"What do you want?" she screamed over a crescendo. Her voice was as pleasing as grit on glass.
"George Orson," said Milo. "Is it possible to turn the music down?"
Cursing under her breath, the woman slammed the door, opened it a minute later. The music was several notches lower, but still loud.
"Orson," she said. "Scumbag. What'd he do, kill someone?" Glancing to the left.
Itatani had come out of his car and was standing on the lawn of the green house.
"Goddamn absentee landlords. Don't care who they rent to. So what'd that scumbag do?"
"That's what we're trying to find out, ma'am."
"That's a load of double-talk crap. What'd he doT' She slapped her hands against her hips. Silk whistled and the dressing gown parted at her neckline, revealing powdered wattle, a few inches of scrawny white chest, shiny sternal knobs protruding like ivory handles. Her lipstick was the color of arterial blood. "You want info from me, don't hand me any crap."
"Mr. Orson's suspected in some drug thefts, Mrs.-"
"Ms.," she said. "Sinclair. Ms. Marie Sinclair. Drugs. Big boo-hoo surprise. It's about time you guys caught on. The whole time that lowlife was here there'd be cars in and out, in and out, all hours of the night."
"Did you ever call the police?"
Marie Sinclair looked ready to hit him. "Jesus Almighty- only six times. Your so-called officers said they'd drive by. If they did, lot of good it accomplished."
Milo wrote. "What else did Orson do to disturb you, Ms. Sinclair?"
"Cars in and out, in and out wasn't enough. I'm trying to practice, and the headlights keep shining through the drapes. Right there." She pointed to her front window, covered with lace.
"Practice what, ma'am?" said Milo.
"Piano. I teach, give recitals." She flexed ten spidery white fingers. The nails were a matching red, but clipped short.
"I used to do radio work," she said. "Live radio-the old RKO studios. I knew Oscar
Levant, what a lunatic-another dope fiend, but a genius. I was the first girl pianist for the Co-coanut Grove, played the Mocambo, did a party at Ira Gershwin's up on Roxbury Drive. Talk about stage fright- George and Ira listening. There were giants back then; now it's only mental midgets and-"
"Orson told Mr. Itatani he was a film director."
"Mr. Itawhosis"-she sneered-"doesn't give a damn who he rents to. After the scumbag moved out, I got stuck with two sloppy kids-real pigs-then a fag cosmetologist. Back when I bought this house-"
"When Orson lived here, did you ever see any filming next door?" said Milo.
"Yeah, he was Cecil B. DeMille-no, never. Just cars, in and out. I'm trying to practice and the damn headlights are glaring through like some kind of-"
"You practice at night, ma'am?"
"So what?" said Marie Sinclair. "That's against the law?"
"No, ma'am, I was just-"
"Look," she said. Her hands separated from her hips, clamped down again. "I'm a night person, as if it's any of your business. Just woke up, if it's any of your business. Comes from all those years of clubbing." She stepped onto the porch, advanced on Milo. "Nighttime's when it comes alive. Morning's for suckers. Morning people should be lined up and shot."
"So your basic complaint against Orson was all the traffic."
"Dope traffic. Those kinds of lowlifes, what was to stop someone from pulling out a gun? None of those idiots can shoot straight, you hear about all those colored and
Mexican kids getting shot in drive-bys by accident. I could've been sitting in there playing Chopin, andpow!"
She squeezed her eyes shut, punched her forehead, jerked her head back. Black ringlets danced. When her eyes opened, they were hotter, brighter.
Milo said, "Did you ever get a good look at any of Orson's visitors?"
"Visitors. Hah. No, I didn't look. Didn't want to see, didn't want to know. The headlights were bad enough. You guys never did a damn thing about them. And don't tell me to turn the piano around, because it's a seven-foot-long Steinway and it won't fit in the room any other way."
"How many cars would there be on an average night, Ms. Sinclair?"
"Five, six, ten, who knows, I never counted. At least he was gone a lot."
"How often, ma'am?"
"A lot. Half the time. Maybe more. Thank God for small blessings."
"Did you ever talk to him directly about the headlights?"
"What?" she screeched. "And have him pull out a gun?
We're talking scumbag. That's your job. I called you. Lot of good it did."
"Mr. Itatani said Orson had a machine shop out in the garage. Did you ever hear sawing or drilling?"
"No," she said. "Why? You think he was manufacturing the dope back there? Or cutting it, whatever it is they do to that crap?"
"Anything's possible, ma'am."
"No, it's not," she snapped. "Very few things are possible. Oscar Levant will not rise from the dead. That cancer in George Gershwin's genius brain will not- Never mind, why am I wasting my time. No, I never heard drilling or sawing. I never heard a damn thing, because during the day, when I sleep, I keep the music on-got one of those programmable CD players, six discs that keep repeating. It's the only way I can go to sleep, block out the damn birds, cars, all that daytime crap. It was when
I was up that he bothered me. The lights. Trying to get through my scales and the damn headlights are shining right on the keyboard."
Milo nodded. "I understand, ma'am."
"Sure you do," she said. "Too late, too little."
"Anything else you can tell us?"
"That's it. Didn't know I was going to be tested."
Milo showed her Claire's picture. "Ever see her with Orson?"
"Nope," she said. "She looks like a schoolteacher. Is she the one he killed?"
