The Wedding Guest (Alex Delaware #34) - Jonathan Kellerman Page 0,67
frame. One hard move and flimsy metal surrendered. Releasing the top drawer triggered some kind of latch and all six slid open. He looked inside.
“Undies in a box-file, now this?”
Emptying every drawer, he placed the contents on the floor.
Books.
Nothing but.
Hardcovers and large-format paperbacks, all with bland covers.
Upending every volume, he flipped pages and checked endpapers. “Introductory sociology? Western philosophy? Why the hell would she lock these up?”
“Maybe she’s saying, This is important to me.”
“A dedicated intellectual who models and strips.”
Why not?
I said, “It’s consistent with what the Valkyrie and the bouncers told us. In her spare time, she read. And once upon a time she did ballet, so maybe she had a taste for the classics.”
“You know anyone at Juilliard?”
“Robin probably does.”
“Por favor?”
* * *
—
Robin said, “Just Sharon Isbin, she’s head of the guitar department. If all you’re after is enrollment, why doesn’t Milo just call the ballet department?”
“Higher-education folk tend to distrust the police and if they tell him no, it could take weeks.”
“Okay, I’ll see if Sharon can point him in the right direction. Too late to try now, tomorrow morning.”
“Thanks, hon.”
Milo called out, “Thanks, darling!”
Robin said, “Someone’s in a good mood. Progress?”
I said, “Small steps.”
“Like most things that matter.” I clicked off.
Milo fished out another book and shook it. “Here’s a racy one, Civilization and Power…nothing personal in this whole damn place.”
As he made a second circuit of the garage, I had my own look at the volumes Kimbee DaCosta had sequestered.
Textbooks and nonfiction for the educated layperson. A sprinkle of yellow Used stickers brought back my starving student days. But no inscriptions, stamps from campus stores, or indication where any of the books had been sold or resold.
Still, the collection felt like college reading material and I said so. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and it was the U. and Maxine can snoop around.”
“How about getting telephonic with her again?”
Voicemail at “Professor Driver’s” office and personal cell. I asked her to call.
Milo said, “Here’s another possibility: Amanda knew Kimbee from school and fixed her up with Garrett. Because she thought Baby was a dolt and figured one brain deserved another.”
I said, “Do we know for a fact that The Brain was male?”
“The girls just referred to him as a boyfriend.”
“Maybe they were assuming. A girlfriend would explain no birth control.”
“You just turned up the spotlight on Amanda. Talk about a juicy motive, Alex. Being exposed as gay at her brother’s nuptials.”
He pushed the brown cabinets back in place. “Time to get this place dusted for prints and DNA.”
I said, “There goes the neighborhood.”
“What does that mean?”
“Like the girls said, this is quiet suburbia. The tech van will attract attention. You ready to go public on a street where neighbors are used to complaining?”
He tapped a foot. “Let’s see if the lab can give me one tech in a low-profile car.”
“Peggy Cho might welcome the opportunity.”
He phoned Cho, hung up smiling.
“Inspired, Alex. She’s finishing up a robbery in Granada Hills, is thrilled to go quote unquote ‘longitudinal,’ can be here in twenty. Meanwhile, let’s see if I can do something about the A-H up on Loma Bruna.”
* * *
—
A phone chat with a North Hollywood lieutenant named Atkins elicited a promise to crack down on the party house.
I said, “That was easy.”
“Uniforms have been going out there for months. Each time, there’s immediate compliance so they don’t push it.”
“Now there’s a change in policy?”
“Now there’s a change in Ben Atkins’s consciousness. He just remembered a favor I did him, don’t ask.”
“The power and the glory.”
“The first is useful, the second is bullshit.”
* * *
—
We returned to the main house. Serena and Claire were back on the floor drinking apricot-colored smoothies.
Milo told them about Peggy Cho’s impending arrival.
Serena said, “CSI? Can we watch?”
Milo said, “Only one tech’s coming and she likes to work alone. We’d actually like to avoid being noticed, period. So no one else in the neighborhood will know.”
“A girl CSI, cool,” said Serena. “So only us is in on it.”
“If that’s okay.”
“Sure—Cee?”
Claire said, “I can keep secrets. Been doing it my whole life.”
* * *
—
We waited outside for Cho. When she arrived, a drape on a front window lifted and Serena gave a thumbs-up.
When we got inside, Cho’s nose wrinkled. “My brother rented something like this. Chemical john, not too hygienic.”
She began to work and we returned outside where Milo slim-jimmed the Honda and used an internal lever to pop the trunk.