We began moving together.
The commotion on the other side of the door got louder.
“Oh,” she said, still rocking. “See . . . what . . . you . . . mean.”
I didn’t stop, and neither did she.
Spike kept it up.
To no avail.
CHAPTER
22
When I awoke the next morning at 6 A.M., Allison was next to me, and Spike lay curled on the floor, at the foot of the bed. She’d let him in. For the next two days, he wouldn’t even be faking civil.
I left her sleeping and took him outside to do his business. The morning was moist and gray and oddly fragrant. Mustaches of haze coiled down from the mountains. The trees were black sentries. Too early for the birds.
I watched him waddle around the yard, sniffing and searching. He nuzzled a garden snail, decided escargot was an element of his Gallic heritage that he preferred to forget, and disappeared behind a bush. As I stood there in my bathrobe, shivering, head clearing, I wondered who’d been threatened to the point of murder by Gavin Quick and Mary Lou Koppel. Or maybe there was no threat at all, and this was all about pleasure killing.
Then I recalled Gavin’s journalistic fantasies, and my questions took off in a different direction.
At breakfast, I said nothing about the murders to Allison. By eight-thirty she’d left for her office, and I was doing some work around the house. Spike remained still in front of the cold TV. He’s always been a devotee of the blank screen; maybe he’s got something there. I headed for my office and cleared paper. Spike padded in and stared until I got up, went to the kitchen, and fetched him a scrap of turkey. That kept him happy for the rest of the morning, and by 10 A.M. he was sleeping in the kitchen.
When Milo called soon after and asked me to pick him up at noon for the meeting with Drs. Gull and Larsen, I was glad to hear his voice.
*
I idled the Seville in front of the station. Milo was late to come down, and I was warned twice by uniforms not to loiter. Milo’s name meant nothing to the second cop, who threatened to ticket. I drove around the block a couple of times and found Milo waiting by the curb.
“Sorry. Sean Binchy grabbed me as I was leaving.”
He closed his eyes and put his head back. His clothes were rumpled, and I wondered when he’d last slept.
I took side streets to Ohio, aimed the Seville east, fought the snarl at Sepulveda, and continued to Overland, where I could finally outpace a skateboard.
Roxbury Park was fifteen minutes away, on Olympic, less than a mile west of Mary Lou Koppel’s office. Even closer to the Quick house on Camden Drive. I considered the constricted world that had become Gavin’s after his accident. Until he’d driven a pretty blond girl up to Mulholland Drive.
Milo opened his eyes. “I like this chauffering stuff. You ever put in for mileage, the department takes a big hit.”
“Saint Alex. What did Binchy want?”
“He found a neighbor of Koppel’s, some kid living seven houses up McConnell, who spotted a van cruising the street the night of the murder. Kid was coming home late, around 2 A.M., and the van passed him, heading north, away from Koppel’s house and toward his. He locked his doors, stayed in his car, watched it turn around and return. Going really slowly, like the driver was looking for an address. The kid waited until the taillights had disappeared for a while. He can’t say if the van parked or just drove out of sight, but it didn’t make another pass.”
“Vigilant kid,” I said.
“There was a follow-home mugging over on the other side of Motor a few weeks ago, and his parents made a big deal about being observant.”
“Two o’clock fits the coroner’s estimate. Any look at the driver?”
“Too dark. Kid thought maybe the windows were tinted.”
“How old a kid?”
“Seventeen. Binchy says he’s an honor student at Harvard-Westlake, seems solid. He’s into cars, too, was pretty sure the van was a Ford Aerostar. Black or gray or navy blue, no customization he could spot. He didn’t get a peek at the plate, that would be too much to hope for. It’s not much, but if we turn up some suspect with an Aerostar, it’ll be a nice bit of something.”