“Is that routine procedure for the techies?”

“It is when I tell them to do it. I’m thinking the Vanders were lured to S.F., he picked ’em up at the airport, did them somewhere in Northern or Central California, buried the bodies, drove back to L.A. and kept up the loyal-employee façade.”

“All those forests up the coast.”

“Oh, yeah.”

I said, “A lust thing for Nadine would explain facing the bodies east. Look to the Orient.” His breath quickened.

“What?”

“I’m getting that feeling, Alex-stuff coming together. Listen, I gotta keep all my lines open in case Zeus calls from Olympus. If you want to help, see if you can come up with a hypothesis as to where Huck’s hiding.”

Travis Huck as Prime Suspect made the six o’clock news and the papers.

A renewed rush of sightings kept Milo and Moe Reed and two other detectives busy for the next forty-eight hours.

Nothing panned out.

I tried to work up a guess as to where Huck might be burrowed, looked at maps, drew blanks.

After two days of looking at her pearl, Robin locked it in the safe.

I drove to Alma Reynolds’s apartment, spotted her VW, knocked on her door.

“Who is it?”

“Alex Delaware.”

“You are stalking me. Go away.”

“Six thousand bucks for a pearl,” I said. “Mom would be proud.”

The sound she emitted could’ve been rage or fear.

Silence said she hadn’t taken the bait.

I sat parked up the block for nearly an hour. Just as I was about to give up, she hurried out of her building, got in the yellow Bug.

I followed her to a Washington Mutual on Santa Monica Boulevard. She stayed in the bank for another forty-two minutes, then drove to the ophthalmologist’s office building but, after a brief pause, kept going, headed back to Pico, stopped at a Korean barbecue on Centinela.

Glass window in front, easy to follow the action.

I waited until her order arrived.

Massive plate of ribs, mug of beer.

I said, “Celebrating?”

She gasped and sputtered and for a second I thought it was Heimlich time.

Chewing furiously, she swallowed. Her teeth ground. “Go away.”

“Just because the pearl’s in a safe-deposit box doesn’t mean you can keep it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Mom might be proud of your taste in googaws, but would she approve of the financing?”

“Get the hell out of here.”

“You put up with Duboff for years, see yourself as his rightful heir, and I take no issue with that. The problem is how he got the money. Even if it can’t be linked to a crime, the IRS is sure to be interested.”

She lifted a rib, and for a second I thought she’d use it as a weapon.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“It’s not about you,” I said. “It’s about four other women.” I touched the rib. “Bones.”

She turned a bad color. Shot up and ran to the bathroom.

Five minutes, ten, fifteen.

I went back, found both lavs empty. A rear door led to an alley that stank of garbage. By the time I’d returned to the front of the restaurant, the VW was gone.

CHAPTER 31

I parked three blocks from Alma Reynolds’s building, walked back to her corner, and watched from behind an old, dusty coral tree.

Mr. Covert Operations. When I wasn’t feeling ridiculous, my mind raced.

Forty minutes later Reynolds hadn’t returned, and I figured I’d screwed up and caused her to run. I was sure she’d financed the pearl with payoff money Duboff had left behind.

Envelope passed in the parking lot. Donation or bribe?

Either way, nothing indicated a link to Duboff’s murder.

I returned to the Seville. Drove a block before Milo called.

“Huck lawyered up.”

“You got him.”

“Not exactly.”

Debora Wallenburg’s law firm took up the top two floors of an ice cube on Wilshire, five blocks east of the ocean. Names crowded the door; Wallenburg was ranked second.

She was fifty or so, green-eyed and apple-cheeked, with a sturdy body packed into a gray cashmere suit. Platinum rings, diamond earrings, and a triple string of pearls bounced light in interesting ways. The pearls were pinkish silver, graduated in size; my slightly educated guess was ten to fifteen millimeters.

Good-looking woman, with the confidence to keep her feathered hair the same color as the suit. She’d deflected Milo ’s invitation to the station, insisted her office would be preferable.

Now she sat behind a leather-topped desk, listening to someone on the phone named Lester. Tiffany gilt-bronze pieces livened the desk’s surface, including an elaborate lamp with a glass shade crimped to look like paper. The rear wall was devoted to a Mary Cassatt mother-and-child pastel, the perfect image of tenderness. The absence of family photos or anything kid-related turned great art into a prop.

Milo and Reed and I stood like supplicants while Wallenburg laughed at something Lester said. The décor was a thousand square feet of over-the-top: arterial red brocade walls, layer-cake moldings, copper-foil ceiling, teal-and-lavender Aubusson rug over teak planks. The fourteenth-story view was charcoal street, aluminum water, rust-colored talons of coastline scratching at the ocean.

I tried to figure out if the Vanders’ house could be seen. Decided I was overreaching.

Wallenburg said, “You’re kidding, Les,” and turned in a way that directed my eyes to a side wall bearing Ivy League degrees and bar association awards.

She said, “Okay, thanks, Les,” hung up. “Sit, if you’d like, gentlemen.”

We arranged ourselves in front of the desk. Milo said, “Thanks for meeting with us, Ms. Wallenburg.”

“Thanks for making the dangerous trek all the way from the wilds of West L.A. ” Wallenburg smiled frostily, glanced at her watch.

Milo said, “If you know where Travis Huck is-”

“Before we get into that, Lieutenant, I’m going on record: You’re wrong about Travis. Couldn’t be more mistaken. What evidence do you have to justify naming him a suspect?”

“With all due respect, ma’am, I need to be asking the questions.”

“With all due respect, Lieutenant, I need to prevent a second gross miscarriage of justice. Step One in that process is clarifying what you think you know that justifies ruining my client’s life. Again.”

“What’s Step Two?”

“That depends on how One shapes up.”

“Ms. Wallenburg, I understand your point of view, but disclosure will take place if and when Mr. Huck is charged with a crime.”

“Sounds like you’ve already judged him.”

Milo didn’t answer. Debora Wallenburg picked up a Tiffany pen and suspended it between her fingertips. “Sorry for making you come out here for nothing. Do you need your parking validated?”

“Ma’am, if you’re harboring Huck, you could be putting yourself in-”

“Now it begins. The veiled threats.” Green eyes narrowed. “Give it your best shot, Lieutenant. I’ve already begun the paperwork on a massive civil suit.”

“Step Two, already?” said Milo.

“I’m sure we’re all busy, Lieutenant.”

“Are you suing at Mr. Huck’s request? Or is it your idea?”

Wallenburg shook her head. “You’re not going to pry information out of me.”

“Ma’am, this isn’t the time for jousting. We’re talking five known murders, with several more likely. Brutal, calculated slaughter. Do you really want to hitch your wagon to someone like that?”

“Hitch my wagon? I have no interest in publicity, Lieutenant Sturgis. Quite the opposite. For the last ten years, I’ve done corporate litigation because I had my fill of the sideshow mislabeled the criminal justice system.”

“Ten years,” said Milo. “Forgive me, but is it possible you’re out of your element?”