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“Unless there’s an angry ex-Romeo from longer than a month ago.”
“If there isn’t, it could mean that what Meagin and Gio had was more than recreational.”
“Amore? Why not?” he said. “Guy’s got good looks, nice clothes, no responsibilities, and a condom collection. What else do you need for a meaningful relationship? Okay, let’s check out Toni and Lana and hope they’re gum-flapping gossips.”
Six outgoing calls had gone to “Toni,” five to “Lana.” As with Gio Aggiunta, sometimes Meagin had reached out, other times the women had called first.
That made me wonder about something. I said, “One second,” went back and examined the spousal correspondence.
Doug March had accepted his wife’s calls but had never once taken the initiative to phone her.
Milo said, “Inattentive.”
“Which could explain her being confident he wouldn’t snoop. And if he can be believed, he never did. He just claimed that when he asked where she was from, ‘the Midwest’ was enough detail.”
“Rich guy, so much at stake, and he doesn’t do any research. Weird.”
I said, “Maybe he just didn’t care. Or he saw himself as a shy loser when she picked him up and was awestruck. Then, as the relationship continued, she made no demands and was sexually available. He made sure to let us know she was, when he happened to be home. Given all that, why shake things up?”
“Especially when you really don’t care,” he said. “And she made no demands because she had plenty of entertainment on the side. King’s out conquering territory, Queen’s holed up in the castle and finds herself a knight.”
That sounded like a riff on chess.
I said, “A castle filled with relics of strangers’ lives. What’s the first thing people of means do when they get a new house? Personalize it. Meagin and Doug moved in and made no changes at all. No mystery why Doug would be okay with that, he told us. It’s not a home, it’s astopover. To him, real estate is currency. Want to take odds he’ll be selling the place soon and trading up with some sort of tax-free exchange? But to Meagin it might’ve driven home how unstable her situation was. How little power she had in the relationship. So she explored.”
“Not Ms. Domestic,” he said. “Let’s try to find out who shewas.”
CHAPTER
12
“Hi, this is Lana…”
“Hi, this is Toni…”
Milo left identical messages, identifying himself as an LAPD detective but not specifying the nature of his call. Hanging up, he tapped his foot and drummed his desk. “Typical. Everyone too busy for the constabulary.”
The helpful element in both women’s voicemail: surnames included.
Lana Demarest, Antoinette Bowman. That led to a fruitful DMV search.
Lana Elaine Demarest, thirty-nine, lived on the 500 block of Crescent Drive in Beverly Hills. Antoinette Marie Bowman, forty-five, on La Mesa Drive in Santa Monica.
The internet revealed Demarest to be a pediatric dentist practicing on Twenty-Sixth Street, near the Brentwood Country Mart. Smiling headshot, vividly colored website replete with cartoon animals.
Bowman, located on a business-link site, self-described as an entrepreneur. Milo looked up business licenses and found ownership of seven gas stations in Hollywood and Mid-Wilshire, and a tow yard in Silverlake.
Logging onto the county assessor pulled up no other real estate for Dr. Demarest but multiple holdings for Ms. Bowman. Eight multi-unit apartment buildings and three strip malls, all east of La Brea.
He said, “Property tycoon. Wonder if she met Meagin through Doug.”
I said, “Could be, but there are no kids involved so it’s unlikely Dr. Demarest did. Neither of them sound like people with a lot of spare time. Is there a pattern for when they talked to Meagin?”
He checked. “Good guess, always evenings.”
“Two friends in a big city,” I said. “Neither of whom she could hang with extensively. But maybe they were there the night she met Doug.”
“Be nice,” he said. “Not that it would get me closer to who killed her.”
