The Museum of Desire: An Alex Delaware Novel(23)
Her thin face shimmered as a tremor ran from chin to eyebrow. She twisted the massive ring. “Will it be necessary to publicize Benny’s living arrangement? I’d love to avoid media coverage. For my residents’ sake.”
Milo said, “Far as we’re concerned the less press the better.”
“I concur.” She stood. “Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.”
Milo said, “Thanks for taking the time.”
Andrea Bauer’s smile was cool and knowing. “To be perfectly frank, I wanted to meet you face-to-face to make sure Benny was getting optimal attention. There are people I know, Lieutenant. And now I’m reassured that I won’t need to contact them.”
CHAPTER
10
The trip down the stairs was the Andrea Bauer–led race in reverse. Once outside, she shot Milo something vaguely smile-like, crossed Butler Avenue, and jogged into the staff lot.
Milo said, “She knows people. Nothing like a threat to brighten my day.”
I said, “Her main reason for coming here was self-protection.”
“Alvarez disappears Friday, it’s already Tuesday and I’m supposed to shield her from bad P.R.? The brass has stifled to the max because the mayor’s official line is The Westside Is Safe but a story breaks tomorrow in the Times.”
“Could work in your favor,” I said.
“Tips? With all the loonies, a double-edged sword but let’s see. Meanwhile the kids are still canvassing, I extended it two miles in both directions.”
Andrea Bauer’s Panamera exited the lot and sped off.
He said, “It could work in my favor—lemons to lemonade, huh? You ever sink into a sump of bitter, soul-leeching pessimism?”
Not since I made my way from Missouri to L.A. at sixteen and could stop hiding from a drunken, raging father.
I said, “I try to avoid it.”
* * *
—
We returned to his office.
I said, “Lulling the victim’s the key to predation so Benny Alvarez’s sense of focus might’ve worked against him. Overly fixed on his goal and not paying enough attention to his surroundings. The same might apply to the woman, if she was a heavy drinker and chronically impaired. Gurnsey, too, for that matter. Too intent on sex to evaluate risk.”
“Caught up in a honey trap.”
“Who better than a hungry bear?”
He rolled a pencil between his fingers. “What about Roget?”
“My bet would be collateral damage,” I said. “Wrong limo, wrong time. Or maybe the car was a factor: Someone wanted a flashy stage. But he could also be seen as taking undue risks: older man driving strangers, keeping no record of his fares.”
“Use him for his wheels, then do him and display him with the others,” he said. “Because why waste a corpse? We’re talking Hitler-level cruelty, Alex.”
“Cruelty and power lust. Literally manipulating human beings.”
His fingers drummed a paradiddle on his desktop. “All that said, let’s dot some i’s and see what the computer says about Dr. Andy’s business practices.”
* * *
—
Several interviews with Andrea Bauer in glossy throwaway magazines repeated the gist of what she’d just told us. Precisely the goal of interviews in glossy throwaways.
She owned nine facilities: three in California, four in Arizona, two in Idaho. No serious complaints had been lodged against any of them. No mechanics’ liens for unpaid bills, bankruptcy filings, or other evidence of financial weakness.
The extent of Bauer’s involvement in the legal system was three civil suits in just as many years, two in San Diego County and one in Tempe. What appeared to be routine slip-and-falls, everything settled by her insurers. Online ratings skewed toward positive but that was meaningless; praise can be purchased and, in general, the internet’s a compulsive liar’s dream. But the lack of criticism was noteworthy and it made Milo’s shoulders droop.
“Sued three times,” he said. “Considering how many lawyers are lurking around that’s just about saintly. Too bad.”
He swiveled away from the screen. “Time to move on. Agreed?”
I nodded.
“Now tell me—scratch that, therapeutically suggest to me where exactly we relocate.”
As I thought about that, he checked his email and deleted anything administrative.
I said, “The killer knew the property would be accessible. How about a closer look at the party hosts?”
“Rental agency finally coughed up the names,” he said. “Coupla rich kids, seniors at Beverly Hills High. Meaning the partyers were probably kids, too. You see a teenager setting something like this up?”
“There was a sixteen-year-old in Florida, murdered his parents before throwing a house party.”
He pulled up the Beverly Hills High School website. “The academic day ends just before four. Let’s try to catch them as they wheel their little roadsters off campus. Anything else, meanwhile?”
“You get the cause of death for Gurnsey and the woman?”
“Crypt’s been giving me radio silence, not even a text from Basia, which isn’t like her. I’d take the time to drive over but with the big decomp case I’m not gonna be a welcome presence. Not to mention my nasal passages being ruined for a month.”