Tuesday morning, I called Robin, got her machine, hung up.
In my office, a dusty stack of psych journals beckoned. A twenty-pagetreatise on the eye-blink reflex in schizophrenic Hooded rats lowered myeyelids.
I went down to the pond and fed the koi. For fish, they’re smart, havelearned to swarm the moment I come down the stairs. It’s nice to be wanted.
Warm air and sloshing water put me under again. The next thing I saw was Milo’s big face crowding my visual field.
Smile as wide as a continent. Scariest clown in the known world. I mumbledsome kind of greeting.
“What’s with you?” he said. “Snoozing midday like a codger?”
“What time is it?”
He told me. An hour had vanished. “What’s next, white shoes and dinner atfour?”
“Robin naps.”
“Robin has a real job.”
I got to my feet and yawned. The fish sped toward me. Milohummed the theme from Jaws. In his hand was a folder. Unmistakable shade ofblue.
“A new one?” I said.
Instead of answering, he climbed back up to the house. I cleared my head andfollowed.
 
He sat himself at the kitchen table, napkin tucked into his collar, dishesand utensils set for one. Half a dozen slices of toast, runny Vesuvius ofscrambled eggs, sixteen-ounce glass of orange juice, half emptied.
He wiped pulp from his lips. “Love this place. Breakfast served any time.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Long enough to rob you blind if such were my intention. Why can’t Iconvince you to lock your door?”
“No one drops in but you.”
“This isn’t a visit, it’s business.” He stabbed the egg mound, slid the bluefolder across the table. A second file separated from the first. “Read ’em andwake.”
A pair of missing persons cases. Gaidelas, A. Gaidelas, C.
Consecutive case numbers.
“Two more girls?” I said. “Sisters?”
“Read.”
Andrew and Catherine Gaidelas, forty-eight and forty-five, respectively, haddisappeared two months after Tori Giacomo.
The couple, married twenty years with no children, were owners of a beautyparlor in Toledo, Ohio, called Locks of Luck. In L.A. for a springvacation, they’d been staying in Sherman Oaks with Cathy’s sister andbrother-in-law, Dr. and Mrs. Barry Palmer. On a clear, crisp Tuesday in Aprilthe Palmers went to work and the Gaidelases left to go hiking in the Malibu mountains. Theyhadn’t been seen since.
Identical report in both files. I read Catherine’s. “Doesn’t say where in Malibu.”
“Doesn’t say a lot of things. Keep going.”
The facts were sketchy, with no apparent links to Michaela or Tori. Was Imissing something? Then I came to the final paragraph.
Subject C. Gaidelas’s sister, Susan Palmer, reports Cathy and Andy said theywere coming out to Califfor vacation but after they got there talked about staying for a while so theycould “break into acting.” S. Palmer reports her sister did some “modeling and theater” after high school and used to talk about becoming an actress. A.Gaidelas didn’t have acting experience but everyone back home thought he was ahandsome guy who “looked like Dennis Quaid.” S. Palmer reports Andy and Cathywere tired of running a beauty parlor and didn’t like the cold weather in Ohio. Cathy said shethought they could get some commercials because they looked “all-American.” Shealso talked about “getting serious and taking acting lessons” and S. Palmerthinks Cathy contacted some acting schools but doesn’t know which ones.
At the rear were two color head-shots.
Cathy and Andy Gaidelas were both fair-haired and blue-eyed with disarmingsmiles. Cathy had posed in a sleeveless black dress trimmed with rhinestonesand matching pendant earrings. Full-faced, with plump shoulders, she had teasedplatinum hair, a strong chin, a thin, straight nose.
Her husband was a tousled gray-blond, long-faced and craggy in a whitebutton-down shirt that exposed curls of pale chest hair. I supposed hisoff-kilter grin had a Dennis Quaid charm. Any other similarities to the actoreluded me.
All-American couple well into middle age. They might qualify for Mom and Dadparts on commercials. Pitches for dog food, TV dinners, garbage bags…
I shut the file.
Milo said, “Wannabe stars and now they’regone. Am I reaching?”
“How’d you come across it?”
“Checking out other MP cases with either an acting connection or a Malibu link. As usual,the computer flagged nothing, but a sheriff’s detective remembered theGaidelases as would-be thespians. In his mind, no homicide, two adultsrabbiting. I reached the brother-in-law, plastic surgeon. The Gaidelases arestill missing, family got fed up with the sheriffs, tried the P.I. route, wentthrough three investigators. The first two gave them zilch, the third turned upthe fact that the Gaidelases’ rental car had showed up five weeks after thedisappearance, sent them a big bill and said that’s all she could do.”
