“Sales.”

“You’re driving an egregious gas guzzler. What’s your excuse?”

“We’ve been together over twenty years and I don’t have the heart to trade her in for someone younger and prettier.”

The hand dropped and her chest arched. Flaunting the necklace.

The pearl was outsized, creamy, unblemished. Too heavy for the chain, which looked flimsy, maybe plated.

I said, “So the billionaires paid all the bills and Sil ran the show. Did anyone else donate?”

“Sure, people would send checks in from time to time, but Sil called it petty cash. Without the B.S. Brothers, he’d have been out of luck. May I finish my lunch in peace? I really don’t want to think about this anymore.”

I thanked her and headed for the door.

She said, “You’re not conservation-minded, but at least you’re loyal.”

The eye doctor’s receptionist said, “You couldn’t find her?”

“I found her, thanks for directing me. She seems pretty down.”

“Wouldn’t you be?”

“I’d probably be worse… maybe that humongous pearl will cheer her up.”

“I doubt it,” she said. “But it is something. She bought it for herself yesterday. We were all surprised.”

“Not Alma ’s style?”

“Not hardly.”

“Grief changes people,” I said.

“Guess so… what else can I do for you?”

“Nothing.” I turned heel.

“Then why’d you-”

“Just wanted to thank you for cooperating.”

Before she could process the lie, I was gone.

CHAPTER 28

I drove a block west of the strip mall where Alma Reynolds lunched, circled a few times before scoring a parking spot with an unobtrusive view of Cocina de Cabo.

Reynolds left fifteen minutes later, walked back to work on foot, taking long slow steps, looking grim. I trailed her as slowly as I could, stopped half a block from the medical building.

She bypassed the front entrance, walked down the ramp to the sublot.

I didn’t have to wait long before a dented, old yellow VW Bug putt-putted up the ramp. Reynolds slanted forward as if urging the little car faster. Dark smoke belched from the exhaust. Tsk tsk.

She headed straight for a pea-green apartment building on Fourteenth Street, just north of Pico. The numbers matched the home address Reed had given me. The place was ill maintained, half hidden by shaggy palms, the stucco molting.

The less glamorous side of Santa Monica. Even here, membership had its privileges: resident permit parking only. I hung back.

Alma Reynolds struggled a bit to wedge the Bug into a tiny space, bumped cars on both ends without apparent remorse. Slamming the door hard enough to vibrate the VW, she entered her building.

I stationed myself in front of a hydrant, listened to music. Thirty-five minutes later, I decided Reynolds was in for the day and drove home.

On the way, I tried Milo again, left a message. Just as I reached Westwood Village, my cell beeped.

“Hi, Doc, it’s Louise from your service. A Dr. Rothman just called.”

“Nathalie Rothman?”

“She didn’t give a first name, said call as soon as you had a chance. Something about a Mr. Travis.”

I hadn’t spoken with Nathalie Rothman in years.

She said, “I’m tied up with patients, Alex, but if you want we can talk later.”

“You know Travis Huck?”

“Know? That’s a bit-sorry, Alex, hold on…” After several moments of dead air: “One of the residents just had a baby and we’re hellishly short-staffed and the moment I’m free I need to leave. I can spare you the time it takes me to wolf down dinner-say six?”

“You don’t want to give me a hint?”

“Too complicated. Does six work?”

“I’ll call you at the stroke.”

“No, let’s do it in person. Jarrod, my oldest, has a basketball game at seven, I promised him I’d absolutely attend this one. Are you still in the Glen?”

“I am. This is a lot of intrigue, Nathalie.”

“Right up your alley, no? I’ll meet you anywhere near Jarrod’s school.”

“Where’s the school?”

“ Brentwood,” she said. “ Windward Academy -how about a Thai place I like? Bundy off Olympic. Pad Palace. Know it?”

“I’ll find it.”

“Quality, low-fat grub,” she said. “I get takeout there. Way too often.”

Another strip mall; maybe one day real estate would be too expensive to make them viable.

Pad Palace made the most of what it was: a storefront with a limited design budget. Screens and pine tables aimed for elegant simplicity. Walls were painted in variants of honeydew green. Slender, shy young Asian women waited on loud, cheerful Anglo hipsters.

The menu was vegetarian with eggs, vegan on request. Lots of virtue making the rounds in L.A. I half expected Alma Reynolds to bop in. Or maybe she’d always been into the pound of fish-flesh.

Nathalie Rothman’s white BMW ragtop pulled in five minutes after I’d settled with a pot of tea. She entered like a bullet: tiny, fast, direct.

All of four ten and ninety muscular pounds. Her face was soft and smooth as a teenager’s under a cloud of careless brown hair. Forty-two and the mother of four boys, she was married to a developer who owned chunks of Wilshire Boulevard, had been in charge of emergency services at Western Pediatric Medical Center for a decade. I’d met her when she was a brand-new Yale-educated resident. Then chief resident, then fast-track to faculty.

A lot of important people at the hospital considered her curt and abrasive. I could see their point, but I liked her.

She waved a finger at me, bounced over to one of the waitresses. “I’m Dr. Rothman. Is my food ready?”

By the time the girl’s head stopped nodding, Nathalie had plopped down opposite me. “I call beforehand. Hi, Alex. You look handsome, the criminal side of life must be agreeable. Ever think of coming back and doing your real job?”

“Good to see you, too, Nathalie.”

She laughed. “No, I’m not on Ritalin, yes, I should be. That smidge of gray is flattering. I tell Charlie the same thing, but he doesn’t believe me. Okay, cut to the chase: I happened to be watching the news, saw the broadcast on Mr. Huck, called the number like a good little citizen. Some police-type named Reed said he was interested in talking to me but I don’t think he really was.”

“Why not?”

“Because when I told him why I’d called, he said he was out in the field, would get back to me. What crops do cops grow in the field? I actually asked him that. He didn’t appreciate my humor. Do you know him?”

“Young rookie detective.”

“Well, he’s got some learning to do in terms of how to treat law-abiding sources of potentially helpful information. He started grilling me: who I was, why I’d called. Like I was under suspicion. When I told him I was a physician at Western Peds, it was like a light going on. He relaxed, told me someone who used to work at Western just happened to be consulting on the case, did I know you. I said sure, we went way back. He said, good, how about I talked to you. No offense, Alex, but I felt I was being shunted. He was supposed to tell you I’d be calling. Did he?”

“Not yet.”

“Figures. Well, I’m following through. Rookie Detective Reed may not want to deal with cognitive dissonance but too bad.”

“Dissonance over what?”

“Mr. Huck.”

“You do know him.”

“That’s too strong a word,” she said. “I met him once. But that was enough for me to see him as a hero.”

A plate of cellophane noodles and tofu chicken arrived. Nathalie ate a few bites, fidgeted with a diamond ring. Big, square stone. Jewelry wasn’t my thing, but Alma Reynolds’s mammoth pearl had gotten me paying attention.

Nathalie said, “We’re talking ten years ago. I’d just taken over out-patient as well as inpatient, was doing the late shift to prove I was of the people. Three a.m. or so, the triage nurse pulls me over. Someone’s brought in a blood-covered infant. At first everyone thought it was going to be an incredible horror story but when they cleaned the little thing up there were no wounds, not a pinprick anywhere. Little girl, seven months old. Except for being cold and agitated, she was fine.”