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“Twelve-step spiced up by the eternal triangle?”
“Mutual addiction’s among the worst foundations for a relationship but it happens.”
“One phone call in seven months says whatever Meagin and Barlett had, it was over. And she was still in Vegas when he was working at the church. So whatever complication happened was a while back. Which leads me to my next question: why would a jilted lover wait this long to get revenge?”
I said, “Meagin could’ve done a good job hiding so it took a while to locate her. Or his resentment’s been simmering the whole time and as long as he was clean, he could manage it.”
“Guy relapsed.”
“A return to meth or coke—or even to alcohol—could’ve topped off his anger with some serious paranoia.”
“So I could be looking for an addled and/or addicted ghost who cools down long enough to plan three homicides, shoot precisely, and get away clean.”
“His criminal skills could be well seasoned.”
“Phantom with a prior history,” he said. “Even more wonderful.”
CHAPTER
35
Time stretched to nine days after Meagin and Gio’s murders.
When Milo and the young detectives’ contacts with Clark County rehabilitation centers produced nothing, he expanded the search to the entire state of Nevada. Then California, excepting Ventura County, where Sam Cifuentes had paid personal visits to facilities with the same disappointing result. Failure had led Cifuentes’s sergeant to direct him to robberies.
Next stop: Arizona. While that was going on, Milo phoned to ask if I had any other ideas. Given the ghost orchid’s home in Florida, I suggested they try there.
“Already begun.”
That stretched the investigation but turned up nothing.
He switched gears and looked for any murderers across the country featuring the use of a .38 Police and Military revolver and a precise single shot to the heart.
And found something.
—
Five-year-old unsolved in New Orleans.
That victim, a bartender in the French Quarter named Nicole Fontenot, had been ambushed in a rear parking lot as she left workshortly after two a.m. She’d gone through two boyfriends with substantial felony histories but both were incarcerated at the time of the shooting and no evidence pointed to their associates.
Milo said, “The D on that case retired last year but I reached her and showed her Meagin’s and Barlett’s DMVs. She’d never heard of them, told me who to call at their records department. Nice fellow, actually apologized in a Cajun accent for no result.”
“Any chance of getting a ballistics match?”
“Unfortunately not. The bullet went through Fontenot, hit the side of a metal dumpster, and got too deformed for comparison.”
“Same as Meagin and Gio,” I said. “Powerful load, relatively up close. And a parking lot behind the bar sounds like Barlett.”
“And Louisiana’s close to Florida, the way this is going, we’ll be playing Game of the States into the next millennium. I’ve still got a loose end with Irma and Adelita, didn’t hear from Toni Bowman so I called. Her maid extended her vacation in Mexico until yesterday. Minute she got back, Toni had her call Irma. Straight to voicemail. The maid did give her an address where she’d driven Irma a couple of times, the two of them weren’t close pals, they met in MacArthur Park and chatted from time to time. Studio apartment near the park, I just got back from there. New tenants, manager has no idea where Irma is, she hadn’t lived there for a while. Probably after getting the job at the mansion, why pay rent? Now she’s gone somewhere else, hopefully not Mexico.”
“Hiding,” I said. “Ups the chances something she saw or heard at the mansion scared her.”
“Exactly, as in something Dougie said or did. What you said before about people treating the help like furniture. We’ve seen his temper firsthand, he coulda let loose in her presence—hers and Adelita’s—and freaked them out.”
“Maybe they saw him slash and trash the painting.”
“That or worse. The more I think about the guy, the more I’m back to seeing him as my prime suspect. Despite his supposedly beingsurprised about Meagin’s death. So heisan actor. He had the means to hire a pro—maybe some construction guy he’s used on jobs, there’s always ex-cons on work crews. And no problem making sure he was out of the city when it happened.”
