The Murder Book

had sprayed forty-five coats on a chopped and blown 1938 Dodge Roadster known as the Purple People Eater.

'Another father and son duo,' said Milo.

'Father owns the hotel, son makes use of the premises,' I said. 'And son was a pal of the Cossacks. Meaning he might very well have been at that party. Which turns the prism a whole new way. What if it went down this way: Janie separated from Melinda and tagged along with Burns and Caroline. Burns gave her some dope, introduced her to some of his rich-kid pals. All of a sudden, Janie finds herself face-to-face with Vance Coury, the Prince Charming who tied her up and raped her and dumped her in an alley like garbage. She freaks out, there's an altercation, and Coury, maybe with a little help from his friends, spirits Janie away before she can cause a scene. They subdue her and bring her somewhere secluded, and Coury thinks, hmm, why not take advantage of the situation? We know he's into bondage, and what would be more arousing than helplessness? He does his thing, and this time the others join in. It gets out of hand, goes really bad. Now they need to dump the body. Because of his father's properties, Coury's familiar with downtown, and he picks a spot he knows is quiet and relatively deserted late at night: the Beaudry on-ramp. He takes a buddy or two along, which would explain taking the risk of leaving Janie out in the open. With one person as lookout and to help with the body, the danger would've been minimized.'

Milo stared at the tax roster and placed his finger on Coury's name. 'Boys being boys. The Cossack brothers themselves, not just Caroline.'

'Them, Coury, Brad Larner, maybe the other members of the King's Men- I think their names were Chapman and Hansen.'

'A high school club.'

'A party club,' I said. 'Noted for liquid refreshment, high jinks and other good fun. Janie's murder took place a few years after graduation, but that doesn't mean the fun stopped.'

'So where do Caroline and Burns fit into a gang-bang killing?'

'Both had reason to dislike Janie. So they could've participated. The fact that Caroline was stashed at Achievement House indicates her involvement. So does Burns's disappearance. A gang-bang killing also meshes with the absence of a sequel. It took the right combination to turn things bad: dope, a defiant victim, and the ultimate adolescent drug- group conformity.'

'Adolescent?' he said. 'All the males were in their twenties.'

'Arrested development.'

'Funny you should say that. When I saw the Cossacks' current house, that's exactly what went through my mind.'

He described the eyesore mansion, the cars, the history of neighbor complaints.

'It also matches something else you said early on,' he added. 'Women tend to be affiliative. Caroline wouldn't have had the drive or the strength to slice Janie up by herself, but once Janie was incapacitated, a few cuts and burns would've been easy enough.'

'But Caroline's involvement- and Willie Burns's- created a new level of risk for the boys: two weak links who couldn't be counted on to keep their mouths shut. Caroline because of her mental instability and Burns because he was a junkie with a tendency to flap his gums. What if Burns found himself in a desperate situation- poor cash flow and a strong heroin jones? What if he tried to scratch up some money by blackmailing the others? To a street guy like Burns, a bunch of rich white boys with a very nasty secret would've seemed perfect marks. That would explain Michael Larner's rage at Burns's disappearance. Burns had made himself a very viable threat to Larner's son, and now he was gone. Burns blackmailing would also explain his skipping on Boris Nemerov, even though he'd always been dependable before. Given all that, his paranoid rant about people being after him when he phoned Boris Nemerov makes perfect sense. Burns wasn't worried about going to jail. He'd been part of a brutal murder and had gotten on the wrong side of his coparticipants.'

Milo flipped his notepad open. 'Chapman and Hansen. Any first names?'

'All I read in the yearbook were initials, and I don't remember them.'

'High school,' he said. 'Oh, the glory days.'

'They were Garvey Cossack's glory days. He lied about being class treasurer.'

'Preparing for a career in finance… okay, let's go have a look at that yearbook.'

Within moments of our arrival, we'd filled out details on the other King's Men.

At eighteen, Vance Coury, Jr. had been a good-looking, dark-haired boy with heavy, black eyebrows, a curled-lip smile that bordered on sneer, and a piercing stare. A certain type of girl would've thought him hot.

'Teenage lothario,' I said. Just as Janie described. 'Despite what Melinda said, she wasn't always fantasizing. Ten to one his dad owned a Jag twenty years ago.'

Like the Cossacks and Brad Larner, Coury's out-of-class interests had been limited: auto shop monitor and the King's Men.

L. Chapman turned out to be moon-faced Luke, a hulking, fair-haired boy with a vacant mien.

Nothing on his plate but the King's Men.

The last boy, Nicholas Dale Hansen, was a different story. A clean-cut, button-down youth with an ever-so- serious expression, 'Nick' Hansen had participated in the Junior Chamber of Commerce, Art Club, and the Boy Scouts. He'd also made honor roll for two semesters.

'The smart one in the group,' said Milo. 'Wonder if he was smart enough not to be there.'

'Or the brains behind the organization.'

We got hold of the Who's Who that had helped me locate the boys in the first place. No bios on anyone but Garvey Cossack, Jr.

'Coury's a Van Nuys fender-bender,' said Milo, 'so no big surprise there. And old Luke doesn't look like the brightest bulb in the chandelier. But personally, I'm disappointed in Nick Hansen. Maybe he didn't fulfill his promise.'

We left the library and sat out in front on a stone bench that ran along the reflecting pond flanking the entrance. I watched students come and go as Milo appropriated the identity of a Southwest Division Auto Theft detective and phoned DMV. It took some prodding to get the clerk to go back two decades, but when Milo hung up he'd filled two pages with scrawls: makes, models, owners, and addresses of record.

'Vance Coury, Sr. owned a Jaguar Mark 10 sedan, a Lincoln Continental, and a Camaro.'

'So Janie was right on,' I said. 'The Lincoln was probably the missus's wheels, and Vance, Jr. drove the Camaro. When he was out to impress girls, he took Daddy's car with the deep pile carpeting. Something that would set them at ease before he got them up in that room and pulled out the rope.'

'He's got himself a slew of wheels, now: eight registered vehicles, mostly classics, including a couple of vintage Ferraris.'

'You said the Cossacks had a Ferrari out in front of their house. Maybe the King's Men never went dormant, and Coury's bunking in.'

'Coury's home address is listed in Tarzana, but could be,' he said. 'And guess what: I was wrong about Nicholas Dale Hansen not living up to his capabilities. Drives a BMW 700 and lives in Beverly Hills on North Roxbury. Guess he just didn't want a bio.'

'Modest,' I said.

'Or he shuns the limelight,' he said. 'Because who knows what too much attention can do.'

'What about Luke Chapman?'

'Nothing on him. Never owned a car in California.'

'Meaning he hasn't lived in California for a while,' I said. 'Maybe the family moved out of state after high school. Or it's another disappearing act, voluntary or otherwise. If he was as dull as his picture implies, he would've been considered another weak link.'

'Snipping off loose ends,' he said.

'That makes me think of two other ends, both apparent accidents: Bowie Ingalls hitting that tree and Pierce Schwinn hitting that rock.'

'Oh, your imagination,' he said. 'So how'd the boys get the parents to stash Caroline?'

'She'd been the problem child for years. If she poisoned that dog, her parents probably had a sense the problem was serious. If the boys came to them feigning horror at something terrible Caroline had done, they might very well have believed it.'

'The boys,' he said. 'Bunch of sleazes and that Boy Scout. He's the one who interests me.'