Tish’s lip trembled. “Just like that. Nasty mean. One minute she’s playing with the girls, and then she’s insulting us. I could’ve trashed her back, but I just said, ‘Well, sorry you don’t like apricot pie. Good-bye.’ And she laughed again and was like, ‘I came here ’cause I’ve got class—something you’ll never know, chubby.’ Then she prancie-pranced out the door.”
Tish released her arms, let the wrists go limp. “She prancie-prances around like she’s doing one of her strip dances—which is the class she had, a stripper and a whore. So who’s she to be snobbing and styling on me? I was so mad, it gave me a migraine, but at least she was out of here. Then, just as I’m closing the door, she turns around and starts coming back, and I’m like, Okay, Tish, you controlled yourself good, but she’s asking for it. I really thought we were gonna get into it, and I tell you, I was ready. But she musta figured that out or maybe it was the girls, running around the house, in and out of rooms, screaming and wild, all hypered up ’cause of her. Or maybe she was just a chicken—whatever.”
“She didn’t come back.”
“She didn’t come back all the way—just stopped in the middle, rightback there.” Gesturing behind her. “Then she gives me a look and laughs and shakes her ass outta here. Laughing—loud, so the neighborhood could hear. That’s what she was after—to humiliate us.”
Milo said, “So what do we do for the next round of yuks?”
“Try to find Lyle?”
We got in the unmarked, and he drove back to Ventura Boulevard. “Sure,” he said. “Let’s call out the hounds and track the sonofabitch. And when we find him, we’ll have a weenie roast and tell ghost stories. While we’re at it, we can work in some fishing.”
“Fishing and hunting,” I said. “Wonder how many firearms he’s pack-ing.”
“Given that bad eye of his, he wouldn’t be much good with a bow and arrow.”
“Jane’s dead, and he just happens to be gone,” I said.
“I’ll call the sheriffs up at Castaic, see if they can locate him, but I’m not putting in a requisition for a search party. Lyle may have all the charm of a warthog with piles, but at this point, before the ballistics and the registration on the gun that did Jane come in, he’s no suspect. And her other husband is. Ruiz and Gallardo should have word soon enough on all of it.”
“Even if the gun was registered to Jane or Mel,” I said, “that doesn’t rule out an outside shooter. Let’s say Jane was afraid, made a run for the bedroom, and grabbed her own gun, but whoever frightened her got hold of it.”
“When it comes to theories, you are human flypaper, my friend. First Dugger for Dr. Bloodlust, now Father of the Year for Lyle.”
“I’ve always been goal-directed.”
“Me too,” he said. “Least that’s what my third-grade teacher said. But screw goals. I need to connect the dots, and right now I don’t even have a pencil.”
At White Oak he said, “The thing that bothers me is maybe I narrowed my focus too quickly. I’m not saying the Duke thing or Lyle is wrong, but there’s always the danger of tunnel vision.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know Lauren . . . meant something to you, but the hard truth is she sold her body for a living, and women who do that live dangerously. Thewhole thing could trace back to some other John. Hell, I haven’t even followed up on her supposed modeling—the garment industry connections. There’s a real clean business for you—sweatshops and kickbacks.”
“What about Shawna and Duke>” I said.
He rotated his head, winced, rubbed his face. “I don’t know, Alex. My gut still tells me Shawna isn’t related to the rest of it.”
“Your gut’s worth listening to.”
“Thanks, Doc—see you next session.”
We traveled in silence all the way to Beverly Glen and Valley Vista, where Milo began the trip back to the city.
He let out a long, raspy sigh. “I respect your intuition also, Alex, but even an O-C pit bull takes a breather between bouts. Let’s both step back for a while. Maybe try to relax.”