“Male . . . probably.”
“You can’t be sure?”
“It was like . . . hissy. Bogus.”
“Faking,” said Reed.
“Yeah. I thought I was being pranked.”
“By who?”
“Whatever. Friends.”
Milo said, “Prince Albert in a can.”
Chance’s stare was uncomprehending.
Milo said, “Something dead in the marsh.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What else did this hissing person say?”
“Nothing,” said Chance. “It sounded stupid, that’s why I didn’t tell it to the guy who came in right after.”
“What guy?” said Reed.
“Guy who runs the place, real tool. Always checking on me.”
“What’s the tool’s name?” said Reed.
“Duboff. He’s like a hippie you read about in History.”
“Mr. Duboff came into the office right after you took the call.”
“I didn’t take it. I just listened and hung up.”
“How soon after did Duboff come in?”
“Like right.”
“Checking up on you.”
“Yeah.”
“And you told him . . .”
“Everything’s cool.”
“You made no mention whatsoever of the hissing call.”
“I thought it was bogus,” said Chance. “Ethan or Ben, Sean, whatever.” Peering at us as he dropped the names. Trying to figure out who’d given him away.
Reed said, “What time did this hissy call come in?”
“Um . . . um, um—like um nine thirty.”
“Like articulate,” said Steve Brandt. His wife looked ready to cry.
Reed said, “Can you give a more precise estimate?”
Chance said, “It was like . . . oh, yeah, before I looked at my watch and it was like nine twenty something, so it was after that.”
“Nine thirty or so.”
“Uh, yeah, I guess.”
“Jesus,” said Steve Brandt, “it’s not rocket science.”
Chance’s shoulders bunched. His mother had gnawed her lip scarlet.
His father said, “I think it’s obvious math isn’t his strong suit, that’s how we ended up in this mess in the first place. The indignity of an algebra test that required minimum effort to pass.”
Chance chewed his lip. More genetics? Or would living with Steve Brandt drive anyone to it?
Brandt loosened his tie. “We’re still trying to figure out if he has a strong suit.”
His wife gasped.
“Get real, Suze. If he hadn’t cheated in the first place, we’d never be talking to the cops.” To us: “Maybe as long as you’re here we should set up some tough love for my son. One of those programs you put youthful offenders into? Working at the morgue, getting in touch with reality?”
Susan Brandt got up and hurried out on elegant, bronze legs. Chance’s eyes were fixed on his father’s florid face.
Brandt said, “You bet I’m pissed, kiddo. Work’s piling up and I have to come home in the middle of the day for this. And you’re playing tennis?”
“Mom said I should get some exer—”
Brandt waved the boy silent. To Milo: “Do you still run those morgue tours?”
“I’m not sure, sir. From what I recall they were for juvenile drunk drivers and such.”
“So, once again, he skates completely.”
Chance’s lips moved.
“What did you just say?” his father demanded.
Silence.
Milo said, “Mr. Brandt, we understand that you’re frustrated with whatever acting-out Chance has done in the past. But from our perspective, he’s being cooperative. If all he did was talk about what he perceived to be a gag call, there’s nothing to ‘skate’ on. If he’s somehow involved in this homicide, a tour of the morgue won’t cut it.”
Some of the color left Steve Brandt’s face. “Of course he’s not involved. I’m just trying to prevent any more . . . complications.”
Chance said, “I’m complications?”
His father smirked. “Oh, you don’t want me to answer that.”
The boy’s turn to flush. “Do your thing, dude—hook me up to one of those fucking lie detectors—”
“Shut your stupid, foul mouth and don’t use that snotty, stupid tone—”
Chance shot to his feet, fists balled. “Don’t call me that! Don’t fucking call me that!”
Steve Brandt’s hands slapped brocade. He panted.
Chance’s respiration rate raced ahead of his father’s.
Milo stepped between them. “Everyone calm down right now. Chance, sit down—over there, where your mom was. Mr. Brandt, let us do our job.”
“I wasn’t aware I was doing anything but—”
“This is a homicide case, sir—lots of long days for us. We need to make sure that after we leave we won’t be called back on a domestic violence complaint.”
“Ridiculous—have I ever hit you, Chance? Ever?”
No answer.
“Have I?”
Chance smiled. Shrugged.
His father cursed. “Serpent’s tooth.”
Chance was still on his feet. Milo said, “Sit.” The boy obeyed.
“Son, I want a quick answer to this: How soon after the call did Mr. Duboff appear?”
“Right after. Seconds.”
That fit Duboff’s story. Either he’d dumped Selena Bass himself or the killer had watched Duboff clear out before venturing forward.
