“Like take a course or get an internship?” said Paxton. “Not to my knowledge. I’d doubt it. He really wasn’t in any shape to go back to school or hold down a job. Too flighty—he was drifting. Dropping out, sleeping in till noon, turning his room into a pigsty. I can’t blame him, I’m sure his brain was messed up. But Sheila didn’t even try to set limits. And Jerry, of course, was always gone.”
“Gavin did go into therapy.”
“Because the courts forced him to.”
“Did he tell you who his therapist was?”
“Jerry did. Dr. Koppel. Like it was some big deal.” She frowned.
“You know her?”
“I’ve heard her on the radio, and I have to say I’m not impressed. All she does is preach morality to idiots who phone in. Why not just go to church?”
Using the present tense. Milo and I looked at each other.
She said, “What?”
“Dr. Koppel was murdered.”
Paxton’s face went white. “What? When?”
“Couple of days ago.”
“My God—why don’t I know that—was it on the news?”
“There was an article in yesterday’s paper.”
“I never read the paper,” she said. “Except Calendar. Murdered, omigod. Are you saying it had something to do with Gavin?”
“No, ma’am.”
“But she—could it be coincidence?”
“Your sister didn’t seem impressed by that.”
“My sister’s crazy. Do you have any idea who killed her?”
Milo shook his head.
“Horrible, horrible,” she said. “You think there’s a chance it couldn’t be related to Gavin?”
“We don’t know, ma’am.”
“Oh, boy.” Paxton stayed serious for a while. Ate her biscotti and grinned. Back to coquettish. “Now you’re playing hard to get, Lieutenant.”
“Not really, ma’am.”
“Well . . . I hope this has been helpful. I’ve got to go.”
“One more question, ma’am. Do you remember that picture I showed you of the girl who died with Gavin?”
“Yes, of course. And I told you I’d never seen her before, and that was true.”
“Gavin talked to you about wanting to find a new girl. He told other people he’d succeeded.”
“What other people?”
“Let’s leave it at other people.”
“Mr. Inscrutable Detective,” said Paxton. She brushed her knee against Milo’s. “A new girl, huh? In Gavin’s mind that could’ve meant anything. Someone he decided to pursue, whether or not she wanted it. Someone he’d seen on TV.”
“The girl I showed you was real,” said Milo. “And she was in Gavin’s car, up on Mulholland, late at night.”
“Okay,” she said, annoyed. “So he found someone. Everyone finds someone eventually. Look what happened to her.”
*
She made sure Milo picked up the tab and flounced away on backless shoes.
“What a piece of work,” said Milo. “What a family. So what was her reason for talking to us? Dissing the Quicks?”
“She despises them,” I said, “but that doesn’t discount her information.”
“Gavin’s inappropriate sexual behavior? Yeah, he’s sounding nuttier by the day.”
“If she’s right about Jerome Quick, Gavin had a role model. Gavin may have started off with a certain view of women, and the accident weakened his inhibitions further. What intrigues me is the blonde. Gavin had problems approaching women, came on way too strong. Yet an attractive young woman was willing to get intimate with him. A young woman in five-hundred-dollar shoes whom no one’s reported missing.”
“A pro,” he said. “Got to be.”
“Severe frustration could lead a boy to buy sex. A Beverly Hills boy might have a decent budget. Especially with a father who sanctioned it. I know she hasn’t shown up in any Vice files, but a relative rookie lucky enough not to get busted wouldn’t. If she worked on her own, there’d be no one to miss her. If she worked for someone else, they might not want to go on record.”
“A father who sanctioned it,” he said. “Dad slips Gavin serious dough to get seriously laid?”
“And maybe,” I said, “Dad knew where to send him.”
*
Jerome Quick’s metals-trading firm was a few miles east of Beverly Hills, on Wilshire near La Brea, on the third floor of a shopworn four-story building wedged between taller structures.
A sign in the empty lobby listed several units for lease. Most of the tenants were businesses with names that told you little about what they did. Quick’s office was on the second floor, midway down a poorly lit linoleum-floored hall. A savory but discomforting odor—beef stew just past its prime—permeated the walls.