Compulsion

“Put her out of the mood,” I said.

“Put me out of the mood,” said Browning. “Kat was always ready. Made a lot of noise. Sometimes it got so loud you could almost think she was faking it but she wasn’t.”

“How could you tell?”

“No one fakes it with me. No need to.”

“Mr. Speedfreak and Mr. Amoral Cretin,” said Milo. “She did know how to pick ’em.”

He sped back to the city, fighting the curves on Coldwater Canyon. “Good thinking bringing up the cross- dresser.”

“Browning’s her most recent lover, I figured it might come up.”

“Pillow talk… sounds like she told everyone who’d listen.”

“Proud of herself,” I said. “For handling him.”

“Aggressive with the wrong guy. But putting that aside, do either of these jokers bear further attention?”

I said, “Cline’s got the anger and the dope-fed impulsiveness to do damage to Kat if she caught him at the wrong time. But he’s got no obvious motive and he seems way too wired to pull off something so well planned. My guess is the agency security logs will back up his alibi but I’d definitely try to get them. Browning comes across agreeable but to my mind, he’s scarier. He lies easily and lives to manipulate and I have no doubt he’d eliminate Kat, or anyone else who got in his way. His alibi’s even simpler to verify.”

“Tenecia Lawrence,” Milo said, digging his notepad out of his pocket. “Let’s do it before Browning preps her. Your turn, I need two hands on the wheel.”

I put my cell on speaker and called the number he’d written down. A female voice answered with a high, chirpy “This is Neesh.”

When I told her the reason for the call, she dropped from soprano to alto. “Am I in trouble?”

I cited the date. “We need to know if you were with Michael-”

“He told you?” Her voice broke. “It was supposed to be totally secret.”

“It can stay that way,” I said.

“Please,” she said. “My parents.”

“True or not, Tenecia?”

“Um… how do I know you’re the police?”

“If you’d like we can drop by in person.”

“No, no, that’s okay.”

“Were you with Michael?”

Silence.

“Tenecia?”

A scared little girl’s voice said, “Yes, I was. My dad’s a fire captain and that weekend he took my mom to a reunion at Lake Arrowhead, all the battalions that had fought the big Laguna fire. Michael wanted to come to the house but I wouldn’t let him, no way. He would’ve stood out.”

“Why?”

“We live in Ladera Heights,” she said.

Prosperous black suburb.

I said, “Where did you and Michael go?”

“You’ll really keep this secret?”

“If you’re truthful, there’s no reason for it to get out.”

“Okay, um – Michael picked me up at school and we drove to a hotel.”

“Which one?”

“Dayside Inn.”

“Where is that?”

“Near the airport, I don’t know the street. We stayed in all day. Watched movies. The Wedding Planner and Prime with Uma Thurman and Meryl Streep ’cause it’s one of my favorites. Michael was okay with it, he likes chick flicks.”

“Then what?”

“Then the next day we went to Long Beach, visited the aquarium. I’d never been there.”

Silence.

“It’s really pretty,” she said. “The aquarium.”

“What happened after that, Tenecia?”

“Nothing.”

“You stayed in Long Beach.”

“I – this is going to sound… we were just having fun.”

“Where’d you go?”

Audible sigh. “Another hotel. Best Western, near the aquarium. The next day, we came home. I mean, not right away. First we went to dinner at Sizzler, then we drove through Palos Verdes to see the ocean. Then we went to Michael’s house in Granada Hills. I was nervous to go there but it was dark and Michael said it was okay. The next morning, he drove me back to school. I didn’t have a class until one p.m., so we had breakfast on campus, hung out, then he drove to work. Am I in trouble?”

“Not if you’ve been truthful.”

“I have been, I swear.”

“So you were definitely with Mr. Browning the entire weekend.”

“I won’t see him anymore,” she said. “He’s too old for me. Is he in trouble?”

“Nothing for you to worry about, Tenecia.”

“Okay, but I’m really not going to see him. You won’t have to call again, will you? Sometimes my dad picks up my phone.”

“You’re fine, Tenecia.”

“Thank you so much. Thank you.”

Milo said, “Poor kid, we mighta scared her into celibacy.”

“If she keeps away from Browning,” I said, “we did our good deed for the day.”

“Lowlife. Too bad he’s not our guy.”

He called in for messages. Gordon Beverly wanted to know if anything was new. Milo reached him, spent a few tortured minutes trying to be therapeutic.

Another try at Bradley Maisonette’s parole officer produced a third burst of voice mail. Milo left an irate message and dialed Wilson Good’s home number.

“No answer. Screw his flu, let’s go bug the coach.”

CHAPTER 19

No cars behind the mesh gate at Wilson Good’s house. No answer to the bell ring.

A call to St. Xavier confirmed that Coach Good was still out sick.

I said, “Maybe he went to the doctor.”

Milo took in the sliver of view between the house and its northern neighbor. “Guy made a nice life for himself… okay, back to the gristmill.”

Sean Binchy waved the Bentley key.

His presence in Milo’s office meant no room to move and rapid oxygen depletion.

Milo said, “Heubel give it up easily?”

“Had to work on him a little, Loot. I figured telling him about Shonsky might do the trick but he got pretty freaked out, like ‘Don’t tell me stuff like that.’ He didn’t like the idea of the car being messed with but I got him to see it was important.”

“Where’s the car?”