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“You’re concerned about Missus.”
“She go out running, no come home.”
“That hasn’t happened before?”
She looked at the floor. “Sometime she home late but always she come home.”
“She likes to run at night.”
Silence.
The younger woman returned with a white business card. Milo read it, raised his eyebrows, and handed it to me. The moment I touched it I knew what had surprised him. The paper was so flimsy it threatened to dissolve under my fingertips. Flat printing, no embossing. Like something a high school student might run off on a home computer.
Guy lives in a house like this and economizes on paper?
He’d also held back on the details of self-promotion.
B. Douglass March
Venture Quest Properties, LLC
P.O.B. 467-89 B, Los Angeles, 90067
888 545 6201 Ext. 632-D
Milo stepped a few feet away and punched in the number. What he heard made him frown. Leaving an inaudible message, he glanced toward the right-hand cavern and headed there. I followed. The maids remained in place.
The room was at least fifty feet long and half as wide, set up with multiple conversation zones formed by careful arrangements of brocade, velvet, and suede seating that looked as if buttocks had never dared intrude. Twenty or so tables of various materials hosted boxes, paperweights, glass animals, silver ashtrays, enamel figurines.
One exception, the table that interested Milo. Nothing but a lone photograph in a silver rococo standing frame.
Full-body view of the woman we’d seen a few hours ago, captured bright-eyed and vital. In death, Meagin March’s good looks had been a sad abstraction. In life, Meagin March had been gorgeous, graced bythe kind of confident beauty that results when great genetics melds with a high level of self-care.
Her skin was clear and tan, her smile broad, white, warm, spiced by a hint of impishness. A long, smooth neck supported a perfectly proportioned face, the cheekbones high and pronounced, the eyes pale blue. The hair she’d pinned up carelessly in preparation for lovemaking, followed by a swim, was upswept in a soft but obedient chignon.
Shoulders bared by a black sleeveless cocktail dress were square, strong, and tanned. Some of the diamonds we’d seen a few hours ago glinted from strategic locations and the amethyst necklace settled perfectly in the V of the dress, as if the garment had been tailored to accommodate it. The dress was knee-length, fitted as snugly as a wetsuit. Red shoes with serious heels elevated her a couple of inches above the man whose arm she clutched.
Milo turned to the maids. “This is Mr. March?”
They hesitated for a second, then approached.
“Yes,” said the older woman.
“Where was this taken?”
Head shakes.
“Looks like a party.”
Silence.
Milo said, “Do Mr. and Mrs. March go to a lot of parties?”
The maids looked at each other.
The older one said, “Not a lot.”
Out came his pad. Working to maintain his smile. “What are your names, please?”