Or the killer had gotten lucky and just missed Duboff.
Either way, the murder had been called in soon after the dump.
Someone wanting Selena Bass found. And identified quickly.
Burying three other bodies that he’d concealed, but growing confident and progressing to boasting?
Claiming the marsh as his turf. Duboff or someone like him?
Moe Reed said, “Who’d you tell about the hissing call?”
“Just . . . Sarabeth—who’d she rat me out to?”
“What’s Sarabeth’s last name?”
Steve Brandt said, “Oster. As in malls and shopping centers.” When none of us responded: “They’re big-time, live in Brentwood Park. Sarabeth’s their only child. She comes across sweet and innocent but she’s the one gave him the answers to that goddamn algebra test, so I’d take anything she says with a pillar of salt.”
Chance growled.
His father said, “Ooh. I’m shaking.”
CHAPTER 6
Steve Brandt walked us out to a faux-cobblestone motor court, used a clicker to hold his front gate open.
“So he’s clear?”
“So far, sir.”
“Trust me, Officers, he’s too dumb to kill anyone.”
Smiling with sour satisfaction, he walked back to the heat and light of his home.
Moe Reed’s call to Tom L. Rumley, headmaster of the Windward Academy, achieved a promise to “ascertain all the relevant information” about the call to Chance Brandt at an “expedited rate.” The trade-off: no police visit to the school at the present time, because “it’s hiatus time and we’re entertaining visitors from Dubai.”
Reed put Rumley on hold. “Lieutenant?”
Milo said, “Most likely it will boil down to a blab chain, so give him a chance to make good. Either of you hungry?”
We returned to the marsh and picked up the Seville. As Reed followed us to West L.A., Milo said, “What do you think?”
“About the case or Reed?”
“Both.”
“He seems thoughtful, eager to learn. Plenty to learn about this case.”
“Four bodies.”
“That kind of appetite,” I said, “no reason to stop at four.”
“I can always count on you for good cheer.”
Café Moghul, on Santa Monica Boulevard, blocks from the station, serves as Milo’s second office.
The bespectacled, saried woman
who runs the place beamed, the way she always does when Milo steps through her door. Besides the gargantuan tips, she regards him as a human rottweiler. Reed’s obvious cop presence following close behind brought her to the verge of ecstasy.
“Lobster,” she announced, seating us at Milo’s rear table, humming and smiling and filling glasses with cloved iced tea. “I’ll bring fresh platters. Everything.”
Milo said, “Everything’s a good concept,” as he removed his jacket and tossed it on a nearby chair. Reed took off his blazer, draped it neatly. His white shirt was short-sleeved. His biceps filled most of the sleeves.
The food parade began.
Reed said, “You must tip great.”
Milo said, “Boy. Why does everything in this world have to be about money?”
Sometimes Milo talks shop over food. Other times, he views eating as a sacrament, not to be disrupted by worldly matters.
This afternoon was a Holy Day. Moe Reed watched him bolt and chew and swallow and wipe his face. Caught on quickly and bent over his own plate like a convict.
Heaps of lobster, rice, lentils, spiced eggplant, spinach with paneer cheese vanished quickly as the young detective out-ate Milo. His frame was thick but hard as teak.
Just as the bespectacled woman brought rice pudding, his cell beeped.
“Reed . . .” Eyebrows so pale they fought for recognition arched steeply. “Yes, sir . . . hold on while I get something to write on.” Reaching behind, he retrieved his pad, printed neatly. “Thank you, sir. No, not at this time, sir.”
Click. “Headmaster Rumley says he traced the gossip stream completely. The Brandt kid told Sarabeth Oster, who also thought it was hilarious. She told a girl named Ali Light and Ali told her boyfriend, Justin Coopersmith, and he thought it was so darn funny, he passed it along to his older brother, a Duke sophomore named Lance, home for the summer. Lance Coopersmith seems to be more moral than the others, he’s the one who called us. Said he felt it was his duty.”
“Should be easy enough to verify.”
Reed nodded. “I asked for a trace this morning. Came in on the non-emergency, so it takes longer than a 911 and there’s no audio. Want me to check now?”
“Go for it.”
Moments later: “Verizon cell phone registered to Lance Allan Coopersmith, address in Pacific Palisades. Any sense following up?”
“Not for the time being,” said Milo. “Gonna be a long day, have some lobster.”
Pulling out his own phone, he requested a warrant on Selena Bass’s apartment.
I left the Seville in the Westside lot, returned to the back of Reed’s unmarked for the twenty-minute drive to Indiana Avenue. Milo used the time to follow up on the warrant request.
Granted telephonically, with paper to follow.
“You run her beyond DMV?” he asked Reed.
