conceit, Jessie thought the actual home was quite charming. It seemed to be winking at itself, with a small, easily traversable stream that served as a moat, intricate spires, and what looked like a bell tower.
When Karen pushed the buzzer by the gate, it opened almost immediately, without anyone asking questions. She looked over at Jessie, who shrugged and led the way in. They crossed the stream using the small drawbridge and walked up stone steps to the huge metal doors. One of them was half open.
Karen poked her head in, and seeing no one, grabbed the large knocker attached to the door and banged it, inducing an echoing clang. A minute later, a barefoot, middle-aged guy in sweatpants and a T-shirt came to the door. He was wearing sunglasses and his silvery hair dangled past his shoulders.
“Ladies?” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“We’re with LAPD, here to talk to Percy Avalon,” Karen said, pulling out her badge. “Is he around?”
“Wild,” the guy said, taking off his sunglasses to reveal red-tinged, clouded eyes that weren’t surprising considering the scent emanating from him. “Yeah, he’s out back by the pool. You wanna say hi?”
“I think we’d like that very much,” Jessie said, smiling pleasantly. “Can you lead the way?”
“Sure,” he said, apparently not at all troubled by having law enforcement show up unannounced. “Is everything cool?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Jessie told him. “We’re investigating a crime and we’re hoping Percy can help us out. Do you work for him?”
The guy laughed wheezily at the question.
“You could say that,” he said. “I’m Wally, by the way. I’m what you might call a procurer of items.”
“What kind of items?” Karen asked.
“Oh, household necessities. Everything from toilet paper to kombucha.”
“I see,” Karen said, not pressing him on what other necessities might be on the shopping list.
They passed through a long central hallway, lined with paving stones, into a more modern living room with a wall-sized TV screen at one end, and finally to a sliding door that led outside. When it opened, they were enveloped by the sound of piped-in music, which Jessie assumed was Avalon’s. She wasn’t a connoisseur of his work. They walked up a set of stone stairs that opened onto a kidney-shaped pool with a waterfall and a water slide.
There were half a dozen people, all men, spread out around the pool. Some were in chairs, others on chaise lounges. One guy was seated at the mouth of the slide, dangling his feet in the water. Jessie was pretty sure that at least some of them were band members. Beer bottles were strewn about and two of the guys were sharing a bong.
Jessie and Karen ignored them and walked over to the man sitting in a chair in the shade of an umbrella-adorned deck table. He was dressed only in red swim briefs, a bold choice under any circumstances, but especially when the temperature was hovering in the mid-sixties. His salt and pepper chest hair looked like a bird’s nest and most of the skin on his back and arms was covered in tattoos. His gray hair was even longer than that of his procurer, Wally.
They both recognized him as Percy Avalon, lead singer of Humbert Humbert, a hugely successful rock band from the early 2000s that still attracted solid crowds on their seemingly endless tours. Avalon was known as a wild man in the band’s heyday, repeatedly arrested on drunk and disorderly charges. He once even got into a fistfight with the lead singer of another band backstage at the Grammys. Both men were arrested, though they were each allowed to perform onstage before being carted off. In more recent years, Avalon seemed to have mellowed, at least until the recent false imprisonment charge that Milly Estrada got knocked down to accessory and time served.
“Uh-oh,” Avalon yelled over the music as he saw them approaching. “Professionally dressed women in my house? This can’t be good.”
“Hello, Mr. Avalon,” Karen said loudly when she was close enough to be heard. “I’m Detective Bray of the LAPD. This is Jessie Hunt, a consulting profiler for the department. We need to ask you a few questions about the party you attended on Saturday night.”
Avalon stretched his arms out in the air as he closed his eyes tight. He seemed to be concentrating.
“What party did I go to Saturday, boys?” he shouted to the collective group.
“Jasper’s,” called out the guy sitting on the water slide.
“I thought that was Friday night,” Avalon countered.
The guy in