“Delvecchio's in Tarzana.” He bowed and flourished. “ “And how would you like your steak done, sir? Rare? But what's my motivation?' ”
“Professor Dirkhoff said you'd gotten an acting job.”
The handsome face darkened. “Ouch.”
“What hurts?”
“Failure. Yes, that was true- Hollywood-true- when I told him I was dropping out. But I would have left, anyway. The classes were too theoretical. Waste of tuition.”
“What's Hollywood-true?”
“An air sandwich on imaginary bread.”
“The job fell through?”
“It never got far enough to fall through. I allowed myself to be naively optimistic because my audition went great and my agent told me I was a shoo-in.”
“What happened?”
“Someone else got the job and I didn't.”
“Why?”
“Hell if I know. They never tell you.”
“What show was it?”
“Some soap opera, independent deal for cable.”
“Did it go into production?”
“Everything was really preliminary. They didn't even have a name for it, something about spies and diplomats, foreign embassies. The casting director told me I was up for the James Bond part. Wear a patch on one eye and sweep ladies off their feet. Then she pinched my ass and said, “Yum, grade-A, prime.' Where are those conduct committees when you need them?”
16
Milo came to the house from the airport, arriving at seven and looking disheveled.
“Where are the white shoes?” I said.
He flexed a scuffed desert boot. “Decided to go formal.” He sat down at the kitchen table and took an eight- by twelve-inch photo out of his briefcase.
Torso-length color promo shot of a stunning young woman with long, silky, dark hair, feather-blushed cheekbones, bite-me lips slightly parted, amazed oblong eyes the color of espresso.
She wore a white-sequined, strapless dress and leaned forward, offering full, surging breasts split by deep cleavage. A wide diamond choker circled her neck. Diamond clips on each ear. Too many carats to be real. Some sort of wind machine had been used to gently blow the hair back from her face. Her smile was inviting yet mocking.
At the bottom:
AMANDA WRIGHTACTRESS AND DANCERREPRESENTED BY ONYX ASSOCIATES
“Her agents?” I said.
“Vegas PD says they're a defunct slick-sleaze outfit, used to do casino booking for topless acts. Mandy had no criminal record, which isn't unusual for the high-class honeys who show up when the chips start piling and do the old thigh-rub. Other vital statistics: She was single, liked to party, did grass, pills, coke. Her last boyfriend was a blackjack dealer named Ted Barnaby, also a cokehead, moved to Reno soon after the murder. Vegas interviewed him the day after, he was cooperative and had an alibi: working all that night, verified by the pit boss. Also, he seemed genuinely torn up about her death.”
“But he moved.”
“It didn't set off any alarms because casino people are transient. A detective took me over to the crime scene last night. Middle-class condos, quiet. Not a lot of trees like Hope's street, but there was a huge eucalyptus growing right in front of Mandy's building and that's where he got her. Vegas and I have both been calling all over the country and no other matches have turned up yet, but there's plenty to do.”
“Any record of Mandy living in L.A.?”
“Not so far. She'd been leasing the same apartment for almost three years, grew up in Hawaii, no police record there, either. Wouldn't surprise me if she came down to L.A. at one time or another, but her credit-card receipts don't show it and they do show other travel.”
“Where?”
Reaching into the briefcase again, he produced a thick black binder that he flipped open and placed next to the photo. Wetting his thumb, he turned to a page that showed two years of Visa and MasterCard summaries reduced to tiny print, three statements per page.
Mandy Wright's monthly bills ranged from five hundred dollars to four thousand. Plenty of overdue notices and interest charges. A couple of defaults. Both times she'd been cut off and switched companies.
I ran my finger down the itemized expenditures. Mostly clothes, cosmetics, jewelry, and restaurants. The travel information had been circled. A dozen flights: two each to Aspen and Park City, Utah; six to Honolulu; one to New York; one to New Orleans.
“Well-traveled lady,” I said. “Business trips?”
“Hawaii might have been personal, she's got a brother there, but yeah, the rest could be work: the ski places for the winter- working the lodges as a snow bunny. New Orleans was during Mardi Gras and that's a big-time hooker scene. New York could be anything any time of the year.”
“But no L.A.,” I said. “Isn't Vegas to L.A. a big hooker run? Don't you find it odd that she flew everywhere
“Maybe she doesn't like smog,” he said. “Maybe she drove down. But you're right, lots of girls do make the desert run regularly. Last year we had some married women from the Westside picking up change by giving head in motels, back home in time to serve dinner. So maybe Mandy had a regular client in L.A. who didn't want records kept.” He tapped the photo. “A girl who looked like that, you could see some rich guy paying her to come down regularly, keep it from the wife.”
He got a beer and I examined the rest of the folder, starting with the summary of Ted Barnaby's interview. A single paragraph written by a Detective A. Holzer, who'd spoken to the boyfriend before he left for Reno. Barnaby had shown “tears and other evidence of grief. Subject professes no knowledge of any motive for the homicide. Says he knew victim did “some call-girl' work, “that's why we didn't live together. She needed her own place.' Subject also says he didn't like the fact that victim engaged in prostitution and that he and victim had argued about this in the past but he'd come to accept it. “You've got to accept people on their terms.' His alibi checks out, verified by Franklin A. Varese, casino pit supervisor, and fellow dealers Sandra Boething and Luis Maldonado.”
Next, autopsy and lab reports:
The toxicology screen showed a moderate amount of cocaine in Mandy Wright's blood the night of the murder.
Midnight murder. Hope had been stabbed just after 11:00 P.M.
I flipped a page.
The wound pattern, described almost word-for-word as in Hope's file.
The initial blow to the heart had collapsed the organ, death resulting from exsanguination and shock. Prior to that, Mandy Wright's cardiovascular system had been in excellent condition, the arteries clear and unobstructed. No venereal disease, including HIV. No evidence of any outstanding illness or infection other than minor nasal erosion probably due to cocaine abuse.
The final paragraph cited significant expansion of the anal opening and fibroid scarring of the rectum indicating a history of anal sex, but vaginal sexual intercourse had not taken place within the past twenty-four hours. Postmortem examination of the pelvic region revealed no tumors or other pathology; however, changes related to
