“Brother Brian. He’s the oldest. Brother Michael, he’s the youngest, is finishing up at Columbia with a B.A. in econ. He’s looking for real estate investments for us. For when it ends and we go passive-income.”
Suki clicked another keyboard. “Three new Sweeties just came in, Rosie.”
“Yes!”
Milo said, “You weren’t surprised we showed up.”
“My assumption,” said Suki, “is you came across us while doing some sort of prostitution cybercrawl. Since that psycho Craigslist killer in Boston, there’ve been clamp-downs on adult services. But we’re not adult in
“Or various body parts.”
Rosalynn said, “Before we began, we vetted extensively. The courts have already considered the issue of multiple services and—”
“We know,” said Milo. He leaned forward. “Sorry to disappoint you but your guess is wrong.”
“About what?”
He showed them his card.
Suki’s eyes widened. “Homicide?”
Rosalynn said, “Another Craigslist psychopath? Damn. But not on our database, I can assure you, no way. We screen carefully. By that I do not mean just some boilerplate records search like other sites do. We check every single criminal database that’s available to us. We even scan court records for civil suits.”
Suki said, “Which is in our best interest, anyway. Who wants some litigious jerk making your life complicated?”
I said, “Anyone who’s been in civil court is excluded?”
“Of course not, that would eliminate just about everyone with money. What we do—what Brian does—is evaluate to see if there’s a clear pattern of duplicity, any sort of major financial impropriety or habitual obnoxiousness. What we call pond pebbles—the kind that trip you up when you’re swimming in a lovely, pristine stream.”
“Like at our place in Arrowhead,” said Rosalynn. “Two acres, we just got it.”
She played with Milo’s card. “So, who got murdered?”
“A young woman, who we’ve been led to believe advertised on your site.”
“Led to believe?” said Suki. Her hands flew to a keyboard. “Give me a name and I’ll let you know either way.”
“We don’t have a name yet.”
She sat back, spun her chair a couple of times. “Then why in the world would you think she was a Sweetie?”
“We’ve been informed that she was.”
“By who?”
“I can’t say.”
The sisters looked at each other. Each shook her head, as if ruing the delivery of bad news.
Suki said, “Guys. C’mon. That kind of bluff is not going to cut it. Even if it is true, your informant could be a competitor bad-mouthing us. Or someone we rejected trying to get back at us.”
“Or just an annoying jerk hacker,” said her sister. “The Internet brings them out.”
“Did they give you their name?” said Suki. “So we could at least evaluate their veracity?”
“Anonymous tip.”
Both girls laughed.
Suki said, “Like on TV, huh?”
“They’re for real,” said Milo. “They solve murders.”
“Anonymous tip,” Rosalynn repeated. “I know you guys are just doing your job, but obviously following up on something like that would be tenuous, to say the least. Who’s to say there’s any validity to it?”
“Only one way to find out,” said Milo. “Furnish us with a list of Sweeties, including headshots.”
The sisters studied each other. Silently calculating who should handle the situation.
Finally, Rosalynn said, “You seem like nice guys, but why on earth would we turn over our entire data bank on the basis of something so far-fetched?”
“Because it could help solve a murder.”
“Could-should-might-maybe?” said Suki. “The cost-effective potential is pathetic. Especially considering the multiple assaults on privacy that kind of excavation would entail.”
Milo opened his case, removed a death shot of Princess, and passed it to her.
She stared for a second, pushed it away. “Okay, you’ve grossed me out, that’s utterly repugnant. However, even being grossed out doesn’t stop me from raising the cardinal question: If she doesn’t have a face, how could you possibly match her to someone in our data bank?”
Rosalynn said, “Let me see it, Suk.”
“Trust me, you don’t want to.”
“If you saw it, I need to see it, Suk, otherwise I’ll be hungry for dinner by seven and you won’t have any appetite and we’ll get on a different schedule and we’ll be messed up for days.”
Suki played with her hair. Passed the photo.
Rosalynn stuck out her tongue. “Beyond repugnant. Hard to believe it’s real, there’s almost a special-effects quality.”
“It’s real,” said Milo.
“I’m just saying. It’s so gross, it’s almost like it’s phony.”
Suki said, “We respect the police, our great-great-grandfather was a police chief in Armenia. But without a face—it’s beyond tenuous, it’s
Rosalynn held the picture out to Milo. He took his time retrieving it, searched the case, and came up with Alex Shimoff’s portrait.
Suki Agajanian frowned. “If you have an intact face, why did you show us that
Her sister said, “Obviously for shock value, Suk, in order to jolt us into compliance. You don’t need to manipulate us, guys. We’re on your side.”
Suki said, “We’re not First Amendment–obsessed dweebs ready to fight you in court for every shred of data. Give us a name and we can tell you in seconds if she was one of ours. If she was, we’ll also tell you who she linked with. But absent a name, there’s nothing we can do and no logical reason for us to release our data bank. Like we told you, it’s almost twelve thousand names, most of them Sweeties.”
Milo said, “I’m a patient guy.”
“You’d go through that many photos? That sounds incredibly inefficient.”
I said, “Do you subdivide by personal characteristics? Our victim was blond with dark eyes.”
“We do subclassify,” said Rosalynn, “but that won’t help you because nearly eighty percent of our Sweeties are blond so we’re still talking thousands.”
“Apparently, fair hair connotes youth and vitality,” said Suki, fluffing her own raven coif.
“Same for small noses,” said Rose, wrinkling her aquiline appendage. “Anything that evokes childhood in an overall sexually mature package does the trick with the male animal.”
Her sister laughed. “Apparently guys are all pedophiles at heart.”
I said, “What percentage of your blondes have dark eyes?”
“Uh-uh,” said Suki. “You’re not getting in through the back door.”
Milo said, “Five four, a hundred and five.”
“We don’t categorize by weight because it fluctuates and people lie and we don’t want to be held to anything. Plus, we’re not running a meat market.”
I said, “More like a gourmet deli.”
Both sisters stared. Broke into simultaneous smiles as if a cluster of shared neurons had fired.
“I
“Gourmet deli,” said Rosalynn. “It’s a little overtly oral, but yeah, maybe some variant would work—the haute
