Global, but he had no idea where Simon was. I got him to go through Simon’s recent purchases and we found that Simon indeed flew back to the States. But he hasn’t used his credit cards since.”

“Back to L.A.?”

“No, San Francisco.”

“Is that unusual for Mr. Vander?”

“Not really,” said Weir. “Simon and Nadine love San Francisco, go for art fairs, that kind of thing. They generally stay at the Ritz, but there’s no record of either of them checking in.”

“Does Mr. Vander generally keep such a low profile?”

“He’s a low-key person, no question about that. But he’s generally good about responding to calls. And he always uses credit cards, carries very little cash. That’s not all, Lieutenant. I tried to reach Nadine in Taiwan, was told by her family that she and Kelvin left around the same time Simon flew out of Hong Kong.”

“Did her family say why?”

“No,” said Weir, “but there’s something of a language gap.”

“So it could be a family vacation-wanting to be together.”

“Yes, of course. But the credit cards, Lieutenant. Both Simon and Nadine charge everything. I phoned Simone to see if she knew anything about this. She didn’t and she grew extremely upset… about Travis Huck.”

“She thinks Huck’s harmed her family?”

“She doesn’t know what to think, Lieutenant.”

“Would Huck know their whereabouts in San Francisco?”

“I really can’t say. After I spoke with Simone, I felt I should do something, so I went over to the house and looked around. It does appear as if Huck’s jumped ship. His room is empty, everything’s been cleared out. I suppose that could be construed as guilt over something… I just don’t know.”

Milo mouthed a silent Shit. Rubbed his face. “How thoroughly did you search?”

“I opened some drawers, looked around. He’s gone.”

“You went by yourself?”

“No, with Simone. I felt that as a close family member, given exigent circumstances, she’d have a right to enter the premises. In fact, I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before, when you asked me for entry. What’s your feeling about Huck clearing out?”

“Hard to say, sir.”

“I suppose it’s possible,” said Weir, “that he got spooked after being questioned by you people. But still, if there’s nothing to worry about, why flee? Or maybe he simply up and quit, the typical California thing.”

“Flaky.”

“Seems to come with the weather, Lieutenant.”

Milo said, “When can we do our own walk-through?”

“Say when and I’ll have someone from the office meet you there.”

“How about in an hour?”

“An hour? I didn’t realize… there are meetings all day… let me see here-more meetings until noon tomorrow. How about eleven a.m. tomorrow? I’ll send Sandra, my best paralegal.”

“Have you checked the beach house?”

“Simone and I had a brief look and it seemed to us no one had been there for a while. I’ll make sure Sandra has keys to the beach house as well.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I’m sure the family’s fine,” said Weir. “There’s absolutely no reason for them not to be.”

Milo phoned a source at Homeland Security and verified Simon, Nadine, and Kelvin Vander’s flight schedules. All three had traveled first-class on Singapore Airlines, with Simon entering SFO a day before his wife and son.

The next call was to the Seattle money managers, where he cajoled a cagey Ronald W. Balter, Certified Financial Planner, and confirmed that nothing beyond airfare had been billed to the Vanders’ credit cards.

“Do they have a place in Northern California?”

“A home?” said Balter. “No.”

“What about a rental property?”

“No.”

“Any idea where they could be, sir?”

“Of course not.”

“Of course?”

Balter said, “I manage their money, I don’t get involved in their personal life.”

“Mr. Weir seems concerned.”

“I’m sure he is.”

“Why’s that?”

“He’s more involved with their personal life.”

Moe Reed returned to the office and gave a thumbs-up. “Marc Green didn’t want follow-up. He recalled something else Selena told him.”

“Sudden memory jog?” said Milo.

“My feeling is he didn’t want to bring it up in front of his mother. Apparently, Selena had started dating someone a few months before she died. Marc can’t remember exactly when but he thinks it was three, four months ago when she told him. An older guy.”

“How old?”

“She didn’t say. Marc says she was embarrassed about it, so could be there was a serious age gap. The juicy part is she kept up that confession habit of hers, told Marc the guy liked it rough. And so did she, the two of them fit together like a socket and a wrench. Her words.”

“Sounds like something a guy would tell her.”

“I agree, Loo. So now we have a dominance thing consistent with Sheralyn and DeMaura. Maybe on that level Selena wasn’t that different from the others. What do you think, Doc?”

I said, “It does put things in a new light.”

Milo said, “An older guy into rough. She say anything else about him?”

Reed said, “No, no, it’s likely some swinger she met at one of those parties, right?”

Milo said, “Older. Simon Vander would sure qualify. And so would Huck, he’s thirty-seven, which is eleven years older than Selena. The net does seem to be tightening. And things could be even nastier than we thought.”