the whole block. They could see the bright blue corner of a swimming pool at the back.
“Did you see the house for sale across the street, a couple houses down the block?” Bob asked. “Bart Carver Realty?”
“I saw it, didn’t think about it,” Lucas said. “Why?”
“Because it looked empty, unswept, like maybe there’s nobody living there right now, or only part-time. You can see Suzie-Q’s house from there; you’re looking right up the driveway. If the for sale house is empty and we could get in there . . .”
“We’ve done it before,” Rae said to Lucas. “We can get comfortable, and it gets the cars off the street.”
“I’ve done it myself, but I knew the real estate guy,” Lucas said. He thought about it, then said, “I’d rather not ask Rocha for help, not until we know what we’ve got. She’d want in.”
“Why don’t we go lay some heavy-duty marshal shit on this Bart Carver?” Bob suggested. “Can’t hurt.”
Lucas nodded. “Okay. That’s better than anything I’ve got.”
* * *
—
AS A REAL ESTATE BROKER, selling million-dollar houses, Bart Carver should have been easy to find, but wasn’t—there was nobody at his office at eight o’clock, and the first of his associates that they managed to reach didn’t believe they were marshals and thought Lucas was trying to lure her out of her town house to sell her into sex slavery. The second associate had a similar attitude, without the paranoia, but agreed to call Carver and ask him to call Lucas.
Carver, who didn’t call back until ten o’clock, happened to be at a chamber orchestra performance that his wife made him go to—or so he claimed when they spoke with him. The house, he said, was indeed empty, but he couldn’t possibly let anyone in the place without checking with the owners, who’d certainly be asleep at ten o’clock. When Lucas doubted that and got loud, if not actually threatening, Carver agreed to try to call.
“Have them call me,” Lucas said.
The owners called Lucas ten minutes later. “We’re happy to cooperate with law enforcement officers, but that’s an expensive house and we don’t want it damaged in any way.”
“We will be sitting in a window with a pair of binoculars. Your neighbors will never know that we are even there,” Lucas promised.
“Could we talk about it tomorrow? We’re down in San Diego, but we’ve got to come up there in the morning.”
“Let me check with my guys,” Lucas said. “Hang on.”
“It’s already late,” said Rae, who’d been listening. “What are we gonna do in the middle of the night? Let’s bag out at the hotel, do some planning, meet the owners up here.”
Lucas agreed and told the owners that they’d meet in the morning. The guy they were talking to said, “Listen, wear jeans. And T-shirts . . . Maybe bring some gloves.”
“Why?”
“To scratch our backs if we scratch yours.”
* * *
—
THEY MET with the owners at a Jack in the Box. They turned out to be two burly, middle-aged gay men, Stephen Barnett and Luis Jimenez, who’d decided to get out of LA. “We expect that next summer will get days that are 120 degrees, if not hotter. It’ll be Saudi Arabia, only with margaritas and the dumber movie stars.”
They were transferring their construction business to San Diego, they said, which they expected to stay cooler.
“We’re moving down there piece by piece,” Barnett said. “There’s still some furniture in the house. I imagine you’re looking for Craig, right? Big black guy?”
“We’re uncertain of the names they’re using,” Lucas said. Rae pushed the mug shots across the table, and they instantly picked out Nast.
“He’s an asshole,” Barnett said. “When I say that, I’m insulting other assholes. He’d see us driving by and stick his thumb in his mouth and suck on it. I’ve been tempted to go after him with a baseball bat.”
“You’d need a baseball bat,” Jimenez said. “The guy is huge. And he’s no debutante. He looks like he’s done hard time. He’s got the attitude.”
“He’s never done anything physical?” Bob asked. “Nothing we could go over and talk to him about?”
“Not other than the thumb sucking. I don’t know how that would look on a search warrant,” Barnett said.
Rae smiled. “Not all that convincing.”
Jimenez said a couple of other men either lived at the house or were frequent visitors. “There are at least two people in there, maybe three. One of them told a neighbor lady that they were traveling sales guys and weren’t here most