Thirty seconds later: “Sturgis.”

“It's me, Milo—”

Pause.

“Alex,” I said.

“You palmed yourself off as Murchison?”

“Katarina's dead. I just found her body.” I gave him the details, describing the crime scene in a rapid word storm. The card with the “bad love” message.

“Same printing as the package the tape came in.”

“SDI,” he said.

“It's right there in Beverly Hills. Maybe he chose to use it for the message for a reason.”

“SDI . . . sure as hell not the Strategic Defense Initiative.”

“Could you check on Robin? I know the place is secure, but the killer's picking up speed, and the idea of her being alone up there . . . I tried calling her twice, but she's not in.”

“Probably went out to do some shopping, but I'll stop by.”

“Thanks. What do I do now? I haven't even called the local police yet.”

“Where are you?”

“Pay phone, a few minutes from the house.”

“Okay, go back there. Stay away from the actual crime scene and just wait. I'll call Santa Barbara PD, tell 'em you're kosher, then I'll head up there myself—what time is it?—three-thirty . . . I should be there by six, the latest.”

I waited near the cliff, as far from the garage as I could be. Staring at the ocean, inhaling brine, and trying to make sense of things.

Two young uniforms showed up first. One stayed with the body and the other took a superficial report from me—name, rank, serial number, time and place—listening courteously and just a bit suspiciously.

Twenty minutes later, a pair of detectives arrived. One was a woman named Sarah Grayson, tall, slim, attractive, in her forties. Her eyes were slightly slanted, colored an even brown. They moved slowly but frequently. Taking things in. Reserving judgment.

Her partner was a big, heavy man named Steen, with a bushy dark mustache and not much hair on top. He went straight into the garage and left me to Grayson.

Somehow we'd ended up back near the cliff edge. I told her tape recorder everything I knew, and she listened without interruption. Then she pointed at the water and said, “There's a seal flipping around out there.”

I followed her arm and made out a small black dot, ten breaststrokes from the tideline, cutting a perpendicular line through the breakwaters.

“Or a sea lion,” she said. “Those are the ones with the ears, right?”

I shrugged.

“Let's go over it again, doctor.”

When I finished, she said, “So you were looking for Dr. de Bosch to warn her about this revenge nut?”

“That, and I wanted to find out if she could tell me anything about why he's out for revenge.”

“And you think it has something to do with this school?”

“She and her father ran it. It's the only thing I can come up with.”

“What was the exact name of the school?” she said.

“The de Bosch Institute and Corrective School. It closed in eighty-one.”