The crime-scene crew arrived ten minutes later. Itatani sat in his Oldsmobile, looking miserable. Marie Sinclair had gone back inside her house, but a few other neighbors had emerged. Milo asked them questions. I followed as he walked up and down the block, knocking on doors. No new revelations. If George Orson had been running a dope house, Marie Sinclair had been the only one to notice.
A pleasant old woman named Mrs. Leiber turned out to be the owner of Buddy, the missing dog. She seemed addled, disappointed that we weren't here to investigate the theft.-
Convinced Buddy had been dognapped, though an open gate at the side of her house indicated other possibilities.
Milo told her he'd keep his eyes open.
"He's such a sweetie," Mrs. Leiber said. "Got the courage but not any meanness."
We returned to the green house. The criminalists were still unpacking their gear.
Milo showed the stains in the garage to the head tech, a black man named
Merriweather, who got down and put his nose to it.
"Could be," he said. "If it is, it's pretty degraded. We'll scrape. If it is blood, should be able to get a basic HLA typing, but DNA's a whole other thing."
"Just tell me if it's blood."
"I can try that now."
We watched him work, wielding solvents and reagents, swabs and test tubes.
The answer came within minutes:
"O-positive."
"Richard Dada's type," said Milo.
"Forty-three percent of the population," said Merriweather. "Let me scrape around here and inside the house, it'll take us the best part of the day, but maybe we can find you something interesting."
Back in the unmarked, Milo phoned DMV again, cross-referencing vehicle registrations with the Shenandoah address. No match.
Gunning the engine, he pulled away from the curb, tires squealing. Less urgency than frustration. By the time we were back on Pico, he'd slowed down.
At Doheny, we stopped for a red light and he said, "Richard's blood type. Orson's cutting out on the rent could explain why Richard was cut in half and Claire wasn't.
By the time he did her, he'd lost his machine shop, didn't have the time-or the place-to set up.... All that stolen movie junk. He has to keep it somewhere. Time to check out storage outfits.... Be nice if Itatani could've LD.'d Claire as the woman in the car."
"If she was, Itatani saw her shortly before she was murdered. Maybe she and Orson did go shopping at the center, and that's why he dumped her there. What stores are there?" "Montgomery Ward, Toys 'R' Us, food joints, the Stereos Galore she was found
behind." "Stereos Galore," I said. "Might they sell cameras?" He looked in his rearview mirror, hung an illegal U-turn.
The front lot was jammed and we had to park on the far end, near La Cienega. Stereos
Galore was two vast stories of gray rubber flooring and maroon plastic partitions.
Scores of TV's projected soundlessly; blinking, throbbing entertainment centers spewed conflicting backbeats; salespeople in emerald-green vests pointed out the latest feature to stunned-looking customers. The camera section was at the rear of the second floor.
The manager was a small, dark-skinned, harried-looking man named Albert Mustafa with a precise black mustache and eyeglasses so thick his mild brown irises seemed miles away. He shepherded us into a relatively quiet corner, behind tall displays of film in colorful boxes. The cacophony from below filtered through the rubber tiles. Marie
Sinclair would have felt at home.
Claire Argent's picture evoked a blank stare. Milo asked him about substantial video purchases.
"Six months ago?" he said.
"Five or six months ago," said Milo. "The name could be Wark or Crimmins or Orson.
We're looking for a substantial purchase of video equipment or cameras."
"How much is substantial?" said Mustafa.
"What's your typical sale?"
"Nothing's typical. Still cameras range from fifty dollars to nearly a thousand. We can get you set up with basic video for under three hundred, but you can go high-tech and then you're talking serious money."
"Every sale is in the computer, right?"
"Supposed to be."
"Do you categorize your customers based upon how much they spend?"
"No, sir."
"Okay," said Milo. "How about checking video purchases over one thousand dollars, four to six months ago. Start with this date." He recited the day of Claire's murder.
Mustafa said, "I'm not sure this is legal, sir. I'd have to check with the home office."
"Where'sthat?"
"Minneapolis."
"And they're closed by now," said Milo.
"I'm afraid so, sir."
"How about just spooling back to that one day, Mr. Mustafa, see what comes up."
"I'd really rather not."
Milo stared at him.
"I don't want to lose my job," said Mustafa. "But the police help us... Just that day."
Eight credit-card purchases of video equipment that day, two of them over a thousand dollars. No Crimmins, Wark, or Orson, or Argent. Nothing that brought to mind a scrambled director's name. Milo copied down the names and the credit card numbers as
Mustafa looked on nervously.
"What about cash sales? Would you have records of those?"
"If the customer purchased me extended warranty. If he gave us his address so we could put him on the mailing list."
Milo tapped the computer. "How about scrolling back a few days."
Mustafa said, "This isn't good," but he complied.
Nothing for the entire week.
Mustafa pushed a button and the screen went blank. By the time Milo thanked him, he'd walked away.
32.
A FEW MORE detectives had returned to the Robbery-Homicide room. I pulled a chair up next to Mile's desk and listened as he called Social Security and the Franchise Tax
Board. Two hits: tax refunds had been sent to George Orson. Place of employment:
Starkweather State Hospital.
"The checks were sent to an address on Pico-ten thousand five hundred. Commercial zone, ten to one a mail drop. Also, close to Richard's dump site... Okay, okay, something's happening here. I need to get more specific, find out if he still works at Starkweather."
"What about Lindeen the receptionist?" I said. "She likes you. Must be that masculine cop musk."
He grimaced. "Yeah, I'm a musk ox.... Okay, why not?" He jabbed the phone. "Hello,