ADMV check revealed no vehicles currently registered to Reynold Peaty. No California driver’slicense. Ever.
“Hard to transport a body without wheels,” I said.
Milo said, “Wonder how he gets to work.”
“The bus. Or a stretch limo.”
“Your attempt at humor is refreshing. If he bears further watching, I’llcheck out the bus routes, see if he’s a regular.” He laughed.
I said, “What?”
“He comes across dumb and weird but think about it: He sweeps up at anacting school.”
“He was playing us?”
“The world’s a stage,” he said. “Sure be nice to have the script.”
“If he was performing, why would he put on a weird act?” I said.
“True…let’s head back.”
I drove toward the West L.A. station as hephoned the MTA and learned which buses Peaty would’ve taken from Pico-Robertsonto the PlayHouse. Transfers and the need to cover several blocks on footstretched a half-hour car trip to at least a ninety-minute journey.
I said, “Michaela’s Honda show up yet?”
“Nope…you’re thinking Peaty coulda jacked her?”
“The hoax might’ve given him ideas.”
“Life imitating art.” He punched numbers on his cell, talked briefly, hungup. “No sign of it yet. But we’re not talking conspicuous. A Civic, black noless. If the plates are off or replaced, it could take a long time to spot it.”
“If Peaty is the bad guy,” I said, “maybe he decided to drive to work thismorning and ditched it within walking distance of the PlayHouse.”
“That would be pretty damned stupid.”
“Yes, it would.”
He chewed his cheek. “Mind turning around?”
 
We cruised the half-mile radius surrounding the acting school, peering upand down streets and alleys, driveways and parking lots. Taking more than anhour, then expanding to another half mile and spending another hundred minutes.Spotting lots of Civics, three of them black, all with plates that checked out.
On the way back to the station, Milo tried the coroner’s office and learnedthat Michaela’s autopsy was scheduled in four days, maybe longer if the bodycount stayed high. “Any way to prioritize? Yeah, yeah, I know…but if there’sanything you can do. Appreciate it, this one could get complicated.”
 
I sat in the spare chair of Milo’s tiny,windowless office as he tried to plug Reynold Peaty into the data banks. Hiscomputer took a long time to sputter to life, even longer for icons to fill thescreen. Then they disappeared and the screen went black and he started all overagain.
Fourth PC in eight months, yet another hand-me-down, this one from a prepschool in Pacific Palisades. The last few donated machines had enjoyed theshelf life of raw milk. In between Clunkers Two and Three, Milohad paid for a high-priced laptop with his own money, only to see some glitchin the station’s electrical system fry his hard drive.
As the disk drives ground on, he sprang up, muttering about “advanced middleage” and “plumbing,” and left for a few minutes. Returning with two cups ofcoffee, he handed one to me, drank his, snatched a cheap cigarillo from hisdesk drawer, unwrapped it, and jammed the unlit cylinder between his incisors.Tapping his fingers as he stared at the screen, he bit down too hard,splintered the cigar, wiped tobacco shreds from his lips. Tossing theNicaraguan pacifier, he got himself another.
Smoking’s prohibited anywhere in the building. Sometimes he lights up,anyway. Today he was too antsy to enjoy the fruits of misdemeanor. As thecomputer struggled to resuscitate, he sorted through his messages and Ireviewed the prelim on Michaela Brand, studied the crime scene photos.
Beautiful golden face turned a familiar green-gray.
Milo grimaced as the screen flashed anddimmed and flashed. “If you want to translate War and Peace, feel free to doso.”
I tasted the coffee, put it aside, closed my eyes, and tried to think ofnothing. Sound came through the walls, too murky to classify.
Milo’s space is at the end of a hall on thesecond floor, set well apart from the detectives’ room. Not an overcrowding issue;he’s set apart. Listed on the books as a lieutenant, but he’s got noadministrative duties and continues to work cases.
It’s part of a deal he made with the former police chief, a cozy bit ofpolitics that allowed the chief to retire rich and unbothered by criminalcharges and Milo to remain in the department.
As long as his clearance rate stays high, and he doesn’t flaunt his sexualpreferences, no one bothers him. But the new chief’s big on drastic change and Milo keeps waiting for the memo that will disrupt hislife.
Meanwhile, he works.
Whir-whir, burp, click-click. He sat up. “Okay, here we go…” He typed. “Nostate record, too bad…let’s try NCIC. C’mon baby, give it to Uncle Milo…yes!”
He pushed a button and the old dot-matrix printer near his feet beganscrolling paper. Yanking out the sheets, he tore on the perforated line, read,handed them to me.
Reynold Peaty had accumulated four felony convictions in Nevada. Burglary thirteen years ago in Reno,a Peeping Tom three years later in that same city pled down to publicintoxication/disturbing the peace, two drunk driving violations in Laughlin,seven and eight years ago.
“He’s still drinking,” I said. “Three beers he admits to. A long-standingalcohol problem would account for no driver’s license.”
“Booze-hound peeper. You see those tattoos?”
“Jailbird. But no felonies on record since he crossed the border five yearsago.”
“That impress you mightily?”
“Nope.”
“What impresses me, ” he said, “is the combination of burglary andvoyeurism.”
“Breaking in for the sexual thrill,” I said. “All those DNA matches that endup turning burglars into rapists.”
“Booze to lower inhibitions, young sexy girls parading in and out. It’s alovely combination.”
 
We drove to Reynold Peaty’s place on Guthrie Avenue, clocking the route fromthe dump site along the way. In moderate traffic, only a seven-minute traverseof Beverlywood’s impeccable, tree-lined streets. After dark, even shorter.
On the first block east of Roberston the neighborhood was apartments and themaintenance was sketchier. Peaty’s second-floor unit was one of ten in anash-colored two-story box. The live-in manager was a woman in her seventiesnamed Ertha Stadlbraun. Tall, thin, angular, with skin the color of bittersweetchocolate and marcelled gray hair, she said, “The crazy white fellow.”
She invited us into her ground-floor flat for tea and sat us on alemon-colored, pressed-velvet, camelback couch. The living room wascompulsively ordered, with olive carpeting, ceramic lamps, bric-a-brac on openshelves. A suite of what used to be called Mediterranean furniture crowded thespace. An airbrushed portrait of Martin Luther King dominated the wall over thecouch, flanked by school photos of a dozen or so smiling children.
Ertha Stadlbraun had come to the door wearing a housecoat. Excusing herself,she disappeared into a bedroom and came back wearing a blue shift patternedwith clocks, matching pumps with chunky heels. Her cologne evoked the cosmeticscounter at some midsized department store from my Midwestchildhood. What my mother used to call “toilet water.”
“Thanks for the tea, ma’am,” said Milo.
“Hot enough, gentlemen?”
“Perfect,” said Milo, sipping orange pekoeto demonstrate. He eyed the school pictures. “Grandchildren?”
“Grandchildren and godchildren,” said Ertha Stadlbraun. “And two neighborchildren I raised after their mother died young. Sure you don’t want sugar? Orfruit or cookies?”
“No, thanks, Mrs. Stadlbraun. Nice of you.”
“What is?”
“Taking in a neighbor’s kids.”
Ertha Stadlbraun waved away the praise and reached for the sugar bowl. “Myglucose level, I shouldn’t do this, but I’m going to, anyway.” Two heapingteaspoons of white powder snowed into her cup. “So what is it you want to knowabout the crazy fellow?”
“How crazy is he, ma’am?”
Stadlbraun sat back, smoothed the shift over her knees. “Let me explain whyI pointed out he was white. It’s not because I resent him for that. It’sbecause he’s the only white person here.”
“Is that unusual?” said Milo............