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“She’s got problems with older men so she aims young, he’s just the opposite,” he said. “The perfect monsoon. Which slams me right back to which one of them was the target. Here I was getting confident about Meagin and Doug, but with Gio’s history of pissing off husbands, who knows?”
“Pissing off husbands and getting bailed out. The family saw it, accurately, as ransom money. After the third time they’d had enough and sent him away.”
“Out of sight, out of mind.”
“But with no family connections in L.A.,” I said, “he’d be vulnerable. And maybe unaware of his vulnerability.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s floated through life maybe without doing a lot of thinking. Severe learning disabilities sometimes come with low impulse control. Cracking up one Ferrari and expecting another says in Gio’s case it did. Toss in a lifetime of being cushioned and you may not end up with strong self-preservation instincts.”
“All his bills taken care of, nice house, nice car, no need to work,” he said. “Yeah, I can see it.”
“Twenty-nine,” I said, “but not an adult.”
—
We headed back to his office.
He said, “Gotta get phone records and find out who else he hooked up with. The gal at the Bel-Air had no details but maybe someone at the other hotels will so I’ll send the kids out to snoop.”
—
Nearly an hour remained before the four p.m. meeting. Milo used the time to check with the crime lab about the bullet recovered from Meagin March. Scowling and muttering, “Probably haven’t even looked at it,” as the phone rang.
Unwarranted pessimism but no satisfaction. The .38 slug had been analyzed but had failed to match ammunition from any other crime on record.
His next call was to the coroner, where he spoke to the day-shift crypt manager, Jorge Braunbauer. No decision yet on autopsies of either victim.
Milo said, “What’s your best guess?”
“They probably won’t get the scalpel,” said Braunbauer, “because COD is obvious and nothing weird came up on either of their X-rays.”
Milo said, “When’s serology coming back?”
“Not sure, we’re jacked and on the form it says you told our guys they were drinking booze.”
“What I said was the appearance of drinking.”
“Okay.”
“Do me a favor, Jorge, get the bloods back, then we’ll talk about the scalpels.”
“I don’t think talking’s going to help, Milo. We’ve got eight bodies from a massive pileup on the 101 including two kids plus a multiple-gang O.K. Corral thing in Willowbrook where the trajectory tapes look like spaghetti.”
“A traffic accident and a low-life shoot-out trumps a whodunit double homicide?”
Jorge said, “Death is death.”
Milo hung up and examined Meagin’s and Gio’s photos. “Coupla fit, healthy types, he’s probably right. Okay, let’s find out who both of you beauties have schmoozed with in times gone by.”
Two different phone carriers. Slow going at both when he gave them the subpoena numbers.
Rather than watch Milo fidget and tap his feet and rub his face while on hold, I stepped out into the hall and checked my messages.
One new custody eval referral, from Julie Beck, a judge I’d worked with before and liked. Her message: “All yours, Alex. If you want it.”
I reached her in chambers. “That sounds ominous.”