“Yup. Nothing on the bad-guy sites. I was planning to Google her today.”
Milo logged on to Reed’s Mobile Dispatch Terminal and got on the Internet. “Nice talking straight to God . . . here we go—two hits . . . one’s an exact copy of the other . . . looks like she’s a piano teacher—introducing a student at a recital . . . named . . . Kelvin Vander.”
An image search pulled up nothing.
Reed said, “Piano teacher isn’t exactly high risk.”
Milo said, “Nothing like a sad song to kick off the week.”
“What about all those other bodies, Lieutenant?”
“Let’s see what the bone pickers come up with. Meanwhile, we work with what we’ve got.”
I tossed in my thoughts about someone with a thing for the marsh.
Milo said, “Could be.”
Reed said nothing.
Selena Bass’s converted garage was a double, set behind a white stucco, one-story duplex.
The front unit, blanketed by banana plants and mock orange, was occupied by the owner-landlady, an ancient eminence in a wheelchair named Anuta Rosenfield. A cheerful Filipina caretaker ushered us into a diminutive front room muffled by pink velvet drapes and crowded with houseplants and porcelain figurines on precarious stands.
“She will be a hundred this January!”
The old woman didn’t stir. Her eyes were open but clouded, her lap too flimsy to support one of her bisque dolls.
Milo said, “That’s wonderful,” and stooped close to the wheelchair. “Ma’am, could we have a key to Ms. Bass’s apartment?”
The caretaker said, “She’s deaf, can’t see, either. Ask me all the questions.” Pointing to her chest. “Luz.”
“Luz, could we—”
“Of course, guys!” Out of her uniform pocket came the key.
“Appreciate it.”
“Is she okay—Selena?”
“You know her?”
“I don’t really know her, but sometimes I see her. Mostly when I leave. Sometimes she’s leaving, too.”
“When’s the last time you saw her?”
“Hmm . . . now that you mention it, not for a while. And you know what, I haven’t seen lights on in her place for . . . the last few days, at least.” Deep breath. “And now you guys are here. Oh, boy.”
“A few days,” said Reed.
“Maybe four,” said Luz. “Could be five, I don’t keep count.”
“What’s she like?”
“Never talked to her, we just smile and say hi. She seemed nice. Pretty girl, skinny—no hips, the way they are now.”
Milo said, “What time do you usually leave work?”
“Seven p.m.”
“Someone else takes over the night shift.”
“Mrs. Rosenfield’s daughter comes home at seven. Elizabeth, she’s a nurse at Saint John’s.” Whispering conspiratorially: “Seventy-one but she still likes to work the neonatal ICU—little babies. That’s how I met her. I’m an LVN, also did the NICU. I like the babies, but I like this better.”
She patted her charge’s shoulder. “Mrs. R. is a very nice person.” A sweet smile tangoed across the old woman’s lips. Someone had powdered her face, blued her eyelids, manicured her nails. The air in the room was close and heavy. Roses and wintergreen.
Milo said, “What else can you tell us about Selena Bass?”
“Hmm,” said Luz. “Like I said, nice . . . maybe a little shy. Like maybe she doesn’t want to have a long conversation? I never heard Elizabeth complain about her and Elizabeth complains.”
“What’s Elizabeth’s full name?”
“Elizabeth Mayer. She’s a widow, just like her mommy.” Downturn of eyes. “We all three have that in common.”
“Ah,” said Milo. “Sorry for your loss.”
“It was a long time ago.”
Mrs. Rosenfield smiled again. Hard to know what that meant.
Reed said, “Who lives in the other unit?”
“A man from France who’s almost never here. A professor, French, I think. Mostly, he’s in France. He’s in France now.”
“Name?”
Head shake. “Sorry, you’d have to ask Elizabeth. I don’t see him five times in two years. Nice-looking man, long hair—like that actor, the skinny one . . . Johnny Depp.”
Milo said, “Sounds like things are pretty quiet around here.”
“Very quiet.”
“Ever see Selena with a friend?”
“A friend, no. Once, I saw a guy,” said Luz. “Waiting out by the curb for Selena and she got into his car.”
“What kind of car?”
“Sorry, I didn’t see.”
“Could you describe him?”
“He had his back to me and it was dark.”
“Tall, short?” said Reed.
“Medium—oh, one thing—I’m pretty sure he had no hair—shaved, like those basketball players do. Light bounced off his head.”
“Was he a white man?” said Reed.
“Well,” said Luz, “not black, that’s for sure. Although I guess he could’ve been a light black guy. I’m sorry, it was just his back, I guess he could’ve bee
n anything. Did he do something to Selena?”
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