it didn’t last long. He went down to Mexico—Cabo San Lucas. Then Panama and Costa Rica. He asked for money and informed me he was working at a zip-line outfit in some Costa Rican jungle, had discovered he wasn’t afraid of heights. How do you respond to something like that? Congratulations, you can hang from a wire? I sent him half of what he requested.”
He glanced at the piano, unlaced and fluttered his fingers. “Was I an S.O.B.? Certainly. Widowhood and a disastrous second marriage took it out of me. I wound down my practice, played more golf, tried to get back to music and found I’d lost my flair. I’d visit Barton and his wife in Boston twice a year. Every eighteen months or so I’d endure a sixteen-hour trek and see Josh and his girlfriend in Tel Aviv. I was just back from Israel when Peter showed up here. Unannounced, just like the first time. He was thirty but already had gray hair. He said he needed temporary lodgings so I took him in, we went to dinner, he talked, I listened. Apparently after Costa Rica he’d gone back to Panama City where he’d worked at a hotel. First in the dining room, then the front desk. He said he’d discovered hotel management was his passion and he’d come back to ‘develop himself.’ He also had a girlfriend he’d met there. A dancer at a club, she’d be arriving soon and they’d be living together, could I advance him on the rent? I gave him enough for six months.”
“Generous,” said Milo.
“You think so?” said Kramer. “More like go-away money.” His lips folded inward. “I was an S.O.B. in general and a rotten dad, specifically. And then he died. And now you’re digging it all up.”
I said, “You do know about his last job.”
“Assistant manager at some apartment building. It depressed him, he’d hoped for hotel work but his résumé didn’t cut it. Was his death somehow connected to that?”
Milo said, “We’re curious about the building.”
“In what way?”
“There may be things going on there.”
“It’s a dope den? Westwood Village?” said Kramer. “I guess that’s not so far-fetched. Students, the weirdos who hang around students.”
“Did Peter talk about that?”
“Not to me, Lieutenant, but I used to attend at the health center, I know what I saw.”
I said, “How much contact did you have with Peter when he worked there?”
Kramer ran a hand along the top of neat, white hair. No strands out of place but that didn’t stop him from patting. “I wish I could say we grew closer but we didn’t. I’m assuming Peter didn’t need money because he stopped contacting me. The only reason I found out about his death was he’d listed me in his phone contacts and the coroner’s investigator found me.”
Milo said, “Do you have that phone, Doctor?”
“No. I told them to dispose of all of Peter’s effects. It was hard enough cleaning out Lenore’s closet. I didn’t need to go through that again.”
I said, “Did you ever meet the girlfriend from Panama?”
“Once. I took them to dinner at Spago and she seemed very pleasant. Far better behaved than Peter, who drank too much wine and got loopy and started talking about his mother. I didn’t appreciate hearing Lenore described in a drunk’s slurry voice. The girl could tell, she managed to calm Peter down. Nice young lady. Good looking, too. Peter always had a way with the girls.”
I pulled out the photo of Suzanne DaCosta.
Paul Kramer said, “Yes, that’s her. Are you telling me she was involved in Peter’s death?”
Milo said, “Part of what we’re dealing with is her murder.”
Kramer’s eyes popped. “Murder? She was also a junkie? She’s the one who gave Peter heroin?”
“There’s absolutely no evidence of that, Dr. Kramer. Ms. DaCosta is our primary case and she led us to Peter.”
The fingers of Kramer’s right hand flew to his cheek and drummed the skin lightly. Large fingers for a small man. Expressive, a surgeon’s source of grace and authority. “DaCosta? That’s not the name I was given.”
“Suzanne Kimberlee DaCosta. Sometimes she called herself Kimbee.”
“Not to me, she didn’t,” said Paul Kramer, returning the photo. “I have a good memory for names—most of my age peers don’t—and I remember distinctly that Peter introduced her as Susan Koster. And she said, ‘Call me Susie.’ ”
CHAPTER
34
We left Kramer’s house and rode a block before Milo pulled to the curb and began working his mobile computer.
Detective work is like building a suspension bridge: No