“Nothing.”
“Nothing? You said she was in trouble.”
“She is, Samantha. The worst kind of trouble.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She’s dead, Samantha.”
“Huh? What? How?”
“Someone killed her.”
“What’re you saying? That’s crazy!”
Milo didn’t reply.
She made a run for the kitchenette, stared at the fridge, returned, wringing her hands. “Killed? Oh my God oh my God oh my God. Killed? Really? Someone killed her? Who? When?”
“Who we don’t know. When was the night before last, Samantha.”
“So then why are you-oh, no, no, God no, not that, you can’t believe I’d ever-no, it wasn’t like that. I mean I don’t-didn’t like her but that? No no no no no. No uh-uh. No.”
“We’re talking to everyone in Vita’s past.”
“I’m not in her past! Please. I can’t stand this!”
“Sorry to upset you, Samantha-”
“I am upset. I’m totally upset. That you would think that? That you would-”
“Please sit back down, Samantha, so we can clear this up quickly and be out of your way.”
He motioned toward the chair she’d vacated. She stared, sank down. “I really can’t take any more stress. I’m like at the end of my-my freakin’ husband cheated on me with who was supposed to be my freakin’ friend. Then he left me with a pile of debt I didn’t even know about that lost me my house and screwed up my credit. Do you know what I used to have? A three-bedroom house in Tujunga, I used to have a horse I rode out in Shadow Hills. I used to have a Jeep Wagoneer. Now you’re coming here and thinking terrible things about me and if you go to the company and say those things I won’t even have my job!”
Milo said, “No one suspects you, Samantha, this is routine. Which is why I need to ask you-even though it’s a crazy question-where were you the night before last?”
“Where was I? I was here. I don’t go anywhere, it takes money to go anywhere. I watched TV. I used to have a fifty-inch flat-screen. Now I have a little computer screen in my bedroom, everything’s tiny, my whole freakin’ world’s tiny.”
Covering her mouth with her hands, she wept.
Maybe the closest to mourning Vita Berlin would merit.
Milo fetched her water and when she stopped crying, eased the glass toward her lips while resting a big paw on her forearm.
She drank. Wiped her eyes. “Thank you.”
“Thank you for putting up with us, Samantha. Now please give us the names of the other people Vita claimed had harassed her.”
I expected resistance but Samantha Pelleter’s mouth set crookedly. This smile was hard to characterize.
“You bet,” she said. “I’ll write you out a list. Time to look out for myself, I don’t care about anyone else’s issues.”
From a kitchenette drawer, she retrieved a scrap of paper and a pen. Writing quickly, she presented the list to Milo as if it were a school project. 1. Cleve Dawkins 2. Andrew Montoya 3. Candace Baumgartner 4. Zane Banion
“Appreciate it, Samantha. Are any of these people unusually strong?”
“Sure,” she said. “Zane is big and strong. He’s fat, but he used to play football. And Andrew’s into fitness. He bikes to work, says if people took care of themselves they wouldn’t get sick in the first place.”
“What about Cleve and Candace?”
“They’re regular.”
“They stick to the script.”
“We all do,” she said. “That’s the point.”
Milo drove north on Sepulveda. “Little Miss Sealed Lips, but get her feeling threatened and she rats out her work buddies. Any alarm bells go off?”
“As a psychologist, her fragility bothers me. As your lackey, I don’t see her as a serious suspect.”
“Lackey? And here I was thinking sage or pundit.”
“Well,” I said, “once upon a time there was a particularly obnoxious rooster who wouldn’t stop hassling the hens in the barnyard. Finally, the farmer was forced to take action. He castrated the rooster and turned him into a pundit.”
He laughed. “Sage, then. Unless you’ve got a story about that.”
“Once upon a time, there was an obnoxious rooster…”
“Fine form. Anyway, I agree. If anyone lacks the nerve, the physical ability, and the smarts to do what was done to Vita, it’s ol’ Samantha. But maybe one of the other jokers at Well-Start will turn out to be more interesting.”
He called Moe Reed, passed the four names along, ordered background checks.
Reed said, “Will do. I had no luck with the pizza box so far but Sean’s still out there. You got a call from the coroners, labs are back on Berlin.”
“Too quick for a tox.”
“Guess they prioritized, Loo.”
“I’m talking scientifically, Moses.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s true,” said Reed. “Okay, I’ll run these jokers through, get back to you if I learn anything.”
Clicking off, Milo punched in a preset number.
Dr. Clarice Jernigan said, “Hi, there.”
“Labs are back so soon?”
“Who told you that?”
“That was the message I got.”
“Wonderful,” said Jernigan. “New secretary, she watches too much TV, likes to throw the jargon around. No, sorry to get your hopes up, Milo. Full labs will take weeks. But I was calling about your victim’s blood alcohol and with that, you might not need the tox. She pulled a level of. 26, more than thrice the legal limit. Even being the serious alcoholic her liver says she was, she’d have been pretty vulnerable. So there’d be no need to use anything else to subdue her.”
“Drunk,” he said.
“As the perennial black-and-white-striped mammal.”
“Her liver,” he said. “You’ve done the autopsy?”
“Not yet, but I was able to do a visual on a few organs, courtesy of your killer. Once we got rid of all the congealed blood. Which by my estimate was nearly all she started out with. Meaning your offender was meticulous, barely spilled a drop.”
“Someone with medical training?”
“I can’t exclude it but no, you wouldn’t need anything close to that level of skill.”
“What would you need?”
“The strength and confidence to perform two major incisions with a really sharp blade and a strong enough stomach to snip the intestines free. A butcher could do it. A deer hunter could do it. So could anyone with a warped mind and the wrong kind of knowledge. Which you can get off the Internet, if so inclined. In any event, I didn’t need to dissect the liver to know it was seriously cirrhotic. Most of the darn thing was fatty and gray, not a pretty thing to behold. But as I said, even with her being a lush, a. 26 could’ve seriously affected her judgment, reaction time, coordination, and strength. A cinch to overpower. Ask Dr. Delaware next time you speak to him. He can probably give you some behavioral parameters.”
I said, “I’m here, Clarice.”
“Oh, hi. You concur?”
“Completely.”
