City of the Dead (Alex Delaware, #37)(63)

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Twins are no less adjusted than anyone else but when there’s pathology it sometimes takes the form of codependency and a steadily narrowing existence.

Alternatively, Rodney and Renny Tabash were too busy destroying and adding compensatory muscle and had no use for words and sentences. Or human contact.

Numbers, on the other hand, were acceptable. Each brother presented detailed logs of weight-lifting progress and meticulous body measurements.

Rodney Tabash stood five foot eleven and seven-eighths tall and had last weighed in at two sixty-four. Renny was an even six feet tall and a smidge lighter at two fifty-nine, a difference not obvious to the naked eye.

Some twins make a point of establishing individual identities. These two seemed intent on avoiding it. Their bathing trunks varied as often as Lisette Montag’s hair but in every photo they’d color-matched. The same went for their hair. Nothing like Montag’s chameleon coiffure; two options.

A: skinned heads. B: zinc-yellow faux hawks.

I rolled through their muscle charts. Both had placed in numerous amateur strength contests. Over five hundred pounds of unyielding bulk, between them. Not hard to imagine them subduing, trussing Tyler Hoffgarden, and toting him up the hill to the kill-site.

Neither twin mentioned a source of income and a continued search failed to produce any.

Available to freelance?

I phoned Milo. “There are a couple of guys you should look at.”

He said, “The rhinos, just about to call you. Yeah, they could tag-team Hoffgarden into submission even without a gun. And flick Caspian like a flake of dandruff. Plus they’ve got priors. Nothing juicy: two batteries, one assault, all committed when they were mere lads of nineteen and weighed only two twenty apiece.”

I said, “They got arrested together?”

“Every single time,” he said. “Bar fights in Fresno where they grew up. No jail time, which could mean anything from good lawyers to insufficient evidence to scared witnesses. Can you imagine getting up on the stand and testifying against them?”

I said, “Not worth getting deadlifted.”

“Interesting turn of phrase. They live together in an apartment in Studio City. I just sent Alicia and Sean out there to keep an eye out. The one I really want to talk to is Moses, he knows that world. But his mom just had some sort of allergic reaction, he had to take her to the doctor. The question I have for you is who do I approach first, Lisette or the Gruesome Twosome? I’m thinking her because with their size and proclivities, I’m gonna need an army, and without evidence going in gangbusters is a bad idea.”

I said, “Any way to get Montag’s pings?”

“No grounds,” he said, “unless Hoffgarden’s pings show him near her place right before he was murdered and the techs are still working on it. Another problem is that if Montag is involved, she’s the contractor. You know how it is with conspiracies. Start with the hired help and get them to snitch.”

I said, “You could still start with Montag as long as you do it nonthreateningly. No suspicions, she came up on Hoffgarden’s call list, you’re talking to everyone he knew. If she contacts the twins right afterward, Alicia and Sean will be there to see if they make a move.”

“Hmm. Makes sense. Okay, I’ll have a female officer dummy-call Montag, try to sell her magazine subscriptions or something. She’s home, I drop in. How are you schedule-wise the rest of the day?”

“Open. Tomorrow, my morning’s booked.”

“Hopefully it’s not gonna take that long,” he said. “Two hairdressers and three musclemen.”

I said, “Go into a bar.”

He cracked up. “Can you see any link between Hoffgarden’s murder, Cordi, and Caspian?”

I said, “Cordi doesn’t come up in Montag’s network but the one book Montag lists is something called Perfecting Yourself Emotionally and Physically. That sounds like the kind of thing Cordi might recommend.”

“Montag was Cordi’s patient?”

“Maybe referred by Hoffgarden.”

“Life coaching goes bad?” he said. “Not much of a motive for murder, Alex. Then there’s Slope. He did Hoffgarden’s divorce, tried to foist Cordi off as an expert, worked out at Hoffgarden’s new gym in the desert, where he got his hair cut by Montag and ended up strangled in bed. There’s something going on, Alex, but it feels out of reach.”

“Get Montag or the twins in the box,” I said. “If it’s the twins, interview them separately.”

“Yeah, okay—hold on, Moses is calling in.”

Dead air for a couple of minutes before he returned. “Mom ate a kiwi, got an itchy throat, doc gave her a shot, she’s okay, he’s on the way back. Turns out he knows the twins. Used to work out at the same gym and spotted them a few times when they bench-pressed. Simultaneously. They always lift simultaneously. Wonder if they wipe each other’s bottoms.”

I made my voice plummy. “There does seem to be a blurring of identities. Moe ever see signs of violence in them?”

“The opposite, he was surprised to hear about the Tabashes’ priors, said they’re dumb as blocks of cheddar and mild-mannered, except when they’re pumping. We’ve got nothing on them but appearing on Montag’s pages and being big, so it could be another dud. In any event, Moses no longer uses that gym, too crowded, but he’s pretty sure they do, it’s close to their apartment.”