His house was a tidy two-story Craftsman decorated entirely in shades of brown. He was in his sixties, thick-framed, with a large black mustache straight out of Magnum, P.I. Other than the mustache, he didn’t exude an ex-cop vibe. He seemed like most of Frank and Louise’s friends: genial, unworried. After ushering Kate and Louise into the living room and settling them on a tan jacquard sofa, he put a plate of cookies down on the coffee table. His wife was trying to get on a baking show on TV, he explained. The audition was in a few weeks, and she had been practicing nonstop.
“The dough is a little bland,” Louise said after a bite of a snickerdoodle.
“Tell me about it,” Velázquez said. “Leah’s on a crusade against processed sugar. She won’t even let me buy Gatorade anymore. What do I have to live for if I can’t drink Gatorade?”
Kate ate her cookie without comment as she studied the gallery wall next to the sofa. Like most gallery walls, it worked better in theory than in practice. The focal point was a staged portrait, at least twenty years old, in which the Velázquezes and their two sons posed in matching outfits against a dreary pastel backdrop.
“So,” Velázquez said, sitting down in the leather recliner opposite them. “What’s all this about, Louise? You were very mysterious on the phone.”
Louise opened her mouth to answer, but Kate intercepted her. “I actually asked Louise to introduce us,” she said. “Maybe you heard I’m working up at the Brand house?”
“Oh, right. You having fun?”
That was the first time anyone had put it like that. “It’s a good job,” she said.
“She signed a nondisclosure agreement,” Louise said to Velázquez, as if Kate wasn’t there. “So I don’t know half of what’s going on up there. Did you hear how rude Theo Brand was to Marjorie on Thursday?”
Kate, who had already heard this story, tried not to roll her eyes. “Well, in Theo’s defense”—words she never thought she’d hear herself say—“Marjorie did try to break into his front gate.” Apparently the woman had pulled so hard she had almost broken the hinge.
“She wasn’t breaking in. She was bringing him cookies. Neighborly cookies.” Louise took another one of the cookies on the table and held it up as an example. “Marjorie’s are very flavorful. Leah might want to ask her advice. If she’s serious about the baking show, I mean.”
Kate pushed ahead. “Anyway, Chief Velázquez—”
“Please, call me Victor.”
“Victor. Louise told me that you worked Miranda Brand’s case. And I wanted to hear about it from your perspective. To make sense of what I’m finding up there.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Why? What are you finding?”
“Papers, letters, photos. That kind of thing.”
“Huh,” he said. “Well, I’d love to help you. But I don’t know anything about art.”
“You don’t have to. I’m more curious about … Well, everyone talks about her death, but I don’t know any of the facts, you know? Just rumors. And I don’t want to ask Theo about it. For obvious reasons. But I’d like to understand how she died.”
Victor frowned. “Didn’t Frank tell me you’re a journalist?”
“I used to be.” She didn’t bother to correct her job title. “Not anymore. But this isn’t for a story.”
“So it’s off the record.”
“Sure. Totally off the record.” It was an easy promise. She couldn’t imagine what newspaper would take any story she wrote.
Mollified, he leaned back in his chair and ran his hand over his mustache.
“Well, where should I start?” he asked.
“Start with finding the body,” Louise said.
He grimaced. “God, it was awful. It was only the second dead body I ever caught up here. I was a rookie. I had been working the traffic beat in Fresno. Saw some car crashes, but this … As soon as I saw her, I actually ran back to the car and threw up. Not my proudest moment. The problem was, I had met her before. It’s a lot harder when it’s someone you’ve seen alive.”
“So you recognized her,” Kate said.
“More or less. I mean, half her head was blown off. But I had recognized the address as soon as we got it off the scanner. The dispatcher said the victim was a woman. I pretty much knew what we’d find.”
“Who called it in?”
“Theo. He found the body.”
“So she was dead when you got there.”
Victor gave her a look. “Like I said. Half her brain was missing.”
“Oh, God,” Louise said, her eyes bright with morbid curiosity.