it didn’t seem to clarify anything.”
“Protecting my feeble brain from too much input?”
“Trying to be efficient, Big Guy.”
“Hmph.”
“I’m still not sure it’s relevant. College student suicide isn’t all that rare—five to ten per hundred thousand, meaning two to four a year on a campus the size of the U.”
“But now you’re asking Pena about it.”
“Long as we had him, I figured why not.”
He stared at me. “You don’t see Amanda as Princess of Doom.”
“I was actually wondering if she’s a potential suicide.”
“Why? The program’s too much stress?”
“Her affect’s off—flat, withdrawn. At her brother’s wedding she opted out emotionally. You could see it as hostility but it could be serious depression.”
“Or she’s just got a weird personality.”
“Weird people can get depressed.”
His arms tightened, bunching his jacket sleeves. “Sad, not a brat, huh?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“You took your cautious pills today.”
“Take ’em every day.”
He freed his arms, began finger-counting. “On the other hand, her brother’s wedding is totally ruined by a murder involving heroin and fentanyl and she doesn’t appear to give a damn. A few days later a junkie who just happens to clean up her building spikes himself to death. If we find Lotz died from the same cocktail as Red Dress, I’m breathing hard. We find out so did this Cassy Booker, I’m hyperventilating.”
“You see Amanda as a dope dealer?”
“I don’t see anything, I’m just feeling weird.” He slipped on rubber gloves. “You’re obviously not, good for you. I’m gonna go excavate.”
“Want help?”
“No, too cramped in there.”
* * *
—
I get paid irregularly and stingily by LAPD but refuse to go on the department payroll because it would kill my spirit and radically slash my income. The uncharted arrangement Milo and I have makes a lot of what I do—driving him around, questioning witnesses, inspecting crime scenes—a potential violation. That’s never caused a problem because Milo’s solve rate is astonishing and the chief thinks I’m part of that—he’s the one who tried to lure me into civil servitude.
On top of that, for all its paramilitary stance, LAPD flexibility is commonplace even when there’s scant benefit to the department. A glaring example is celebrities swapping ride-alongs for autographs and selfies cops can show their kids.
Back in 1991, a charming, good-looking Austrian writer named Jack Unterweger came to L.A. on a magazine assignment about international law enforcement and got chauffeured around the downtown red-light district by veteran detectives. Unterweger turned out to be a sexual sadist who’d strangled seven women in Europe and he used what he’d been shown to savage three additional victims.
Despite that, no change in policy resulted, because L.A. is Improv City: Reinvent yourself, make up the rules as you go along, all the while inhaling whatever whiff of fame you can suck from your aspirational bong.
I’m fully at ease tossing victims’ residences, not so much standing around and doing nothing as Milo pulled a peeved solo.
No problem, it would pass.
* * *
—
I walked around the parking garage until I snagged some bars on my phone, checked my mail and my messages, wrote a few replies. Then I looked up Academo, Inc.
Closely held corporation in Columbus, Ohio. Scant info beyond a couple of articles in business magazines that specialized in financial porn.
The forty-five-year-old brainchild of an Ohio State alum and benefactor named Anthony Nobach, the company was presented as a model of entrepreneurial spirit. Born to humble beginnings, Nobach had earned spending cash as a freshman by charging fellow students modest fees for locating cheap housing. The following year he created a moving company named Cheap Tony’s with rates tailored for students.
By the time Nobach graduated, he’d amassed several parcels of depressed real estate near campus and was converting slums and tear-downs to low-rent student rentals. His next step was rehabbing a failed government housing project bought on the cheap and creating a private student dorm, with much of the cost absorbed by the university and a federal housing grant.
Academo now owned and operated mega-structures in Boston, Cleveland, Syracuse, Rochester, Bloomington, Salt Lake City, Tucson, L.A., and San Diego. Anthony Nobach, described as “religious and a model of mid-Western probity,” remained as CEO. A younger brother, Marden, was the chief operational officer.
Online consumer ratings were the predictably meaningless mix of adoration and excoriation. Overall grade: 3.5 stars.
Keywording academo inc and death produced nothing. So did substituting suicide and murder for death. An image search pulled up shots of other properties. The company favored characterless structures with the same unbroken façade as the building we were in.
I called