“Is there something weird about the art?”
Good nose. I said, “No details yet.”
“Alex, is this going to hit the papers?”
I said, “Not in the near future.”
“But maybe at some point.”
“It’s possible.”
“All right, thanks for letting me know. And if you do get any evidence that relates to the damn divorce, let me know and I’ll make sure you get paid for your time. By who, I don’t know, but by someone.”
—
Milo picked up his desk phone after one ring. “Nothing to report.”
“Get me into the staff lot. I’ll be there in twenty.”
Milo said, “What’s going on?”
“Twenty.”
—
A uniform was waiting by the barrier arm to the lot. He checked my I.D. and, still looking dubious, slipped a card into a slot. By the time I walked out and crossed Butler Avenue, he was gone.
I hustled upstairs and found Milo hunched at his desk, typing away. Long paragraph. Reply to a departmental questionnaire. Dated a month ago.
He logged off. “Seventeen minutes. Take a load off.”
Between Jane Leavitt’s high tea and driving, I’d sat enough and remained on my feet as I told her story.
He listened the way a good detective does. Silent, focused. Took a moment to consider before responding.
“January. So Candace was manipulating Okash for a while. The party thing threw me, sure, but I was kind of figuring the Kiersteads had taken premeditation to a new level. Okash named her gallery Verlang. I wondered why and looked it up and found outverlangenis German for ‘desire.’ Wanna lay odds who suggested it? So how do you see Gurnsey getting sucked in?”
I said, “Candace could’ve been one of his bar pickups. She suggested a threesome with a friend. From what we know about Ricky, he’d have jumped and asked how high. Unfortunately, they got nailed. Momentary embarrassment for Gurnsey and Okash but a lot worse for Candace. It cost her the social status the Daylighters affiliation was supposed to bring her. Killing Okash had been on the back burner, one way or another she was history. But she probably would’ve just dropped Gurnsey the way Joan Blunt did. Then the rage kicked in.”
“She screws up but she’s angry?”
“Psychopaths never take responsibility. It didn’t take long to convince herself Okash and Gurnsey were to blame. Grunting too loud, who knows what. The idea of replicatingThe Museumhad also been percolating for a while but after the debacle she began planning in detail. Taking her time casting.”
“Five months,” he said. “Taking dogs out of a shelter to sacrifice them. And we ate her crackers and drank her goddamn coffee.”
He got up, took the one long stride that gets him out of the office, marched to the end of the corridor and back three times.
“This is so premeditated and twisted even John can’t stay constipated.”
He called Nguyen and pled his case.
The DDA said, “Yeah, it’s sick…but borderline at best—”
“John—”
“Hold on, I’m thinking it through…you do have eyewitness confirmation of Kierstead with Gurnsey…fine, give it a try, long as you understand the risk. You’ve got nothing on the husband and if you bust the wife and come up with nothing, she knows you’re after her and she’ll be free as a bird. People like that can lam internationally the way a ghetto thug slinks around the block.”
“I want to bust both of them.”
