“Where was the DVD found?”
“Stuck in the middle of a stack of her favorite movies. Or so the file claims.”
“Creighton didn’t mention it.”
“Like I said, it got messengered.”
“By who?”
“Guy in a suit.”
“And a badge?”
“That, too.”
I said, “Any explanation?”
“A note in the envelope said it was found in a stack of the victim’s DVDs.”
“But not cataloged as evidence.”
“Funny ’bout that.”
“Who took the initial call?”
“Two North Hollywood D’s who have absolutely nothing to say to me.”
“Are you planning to tell me what got the gears grinding?”
“It wasn’t her,” he said. “They couldn’t care less about her.
I said, “The suspects are the point. Where they’re employed.”
“You never heard that from me.”
“A school has that much clout?”
“It does when the right people’s kids are enrolled. You ever have patients from Windsor Prep?”
“A few.”
“Any pattern you’d care to share?”
“Affluent, attractive kids. For the most part, bright, but under lots of pressure academically, athletically, and socially. In other words, no different from any other prep school.”
“This case makes it real different.”
“Because of one student in particular.”
Silence.
“College applications go in soon,” I said. “Here’s a wild guess: The chief has a kid aiming for the Ivy League.”
He shoved a coarse shock of hair off his brow. Fuzzy light advertised every pock and knot on his face. “
“Son or daughter?”
“Son,” he said. “Only child. Another Einstein, according to his mommy, the Virgin Mary.”
“Talk about a mixed metaphor.”
“What the hell, they were both nice Jewish boys.”
“Graduating senior?”
“Graduating with honors and aiming for Yale.”
I said, “It’s the toughest year ever, huge upsurge of applications, lots of honor students are going to be disappointed. A couple of patients I saw as little kids have come back for moral support and they say the most trivial factor can nudge the scales. A big-time scandal would energize the Rejection Gods.”
He bowed. “O Great Swami of the East, your wisdom has pierced the miasma.” He began circling the room. “Ol’ Stanley was wrong. Why I
Creighton might’ve been off about that but to my eye he was right about the house yielding nothing of value.
The miserly space had already taken on an abandoned feel. The front room, carelessly and cheaply furnished, sported a U-build bookshelf full of high school texts, SAT and ACT practice manuals, a few photography volumes featuring pretty shots of faraway places, paperbacks by Jane Austen, Aphra Behn, and George Eliot.
The plywood-and-Formica kitchenette was a sixties bootleg. Wilting fruit and vegetables moldered in the mini-fridge; a couple of Lean Cuisine boxes sat in the freezer compartment. A kitchen cabinet was crammed full of liquor mini-bottles and some full-sized quarts. Budget gin but Grey Goose vodka, no mixers prettying up intentions.
The sole bedroom was a nine-by-nine cave set up with a twin bed and IKEA trimmings.
Gloomy because a single window looked out to a wall of creeping ivy. Hillside close enough to touch but the frame was painted shut. A cheap fan in the corner pretended to circulate air. No match for faint overtones of decomposition.
Faint because dry ice had slowed down the inevitable. But we all rot, it’s just a matter of time.
I said, “Any maggots?”
“A sprinkle in her nose and ears, mommy flies probably got in under the door. Little bastards were frozen stiff, dumb vermin.”
He searched the room. A limited, drab wardrobe filled a makeshift closet. Oppressively sensible down to white cotton, full-cut underwear.
Crowding the bed was a space-saving, nearly wood desk. Vase of dry flowers on top, next to a pale rectangle where the computer had sat. A photo in a white wood frame showed Elise Freeman and a red-bearded bald man around her age standing near a bank of slot machines in an excruciatingly bright, garish room. Both of them in T- shirts and shorts, glazed around the eyes, beaming. The man held up a sheaf of paper money. Elise Freeman snaked an arm around his waist and flashed a victory sign.
On the bottom frame panel, cursive in red marker read:
Milo said, “Nice to be lucky once in a while,” and continued to have his way with drawers and shelves.
The final stop was the bathroom. Modular fiberglass prefab unit; another aftermarket.
The medicine cabinet had been emptied by the crime scene techs. The tub was grubby but unhelpful.
Milo kept staring at it. If he was feeling vibrations, he wasn’t showing it.
Finally, he turned away. “Boyfriend’s a guy not surprisingly named Sal, last name Fidella. He let himself in with his own key. Her car was here, no sign of forced entry or disarray. He found her in the tub immersed in dry ice, naked and blue. Accounting for sublimation, someone bought bags of the stuff, maybe twenty, thirty pounds. Because of no blood, the initial assumption was an O.D. Even though she hadn’t vomited and Fidella claims she didn’t use drugs and there were no pill bottles nearby. Fidella called 911. The tape’s in the file and I’ve listened to it three times. He sounds totally freaked. But I haven’t met him and I know nothing about him except what North Hollywood wrote. Which is no more than his driver’s license says, so I’m reserving judgment.”
“Where does he live?”
“Not far from here, Sherman Oaks.”
“A couple but they live apart.”
“Sometimes that works better.”
“Sometimes it means domestic drama.”
“You’ll have a chance to meet the guy. Any other insights?”
“On the DVD she doesn’t come across theatrical. Just the opposite: When she had good reason to dramatize, she played herself down.”
“Depressed. You’re thinking suicide?”
“Was she on top of the ice or submerged?”
“Partially submerged.”
“That would’ve meant severe cold-pressor pain within seconds. Skin burns, as well.”
“She was burned, all right.”
“Most suicides avoid pain,” I said. “And displaying yourself that way is flamboyant and exhibitionistic, nothing like the woman on that disc.”
“Maybe she was trying to draw attention to those three teachers.”
“In that case, she would’ve left a note and made sure the DVD was out in the open, not in the middle of a stack. Better yet, she’d have mailed it. There’s also the matter of no empty ice bags.”
