Compulsion

The head showed first.

Kat Shonsky had been buried three feet deep, stripped of her clothing, stretched out on her back with her legs slightly parted. Her skin was greenish gray, marbled, slipping loose from its skeletal underpinning. White-blond hair served as a nest for worms. Where putrefaction hadn’t taken over, black hyphens were evident.

Probable stab wounds. I stopped counting at twenty-three.

In the grave was a purple silk scarf, placed diagonally across the abdomen and upper thighs. Removing it revealed Katrina Shonsky’s driver’s license. Wedged between her labia.

“There’s a statement for you,” said Diana Ponce, the C.I. kneeling above the body.

Milo said, “Look what I did.”

“And I want the whole world to know it.”

Ponce bagged the license and called for a large envelope for the scarf. While she waited, she inspected Katrina Shonsky’s neck. No obvious ligature marks but there wasn’t much neck left and the final say would be the coroner’s.

Placing the scarf back on the body, she cupped the remains of the head gently in one hand and probed with the other. “There’s bone breakage at the back, Milo. Want to feel it?”

Milo got down next to her, and she guided his gloved hand.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Like cracked eggshell.”

“Someone bopped her good,” said Ponce. “Maybe to knock her out before he cut her?” She looked up at the twin houses. “This close to private property, you’d want to keep things quiet.”

Milo stood. “You should be a detective, Diana.”

She grinned. “According to the tube, I already am.”

The envelope arrived. Setting the head down with reverence, Ponce removed the scarf and unfurled it. Diaphonous thing; it waved in the breeze.

“Louis Vuitton label.”

Milo said, “I thought they did luggage.”

“They do everything, Lieutenant.” Ponce admired the silk. The breeze blew harder and a few granules of dirt slid off the garment and spattered the body. Ponce handed the scarf off and used tweezers to recover them.

Milo said, “Costs a fortune but it was left here.”

Perfect opening for one of those jokes cops and techs sometimes tell to buffer the horror.

This time, no one did.

Crypt attendants wrapped the body in plastic and took it away. Moments later Diana Ponce left and the criminalists got to work.

Milo said, “Time to get over to Monica Hedges. You can meet me there if you want.”

“Sure.”

I followed him to Wilshire, turned left. At Warner he pulled over, motioned me to do the same.

“Aborted mission. No answer at the Hedges, not exactly the time to leave a message. Let’s check out the place where Kat worked. You’re a fashionable guy.”

“Not really.”

“Too bad,” he said. “I was hoping you could interpret.”

La Femme Boutique was on San Vicente west of Barrington, squeezed between a coffee emporium specializing in Indonesian brew and a hair salon crowded with beautiful heads.

The shop was high, narrow, and white, hung with vintage absinthe posters and floored in weathered, wine- colored marble. The few pieces of furniture were heavy and Victorian, the clothes in the window frothy and fitted to malnourished mannequins.

No shoppers in sight. Milo and I passed through a narrow aisle walled by double-high racks. Some of the dresses and tops were marked Sale, which put them into three figures.

Edith Piaf on the stereo, Made in France on the labels.

Designers I’d never heard of, but that meant nothing.

He said, “I didn’t look that closely at the stuff in Kat’s pad but it wasn’t like this. She didn’t have any scarves, either – hey, how’s it going?”

Addressing a hollow-cheeked brunette in a black lace top, sitting behind the sales counter, drinking Evian and reading InStyle. Behind her was a high shelf of bath toys, fruit-shaped candles, pastes and gels that wouldn’t get past airport security.

She got up and glided around the counter, head back, hips leading, like a runway model. Thirty, give or take, with deeply shadowed dark eyes. Makeup thick as cake frosting worked at masking a complexion not much better than Milo’s. The black top was tucked tight into cream calfskin jeans.

“Hey, guys. Someone buying a guilt gift or are we talking birthday?”

Milo tugged his lapel to one side and revealed his shield. “Police. Katrina Shonsky’s body was just found a few miles away. She was murdered.”

Hollow cheeks puffed. Eyelids vibrated. “Omigod, omigod – Kat!”

She bent at the knees. I caught her elbow, walked her to a puce velvet divan. Milo fetched her water bottle and dribbled some between her lips.

She gulped. Started to hyperventilate. I returned to the counter and got a shopping bag printed with the store’s name. By the time I got back, she was breathing normally and talking to Milo.

Her name was Amy Koutsakas but she called herself Amelie, had been working with Kat Shonsky for just over a year. At first she sang the dead woman’s praises. We sat that out and let the shock wear off and soon she was confiding that she and Kat hadn’t been close. “Not that I’m bad-mouthing her. God forbid.”

Milo said, “You guys just didn’t hit it off.”

“We never fought, but to be honest, Lieutenant, we had different professional views.”

“Of what?”

“This job. Kat could be tactless.”

“With you or the customers?”

“Both,” said Amelie. “I’m not saying she went out of her way to be mean, it just… I don’t know what I’m really saying. Sorry. I can’t believe this…”

I said, “Kat was sharp-tongued.”

“She was – sometimes it was what she didn’t say. To the customers.”

“Not good at stroking egos.”

She sat up straight. “To be honest, guys, this business is all about fear. Most of our clientele is mature, who else can afford the prices? We’re talking about used-to-be size eights who are now fourteens. When you get older your body changes. I know, because my mom was a dancer and that happened to her.”

Stroking her own flat-plane abdomen.

Milo said, “Kat didn’t understand that.”

“We get lots of women coming in for special occasions. Wanting to look really fabulous and ready to pay for it. Sometimes it’s a challenge but you need to work with the customer. You examine her assets and liabilities without being obvious, guide her toward stuff that’ll minimize her issues. If she tries on something and it turns out horrible, you say something nice and ease her toward something else.”

“Applied psychology,” said Milo.

“I was a psych major in college and believe me, it helps.”

I said, “Kat didn’t take that approach.”

“Kat thought her job was to help carry garments to the dressing room and stand around examining her nails during the try-on. She’d never volunteer an opinion. Never. Even when the client was obviously needy – crying out for validation. I tried to tell her we were more than attendants. Her answer was ‘These are grown-ups, they can make their own choices.’ But that’s not fair. People need support, right? Even if something looked good Kat would just stand there and say nothing. She gave no guidance and that led to customers bringing a lot of her sales back. Returns come straight off the commission.”

Milo said, “Do you guys split commission?”