“Yup.” No emotion, grandmotherly or otherwise, at the mention of the child’s name. “So what are you going to do other than look at the bastard?”
“That’s where we’re starting, ma’am.”
“Fine,” she said, jangling her watch. “It’s time for my swim.”
Chapter
18
As we headed for the unmarked, Milo let out a low whistle. “Iron lady. Did you see that cookie abuse?”
I said, “Could be her way of dealing with loss. On the other hand, she did tell Whitney to abort a potential grandchild. So Whitney could’ve been escaping more than just the conflict with Sterling.”
“Getting away from Mom.”
“From Mom and everyone else except Jarrod.”
“Little green boat, perfect for calming the soul,” he said. “Until it wasn’t.”
—
As he pulled from the curb, I said, “For all Mom’s anger, she could be onto something. If Sterling was out to rid himself of her and get Jarrod, he succeeded in spades. He’s an executive so he’d be used to delegating.”
“Like Boykins,” he said. “Coupla honchos with connections paying to solve their problems. So there doesn’t need to be any link between them other than the choice of hit man. And at the risk of being boring, Boykins had dealings with ParmenterandO’Brien. First job turns out great, why not hire the same shooter a coupla years later?”
My doubts about Boykins and O’Brien hadn’t faded but I said, “Sure. Is there any truth to the dark web being a source?”
“For dope, yes, for hit men not so much. Yeah, that was a big scare a while back but it mostly boiled down to scammers in Montenegro or wherever taking bad people’s money and knowing they wouldn’t protest. There was actually a case a few years ago, stupid asshole wanted his wife killed, forked out a whole buncha bitcoins to a scary website and of course nothing happened. So he fired off angry emails then shot her himself and left tons of evidence behind.”
He got back on the 101 and merged into southbound traffic.
“On the other hand,” he said, “therecouldbe a link between Boykins and Sterling that led them to the same shooter. Think about it, Alex: the music biz and the rag trade. For all we know Sterling dressed up dancers in Boykins’s videos, the two of them became buds, bitched to each other, one of them ends up advising the other about problem solving. I’ll check out the dark web, but assuming nothing shows up, where do I take it?”
“No idea.”
He put on speed. “Aren’t you guys supposed to answer a question with a question rather than admit you’re stumped?”
I said, “Would it make you feel better if I did?”
He cracked up. But the mood didn’t last.
—
He dropped me at home and I called in for messages. Light weekend sprinkle: one new referral from a personal injury lawyer, the assistant of an impatient family lawyer wanting to know when my report would arrive.
Last, a call-me-back from Lee Falkenburg, no details.
In the office on Saturday? Knowing Lee, sure.
I called, got the same numerical menu, pressed1,and was greeted by her personal recorded message.
I left messages for her and both attorneys and went out to Robin’sstudio to see if Blanche was in the mood for a sprightly waddle down to the Glen and back.
Her body language said,Forget that.
She lay stretched on the floor a few feet from Robin’s bench, snoring operatically. My footsteps caused her to raise one eyelid that eventually lost out to gravity. She managed a brief smile and two twitches of a nubby tail before returning to dreamland.
Robin was French-polishing the rosewood back of a hundred-year-old Santos Hernández guitar, her hands gloved in thin plastic as she gently rotated a pad of linen soaked in spirit varnish.
