“Did Tara have any other visitors?”
“Not that I saw.”
The shot of Steven Muhrmann elicited a head shake. “Looks mean. He’s the one who killed her?”
“We’re not even close to a suspect, Mr. Haldeman. In fact, we were hoping you could tell us her real name.”
“Tara Sly’s what I knew her by.”
“What else can you tell us about her?”
“Nothing. I’m up early to catch the international markets, generally asleep by late afternoon. Weekends I go to my place in Malibu. Once a month I fly to Milan to be with Janice and sometimes I stay longer than I should. If I saw Tara once a week that was a lot.”
“Her mail came to Tara Sly?”
“Whatever she got went into her box, I never saw it.”
“Mystery woman,” said Milo.
“You could make it sound like that in retrospect. To me she was a dream tenant. Minded her own business, paid half a year in advance, never threw a party, never even played music that I could hear.”
“She have a car?”
“BMW—the smallest model. Silver. It had a rental sticker on the bumper.” Haldeman brightened. “Here’s something: It came from the Budget place in Beverly Hills, maybe that’ll help you.”
“Appreciated, Mr. Haldeman. Is the Beemer still in her garage?”
“Oh, no, she cleared out. Not just the car, everything.”
“When?”
“Sometime during my last visit to Italy, which lasted four days—three weeks ago. Janice wasn’t happy about the rent situation and I came home resolved to collect or else, knocked on Tara’s door and when she didn’t answer, I let myself in with my key. Place was empty.” His lips parted. “Was she dead by then?”
“No, sir.”
“So she did rip me off.”
“Place is still empty?” said Milo.
“Completely,” said Haldeman. “Feel free to see for yourselves.”
ilo took the master key from Erno Haldeman’s giant mitt, slipped his own paw into a rubber glove, and turned the doorknob.
Blank white space. The smell of fresh latex pigment.
“You’ve painted?”
“Don’t worry, there was nothing worth preserving. Not a speck in the closet and she took every bit of furniture—here, I’ll show you.”
Milo held him back. “I’d like your permission to send a crime scene team over to dust for fingerprints and other evidence.”
“You’re saying she was killed here?”
“We know she wasn’t.”
“Then what’s the point?”
“We want to identify any visitors she had.”
“I told you, there weren’t any besides the old guy.”
“But if you saw her once a week that was a lot.”
Haldeman scratched the top of his hairless dome. “Are we talking an invasive process?”
“No, sir. And the crew will do their best to clean up.”
“That’s unpleasantly ambiguous, Lieutenant.”
“It’ll be fine.”
“But if they find something creepy, they’ll do damage.”
“I don’t see that, sir.”
“No good deed goes unpunished, huh?”
Milo’s favorite credo. He remained impassive. “It’ll take a day, Mr. Haldeman, and then we’ll be out of your way.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“You do.”
“But if I refuse you’ll get a warrant or whatever paper’s involved and the end result will be the same except you’ll be pissed off that I delayed you so the floorboards will end up being pried off.”
“Not unless there’s some reason you’re aware of that we should pry them.”
Haldeman gaped. “Good Lord, no.”
“Then I don’t see a problem. There’ll be some dusting, perhaps some spraying with chemicals. But all of it comes out readily and I’ll take special care to ensure you get your property back exactly as we found it.”
“Man, you take life seriously.”
“Kind of an occupational hazard, sir.”
“Guess it is. All right, go ahead. Just let me know when your crew plans to show up. I want to make sure to be here.”
“Will do, sir. Thank you.”
Haldeman smiled. “All this civic cooperation and you’re not going to tell me who killed her.”
“We don’t know, sir.”
Haldeman studied him. “I think you’re telling me the truth. Tsk, tsk. The agony of uncertainty.” His grin was wide, sudden, playful but malevolent. “I make my living off it.”
The young, male clerk at the Beverly Hills Budget Rent A Car office wasn’t impressed by the badge. Or the request. “We’ve got four silver 1 series.”
“This one would’ve been rented long-term, maybe as long as a year and a half, two years ago, possibly by a man named Markham Suss.”
The clerk typed. “I’ve got a Markham Industries renting a 1 series twenty-two months ago.”
“For who?”
“Just says Markham Industries. And it got returned … five days ago.”
“By who?”
“I’d assume Markham Industries. Says here it was dropped off after hours with none of the required paperwork. There was a month to go on the agreement and no damage, so we let it ride. If there was damage, we’d pursue to recover.”
Milo said, “Markham Industries went out of business before the car was rented.”
“Okay,” said the clerk. “So that’s why you’re here.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was used for something illegal, right? We get that all the time. People coming into Beverly Hills for their rentals thinking it’s going to make them look respectable when they do something illegal.”
“Like what?”
“Drugs, mostly. Last year, these guys come in from Compton, think they’re pulling off some big con ’cause they’re wearing suits. We’re real careful about our screening.”
Not careful enough to check on Markham Industries. Or maybe Mark Suss had kept a corporate account going after dissolving his company.
Milo said, “What kind of background did you do on Markham Industries?”
The clerk typed some more, peered at his computer.
