“Will do, Wendy.”
“Actually, I was calling you about something else. This is awkward and don’t feel obligated to answer, but have you had any trouble getting paid for treating her?”
“I’m fine with that.”
“Oh. Hmm. I know this is tacky, but I think I told you Woodbridge is in a major financial bind; the staff’s under a lot of pressure not to take on any nonpaying cases. I’m under special pressure since it’s my first year there—probationary status. Lucy had no insurance and no clear ability to pay. Strict hospital policy is to take care of the crisis, then transfer them over to County. I didn’t do that because I liked her and because her brother told me he’d handle it. But the hospital just notified me that a bill they sent to his company was returned unopened, and he hasn’t returned any of their calls. None of mine, either. Have you been in contact with him?”
“He’s been tied up,” I said. “Their brother Peter OD’d a couple of days ago.”
“Oh. God. I’m so . . . sorry for bringing it up. Good-bye.”
I ran and had breakfast. On the news, one of the Bogettes, a sunken-cheeked, twentyish harpy named Stasha, was granting an interview to a breathlessly eager reporter. Her hair was cropped to the skin and she wore a goat-hair vest and a necklace of animal fangs. Jobe Is God tattoo just above her left eyebrow. Her mouth twisted constantly and her eyes pursued the camera.
The reporter was a blond woman in her late twenties, with conspicuous hair. She said, “So you’re saying the police have bungled the investigation so badly that Jobe Shwandt deserves a new trial? But surely—”
“Surely Jobe lives,” said Stasha. “Surely the truth will spawn its own certain becertitude.” The rest of her speech succumbed to bleeps.
I turned off the set. The phone rang.
“Hey.” Milo, finally.
“Just saw one of your girls on the tube.”
“Spent all night following those hags around town. El Monte, San Gabriel, South Pasadena, Glendale, Burbank. They drive slowly, use their turn signals, make full stops.”
“Where’d they go?”
“Nowhere, just cruising. Pulling over to the curb, waiting, then pulling out again—goddamn game. Final stop was for burgers and fries at an all-night grease palace in San Fernando. One of them comes up to me in the parking lot and offers me a Pepsi. After spitting on it and inviting me to mate with pigs. Then she told me where they’d be going next. “Want a fucking road map, clown?’ ”
“Fun.”
“Join the blue army, see the world. Anyway, that was some message you left me on Ms. Shea. What, you tailed her, then interrogated her?”
“It just kind of happened.”
“I’ll bet,” he said, grumbling. “Hopefully she won’t sue you. Think she was on the level?”
I told him why I did.
“If App and Lowell are so ready to bump people off,” he said, “why’d they let the Sheas live?”
“Several possibilities,” I said. “If Gwen was being truthful, she and Tom don’t really know much. And each year the Sheas kept the secret and didn’t hit on Lowell for extra money would have reassured them. Also, by now the Sheas are as invested in the status quo as Lowell and App. Respectable business people. The fact that they took money to withhold information on a girl who ended up murdered wouldn’t do much for their civic image. And if Doris ever found out they held back money from her, she’d blow her stack and probably try to incriminate them. As it is, she resents their success.”
“Lovely folks,” he said. “The type who pretends not to smell the gas chambers. . . . Okay, so now we know for sure Sanctum was the last place Karen was seen. But—”
“No proof of any crime. I know.”
“Not without a body.”
“So far Lucy’s dream’s been panning out, Milo. So the body might very well be right there.”
“After all these years? I can see them stashing her there short term, Alex. But why would they be stupid enough to leave her?”
“Arrogance. I’m sure Lowell sees himself as above the law. And when you get down to it, it’s a pretty safe place. Who’d think to look for her there? Even if they did, with all that land, who’d know where to look?”