“The sheriffs never thought to tell the family about the car?”
“Venturapolice auto-recovery case, sheriffs weren’t even aware of it.”
“Where was it found?”
“Camarillo.One of the parking lots at that big discount shopping outlet they’ve gotthere.”
“Huge place,” I said.
“You shop there?”
Twice. With Allison. Waiting as she tried on outfits at Ralph Lauren andVersace. “Five weeks and no one noticed the car?”
He said, “For all we know, it was stashed somewhere and moved. TheGaidelases’ rental contract was for two weeks and when they didn’t return it,the company started phoning the number on the form, got no answer. When thecompany tried to bill for late charges, they found out the Gaidelases’ creditcard and cell phone had been canceled the day after they disappeared. Companykept tacking on fees at a usurious rate of interest. The bill compoundedseriously and after thirty days, the debt got assigned to a collection agency.The agency found out the Gaidelases’ number in Ohio, got another disconnect. What’s itsound like to you?”
“A skip.”
“Ten points. Anyway, a lien got put on the Gaidelases’ assets, screwed uptheir credit rating. Private Sleuth Number Three pulled a credit check and backtraced. The Palmers say no way the Gaidelases skipped, the two of them werehyped up about making it as actors, loved California.”
“Did the car get checked for evidence?”
He shook his head. “No reason to check a recovered rental. By now, no oneknows where it is. Probably put up for auction and shipped to Mexico.”
“The Camarillo outlet’s miles up the coastfrom Malibu,” Isaid. “The Gaidelases could’ve gone hiking and followed up with a shoppingtrip—duds for auditions. Or they never got out of the hills.”
“Shopping’s unlikely, Alex. The last credit card purchase they made beforethe account was canceled was lunch at an Italian place in Pacific Palisades theday before. My vote’s for a nature walk turned nasty. Couple of touristsdigging the view, never figuring on a predator.”
He pushed eggs around his plate. “Never liked nature. Think it’s worthpursuing?”
“Malibu anda possible acting school link say it needs to be.”
“Dr. Palmer said he’d ask his wife if she was willing to talk. Two minuteslater, Dr. Susan Palmer’s secretary phones, says the sooner the better. Susan’sgot a dental practice in Brentwood. I’mmeeting her for coffee in forty minutes. Let me finish my breakfast. Am Iexpected to wash my own dishes?”
 
Dr. Susan Palmer was a thinner, plainer version of her sister. More subduedshade of blond in her short, layered hair, true-blue eyes, a frame that lookedtoo meager for her wide face. She wore a ribbed white silk turtleneck, navyslacks, blue suede loafers with golden buckles. Worry lines framed the eyes andtugged at her mouth.
We were in a Mocha Merchant on San Vicente, in the heart of Brentwood. Sleek people ordered complex six-dollar lattesand pastries the size of an infant’s head. Reproductions of antique coffeegrinders hung from cedar-paneled walls. Smooth jazz alternated with Peruvianflute on tape-loop. The scorched smell of overdone beans bittered the air.
Susan Palmer had ordered a “half-caf iced Sumatran Vanilla Blendinesse, partsoy, part whole milk, make sure it’s whole, not low-fat.”
My request for a “medium coffee” had confused the kid behind the counter.
I scanned the menu board. “Brew of the day, extra-hot, Medio.”
Milo said, “The same.”
The kid looked as if he’d been cheated out of something.
We brought our drinks to the pine table Susan Palmer had selected at thefront of the coffeehouse.
Milo said, “Thanks for meeting with us, Doctor.”
Palmer looked down at her iced drink and stirred. “I should thankyou—finally someone’s interested.”
Her smile was abrupt and obligatory. Her hands looked strong. Scrubbed pink,the nails trimmed close and smooth. Dentist’s hands.
“Happy to listen, ma’am.”
“Lieutenant, I’ve come to accept that Cathy and Andy are dead. Maybe thatsounds terrible, but after all this time, there’s no other logical explanation.I know about the credit card cancellation and the utilities back in Toledo, but you have tobelieve me: Cathy and Andy did not run away to start a new life. No way wouldthey do that, it’s not in either of their characters.&rdquo............