AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Bel Air folk have security cameras.”
“They do, indeed,” he said. “Conspicuously displayed with impressively hostile signs. It’s amazing how many of them are self-deleting or focused on walls and gates but not the road. Or total fakes. The tough thing is a southern getaway would lead straight down on Hilgard, past the U. campus. Zero cameras the whole way and then who knows where he goes. And if he turns east or west, he’s zipping past miles of residential with most of the properties set back or behind hedges, so forget surveillance. Where are the dingy commercial stretches when you need them?”
“Maybe there are some in San Pietro. Not at the church but near it.”
“Good thinking, but been there, done that. Cifuentes said the church is in an agricultural area, any interest would be poachers notmonitoring traffic. So surveillance would be internal, on the grounds of the ranches. In terms of the town’s streets, he has no idea how many cameras there are and no way he can spend the time to find out. Can’t say I blame him. He’s a good guy but clearly would love to punt to me. Anything on your end?”
I said, “The gray painting—”
“Oh yeah, that also came up with the obnoxious Mr. March—God, IwishI could pin this one on him. I asked him why he’d dumped all her stuff and why that one in particular deserved a razor. He explodes, gives me mega-attitude about going through his trash without a warrant. I cut him off and educate him about trash and he says it was still intrusive. I repeat the question, he says I don’t have to explain myself to you. I say any reason you shouldn’t? That threw him, he starts sputtering. Then he says if youmustknow I dumped that shit because itwasshit. Not only did she lack talent she had no taste and the proof isthatone. The ugliest one of all but her favorite, she showed it off to me like she was especially proud of it. He also said he’d told her he liked it. Back when he didn’t hate her guts.”
“Flaunting his hatred.”
“He’s either the most arrogant murderer I’ve ever come into contact with or he’s not worried because he’s innocent. Anyway, that was my lesson in lack of art appreciation.”
“I found out what the spiky thing is.”
“Oh yeah, what?”
“A flower called the ghost orchid.” I filled him in. “It’s localized to Florida so maybe that’s where she’s from but I couldn’t find any sign of it.”
I expected him to bypass psychology and go straight to geography.
He said, “Ghost orchid, huh? Maybe she saw herself as some sort of phantom?”
I have sold you short, my friend.
I said, “That would be my guess.”
“Running from something,” he said. “Then it caught up with her.”
CHAPTER
32
No contact the next day until he phoned at six p.m.
I said, “Busy day?”
“Not with detecting, helped Claudio make arrangements for Gio’s body. Talk about contrast with Doug, the guy couldn’t be nicer. Asked if I’d learned anything and totally broke down when I told him I was leaning toward wrong place, wrong time. Between some coroner’s paperwork getting lost, the hassles of air-shipping a body overseas, he was having trouble negotiating.”
“Prominent family, no help from the Italian consulate?”
“You’d think, right? Buncha stiffs over there, they told him they needed official consent from the crypt and when he tried to get that, the crypt said foreign arrangements were complicated, he should get an international lawyer. So I paid them a visit and showed them a bullshit consent form I drafted in my office, filled out a notebook’s worth of nonsense, and stayed there until they rubber-stamped it. No openings on Alitalia for three days, but he’s booked on the fourth and so is the coffin.”
“Beyond the call of duty.”
“Like I said, he’s a nice guy. Clearly the one the family turns to when things get complicated.”
“He have anything else to say about his brother?”
“That assumes I asked him when my focus was on altruistic civil service.”
“Same question.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I worked a few questions in but the only thing he added was that Gio once mentioned another woman he dated here named Lulu. No details other than it was right after he arrived, so maybe before he hooked up with Meagin. Or he was juggling both of them. But seeing as Gio’s looking more and more like collateral damage, don’t see the point of pursuing it.”
“Makes sense.”
