“Julie told people the split was amicable. And Kipper was at the opening. Everyone I spoke to said they looked friendly.”
“What career did he switch to?”
“Bond broker.”
“From art to finance,” I said. “Does he pay alimony?”
“Her bankbook shows monthly deposits of two grand, and she has no other obvious means of support.”
“So with her gone, he saves twenty-four grand a year.”
“Yeah, yeah, like any spouse he’s the first suspect,” he said. “I’ve got an appointment to talk to him in an hour.”
“He’s local?”
“Lives in South Pasadena, works in Century City.”
“Why so long to get to him?”
“We played phone tag. I’m heading over there, next.” He fingered the knot of his tie. “Businesslike enough for Avenue of the Stars?”
“No business I’d want a part of.”
As we returned to the Seville, an old blue VW bus drove up to the gallery. SAVE THE WETLANDS sticker on the rear bumper. Above that: ART IS LIFE. A tiny white-haired woman sat low in the driver’s seat. A yellow-and-brown dog on the passenger side stared at the windshield.
The woman waved. “Yoo-hoo, Detective!” and we approached the bus.
“Ms. Barnes,” said Milo. “What’s up?” He introduced me to CoCo Barnes, and she gripped my hand with what felt like a sparrow’s talon.
“Just came by to see if you got in okay.” Barnes glanced at the gallery’s frontage. The dog remained in place, dull-eyed but tight-jawed. Big dog with a graybeard muzzle. Bits of dry leaves specked its coat.
I chanced petting the animal. It licked my hand.
Milo said, “We got in fine.”
“You’re all finished up in there?” CoCo Barnes’s voice was scratchy, veering toward abrasive, tempered by a Southern inflection. She looked to be seventy. The white hair was cut in a boyish cap and trimmed unceremoniously. Her skin was the color and consistency of well-roasted chicken. Slate gray eyes—more acute than the dog’s, but filmy, nonetheless—checked me out.
“What’s his name?” I said.
“Lance.”
“Nice dog.”
“If he likes you.” CoCo Barnes turned to Milo. “Any progress on Julie?”
“It’s still early in the investigation, ma’am.”
The old woman frowned. “Didn’t I hear something about if you don’t solve it quickly, you probably won’t solve it at all?”
“It’s not that simple, ma’am.”
CoCo Barnes ruffled Lance’s neck. “I’m glad I caught you, it saves me a phone call. Remember how you asked me to think about anything unusual that happened Saturday night, and I said there’d been nothing, it had just been your typical opening? Well, I thought about it some more, and there was something. Not at night and not at the opening, strictly speaking. And I’m not sure it’s really what you’re after.”
“What happened?” said Milo.
“This was before the opening,” said Barnes. “The day of the opening, around 2 P.M. Julie wasn’t even here, yet. Just me and Lance, here. Clark Van Alstrom was here, too—the man who does those aluminum stabiles?”
Milo nodded.
CoCo Barnes said, “I brought Clark along because I can’t lift that metal door by myself. Once I got in, Clark left, and I started setting up. Making sure everything was in order—a few months ago we had a power outage, and that was no good.” She smiled. “Especially because the artist worked in neon . . . Anyway, I was checking things out, and I heard Lance bark. That doesn’t happen often. He’s a very quiet boy.”
She smiled at the dog. Lance made a low, contented sound. “I’d set up a water bowl for him at the back, in the hallway near where Julie—just outside the bathrooms—but I’d left the door to the vestibule open, and I could hear him barking. He doesn’t have much of a bark, mind you, he’s fourteen years old and his vocal cords are pretty shot. What he produces is more of a cough.” She demonstrated with a series of dry hacks. Lance’s eyes shifted to her, but he remained inert. “He just kept it up, wouldn’t stop, and I went back there to see what was wrong. By the time I got there he’d shlepped himself up on his feet and was facing the back door. I wondered if he’d heard rats—we’d had some rat problems a couple of seasons ago, an opening that was absolutely disastrous, where’s the Pied Piper of Hamlin when you need him—so . . . where was I . . . oh, yes, I opened the door and had a look out back and there were no rats. But there was a woman. Foraging in the Dumpster. Obviously homeless, obviously quite mad.”