Everyone smiling.
The second hit was a two-year-old alphabetized shout-out to local seniors who’d been accepted at selective colleges.
Michael J. Saucedo, Oberlin, full scholarship.
harold saucedo torranceproduced the staff list of a local evangelical church. Harold M., the administrator. Nothing on Maria. Maybe ahousewife or a stay-at-home mom or whatever they were calling it this week.
Three Susan Saucedos lived in the South Bay city. The one whose age and image matched theDaily Breezephoto was a second-grade teacher at a charter school in El Segundo.
Michael J. Saucedo’s name appeared in anOberlin Reviewarticle. Participant in a student group venturing out at night to feed the local homeless.
Church administrator, grade school teacher, altruistic college student.
No one who seemed likely to hire a hit man.
But maybe someone else in Vicki Saucedo’s life had taken action? A friend or a lover who’d suspected Paul O’Brien’s involvement in her death?
That depended on O’Brien definitely being the lowlife who’d overdosed and abased Vicki. A more-than-reasonable assumption, given the similarities between her death and Marissa’s.
I phoned the Tidy Tavern, ready to ask for Martin Kehoe.
Not necessary; he answered.
“Mr. Kehoe, this is Alex Delaware.”
“Who?”
“Lieutenant Sturgis and I spoke with you the other day.”
“Okay,” he said.
“I have a question for you. Did Paul ever work on Rodeo Drive?”
“Yeah. At Chanel.”
“When?”
“Maybe…last year? Half a year? Something like that.”
“What did he do at Chanel?”
“The usual,” he said. “Security at parties for actors and other rich people. He wanted me to do it with him, said it was easy, we’d mostly hang out. I said I was already busy and also I like to stay home at night.”
“How’d he react to that?”
“Called me a fucking wuss,” said Kehoe. “I didn’t care. I told Caitlin and she’s like whydidn’tyou go and bring me home some Chanel swag? Then she said she was proud of me.”
“For…”
“Avoidinghim.”
—
I returned to the list I’d compiled of Vicki Saucedo’s fellow Fashionistas.
Brianna Dominguez, Brianna Petersen, Sherilyn Dorsey, Matthew Salazar.
The yearbook gave up pictures of three pleasant-looking girls and a small, skinny, pimpled boy who looked closer to thirteen than eighteen.
