*
The electric gate slid open. Stan Bartell stepped out of his house and stood on his front steps and waved us in. When we got to the door, he said, “The only thing they know about LAPD being here is something called a notification on a kid my daughter knows. Let me see your badge just to be safe.”
Milo showed it to him.
“You’re the one,” said Bartell. “So what’s with Gavin Quick?”
“You know him?”
“Like I said, my daughter knows him.” Bartell shoved his hands in the pockets of his robe. “Does notification mean what I think it does?”
“Gavin Quick was murdered,” said Milo.
“What does my daughter have to do with it?”
“A girl was found with Gavin. Young, blond—”
“Bullshit,” said Bartell. “Not Kayla.”
“Where is Kayla?”
“Out. I’ll call her on my cell phone. C’mon, I’ll show you.”
We followed him inside. The entry hall was twenty feet high, marble-floored, a lot larger than the Quick’s living room. The house was an orgy of beige, except for amethyst-colored glass flowers everywhere. Huge, frameless, abstract canvases were all painted in variations upon that same noncommittal earth tone.
Wordlessly, Stan Bartell led us past several other huge rooms to a studio at the rear. Wood floors and a beamed ceiling. A couch, two folding chairs, a grand piano, an electric organ, synthesizers, mixers, tape decks, an alto sax on a stand, and a gorgeous archtop guitar that I recognized as a fifty-thousand-dollar D’Aquisto in an open case.
On the walls were framed gold records.
Bartell slumped onto the couch, pointed an accusing finger at Milo, and pulled a phone out of his pocket. He dialed, put the phone to his ear, waited.
No answer.
“Doesn’t mean a thing,” he said. Then his bronze face crumpled, and he broke into wracking sobs.
*
Milo and I stood by helplessly.
Finally, Bartell said, “What did that fucking little bastard do to her?”
“Gavin?”
“I told Kaylie he was weird, stay away. Especially since the accident—you know about his fucking accident, right? Must’ve had some kind of brain damage the little fu—”
“His mother—”
“Her. Crazy bitch.”
“You’ve had problems with them.”
“She’s nuts,” said Bartell.
“In what way?”
“Just weird. Never leaves the house. The problem was their son going after my angel.” Bartell’s fists were huge. He raised his eyes to the ceiling and rocked. “Oh, Jesus, this is bad, this is so fucking bad!” His eyes sparked with panic. “My wife—she’s in Aspen. She doesn’t ski, but she goes there in the summer. For shopping, the air. Oh shit, she’ll die, she’ll just crumple up and fucking die.”
Bartell bent and grasped his knees and rocked some more. “How could this happen?”
Milo said, “Why do you think Gavin Quick would’ve hurt Kayla?”
“Because he was—the kid was weird. Kaylie knew him from high school. She broke up with him a bunch of times, but he kept coming back, and she kept letting him down too easy. Little bastard would show up, sniff around even when Kaylie wasn’t in. Bugging me—like kissing up to the old man would help. I work at home, I’m trying to get some work done, and the little fucker is bullshitting me about music, trying to have a conversation like he knows something. I do a lot of jingles, have deadlines, you think I want to discuss alternative punk with some stupid kid? He’d sit himself down, never want to leave. Finally, I told the maid to stop letting him in.”
“Obsessive,” I said.
Bartell hung his head.
“Was he more obsessive since the accident?” said Milo.
Bartell looked up. “So he did it.”
“Unlikely, Mr. Bartell. No weapon was found at the scene, so my instinct is he was just a victim.”
“What are you saying? What the fuck are you—”
Footsteps—light footsteps—made all three of us turn.
A pretty young girl in low-riding, skintight jeans that looked oiled and a black midriff blouse exposing a flat, tan abdomen stood in the doorway. Two belly-button pierces, one studded with turquoise. Over her shoulder was a black silk bag embroidered with silk flowers. She wore too much makeup, had a beak nose and a strong chin. Her hair was long, straight, the color of new hay. The blouse revealed luminous cleavage. A big gold “K” on a chain rested in the cleft.