The Wedding Guest (Alex Delaware #34) - Jonathan Kellerman Page 0,59
What’s that, Alex? Like methadone?”
I said, “Antibiotic.”
“What do the pills look like?”
“Round, white, a number on one side.”
“Hmm…maybe they’re real, I’ll have the lab verify…looks like Lotz was old-school, didn’t get into the prescription game.”
I said, “Heroin’s relatively cheap nowadays. If he’s got a reliable supplier, why mess with anything new?”
“A stodgy type, huh? Okay, time to check the toilet tank…nothing. You finished?”
“Halfway there.” I walked around to the other side of the bed, lifted the mattress on a notably more generous supply of motes, along with woolly swirls of dirt, six dead roaches, three dehydrated M&M’s—orange, blue, brown—and an errant baggie.
Right half of the bed, if you were lying down. If Lotz was right-handed like ninety percent of the population, the side he’d favor.
I began probing the dirt, found nothing in the first couple of piles. But as I nudged the third, a sharp white corner asserted itself like a tiny shark fin.
I tweezed it out, setting off a tiny dust storm.
Another remnant from an Academo notepad, folded in half.
Black-and-white photocopy of a six-month-old California driver’s license issued to Suzanne Kimberlee DaCosta. Thirty-one years old, five-seven, one twenty-four, black, brown, address on Amadeo Drive in Studio City.
Familiar face, pretty even under heartless DMV lighting.
Now Red Dress had a name.
I said, “No protection but I’ve definitely served.”
Milo stepped out of the bathroom. I showed him the license.
He put his palms together. “Thank you, God. And your personal assistant, this guy.”
He turned away quickly but I’m pretty sure his eyes were wet.
CHAPTER
22
What’s in a name? Plenty.
I sat in the passenger seat of the unmarked as Milo worked his department-issue laptop.
Within seconds he had Suzanne DaCosta’s criminal record at hand, a puny archive consisting of two marijuana busts seven years ago in Denver and a public indecency arrest pled down to misdemeanor nuisance three years after that in Oceanside. No jail time.
One registered vehicle, a six-year-old gray Honda Civic. He put out BOLOs on the car.
Suzanne DaCosta’s social network was almost as thin as Amanda Burdette’s: no accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or Twitter, no narcissistic display of pseudo-talent on YouTube. But a LinkedIn page advertised her availability as a “research assistant” and offered up an 818 landline.
He said, “Guess it depends what you’re researching,” and punched in the number. Disconnected.
The reverse directory offered up the same landline and Studio City residence. An image search pulled up no pictures of Suzanne DaCosta but it did flag the address as a one-story ranch house south of Ventura and west of Laurel Canyon.
Milo plugged in his GPS and shifted into Drive. “Ready for the Valley?”
“Got my car here, I’ll follow you.”
“Better yet, I follow you to your place and then we go over the hill in one set of wheels. Fuel conservation, as in mine. Also, A.C. in this thing sucks.”
* * *
—
We got to my house in ten minutes, took a moment to check in with Robin. She was making deft circular motions on the bowl back of an old Venetian mandola with a pad of cotton. French polishing. She held up a wait-a-sec finger.
Taking over the social obligations, Blanche toddled up with a chew stick in her mouth and got petted by both of us. Her smile said everything was right in the world.
Milo said, “Ah, yes, the sun is shining, Pooch.”
Robin put down her polishing pad, came over and kissed me on the lips, Milo on the cheek. “You’re looking rather pleased, Big Guy.”
“I see you, I’m full of glee.”
She flashed a gorgeous smile. “Flattered, but something tells me it’s more than that.”
Milo looked at me. “Smart girl, that where you get your insights? Yeah, I finally identified my victim. And Romeo found the crucial evidence.”
He summed up.
She said, “Dirt pile under the bed. In those nice jeans I bought you.”
She brushed something off my left leg. Everyone laughed and we left.
* * *
—
I drove north on the Glen while Milo looked up Michael Lotz’s criminal record.
The screen filled. “Oh, you’ve been a bad boy, Mikey…bunch of assaults from age eighteen on, probably has a sealed juvie record, too…looks like he started out in Pittsburgh…then over to Harrisburg…Philly…Akron, malicious mayhem in Patterson, New Jersey, couple of batteries in Newark.”
I slowed as a truck snail-crawled across two lanes and attempted a right turn. Milo showed me a page of mugshots. In most of them Lotz’s hair was long and unruly, his unremarkable face covered by a beard. Old eyes, slackening skin, deteriorating confidence.