“Did she imply that?”
Marsh hesitated.
“Sir?”
“She did tell me some wild stories,” said Marsh. “The last time we spoke, over the phone—”
Milo said, “How long ago was that?”
“Three, four months.”
“What kind of wild stories?”
“More out there than wild,” said Marsh. “She talked extremely fast so I wondered if she’d gotten into drugs—amphetamines, cocaine, something that was hyping her up. Or worse, could she be ending up like her mother.”
“Tell us about the stories,” I said.
“She claimed she was working with secret agencies, doing undercover work, spying on gangsters hooked up with terrorists. Making big money, wearing expensive clothes—expensive shoes, she went on a long time about her shoes. She really wasn’t making much sense but I let her go on. Then she just stopped talking, said she had to go, hung up.”
He pulled at his hair. “That’s the last time we talked.”
Milo said, “Secret agencies.”
Marsh said, “Like I said, out there.”
I said, “And shoes were a big deal to her.”
“Spying and wearing good shoes,” said Marsh. “She even mentioned a brand, some Chinese thing.”
“Jimmy Choo.”
“That’s the one.” Marsh stared at us. “What? It was true?”
“She was wearing Jimmy Choo shoes the night she died.”
“Oh, God. And the rest—”
Milo said, “The rest was fantasy.”
“Poor Christi,” said Marsh. “Fantasy as in mental illness?”
Milo glanced at me.
“No,” I said. “She was misled.”
“By the person who killed her?”
“It’s possible.”
Marsh moaned, covered his face with his hand.
We watched his shoulders heave.
“At least,” he said, “she wasn’t going crazy.”
“That’s important to you.”
“My grandparents—they raised me well, in a pseudo-moral sense. But I came to realize that they weren’t moral people. The way they demeaned Christi, her mother. Even Dad. I hated him but I came to realize that everyone deserves grace and charity. Grandmother and Grandfather always said Christi would end up like her mother. Made jokes about it. ‘Mad as a loon.’ ‘Weaving baskets in Bedlam.’ This was a child they were talking about. My sister. I didn’t like hearing it but I never objected.”
He gathered a handful of hair and twisted it hard enough to pucker the top of his brow.
“They were wrong. That’s good.”
I said, “Did Christi mention any names of people she was working with in the secret agencies?”
“She said she couldn’t. ‘This is covert, Teach. This is the real mindfucking powerful mojo, Teach.’ ”
Marsh slid his cup closer. “Someone misled her . . . who?”
“Can’t say anything more at this point, sir,” said Milo.
Marsh’s smile was resigned, but it warmed up his face. A man comfortable being disappointed. “Running your own covert operation?”
“Something like that.”
“Can you at least tell me this: Are you feeling any optimism? About finding out who did it?”
“We’re making progress, sir.”
“I guess I have to be satisfied with that,” said Cody Marsh. “Is there anything else?”
“Not at this point, sir.” Milo took his number, and Marsh stood.
“So you’ll call the coroner for me? I really want to see my little sister.”
*
We watched him leave.
Milo said, “Secret agent mojo. Think she coulda been going off the deep end?”
“I think someone convinced a girl with learning problems that she was playing spy games. Think prepaid phones.”
“Jerry Quick.”
“He hooked her up with Gavin,” I said. “Maybe he decided to give her another assignment: spying on his fellow scamsters. What if he was pulling a con within a con and got discovered and that’s why he’s on the run?”
“Running Christi as a mole.”
“She’d be perfect for the assignment. Undereducated, gullible, low self-esteem, living on the fringe. Growing up with a neglectful alchoholic father, she would’ve craved an older man’s attention. Jerry was an operator who didn’t pay his rent on time, but he did drive a Mercedes and he lived in Beverly Hills. To girls like Angie Paul and Christi, he would seem like a sugar daddy.”
“Christi would be perfect for something else,” he said. “Partying with Hacker and Degussa and bringing Jerry back the info. Compared to those slatterns we just saw them with, Christi would’ve been a prize.”