“Think so.” He sat up straighter and pressed down on the gas. “This is different.”

“How so?”

“I’m working.”

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER
15

I stopped in Santa Barbara for a late lunch on Stearn’s Wharf, the site of my aborted meeting with Donald Bragen.

The tourist stream was skimpy but enthusiastic-smiling, gorging people believing in immortality. Ducks and seagulls followed the food stream, content with the leavings. Out in the harbor, big gray pelicans floated, biding their time as they scanned the surface for prey. Their smaller brown cousins swooped and dove and sometimes came up with wriggle.

All kinds of ways to hunt.

I finished and continued up the pier, passing the breakfast place where Bragen said he’d meet me. Maybe he’d paid closer attention to Mavis Wembley’s lead than she believed but had come up empty. Or she was right and he had ignored her. Either way, flashbacks wouldn’t be as much fun as fishing.

Leaning over the railing and sucking in salt air, I phoned Milo’s cell.

Rick answered. “Hey, Alex. His phone ran out of charge so we exchanged. He told me if you called to tell you he’ll be tied up until ten or so, maybe later.”

“Any idea where?”

“Out on the job is all he said. I had the day off so we managed to schedule lunch. Soon as we ordered, he got a call and left. Something about finding a car. Made him grumpy.”

“Missing a meal does that.”

“He doggie-bagged.”

No one answered Rick’s cell. Milo sometimes switches off when he’s concentrating. I got back on the highway, tried a few miles later.

This time, his bellow rattled the little bones in my ear. “Found Kat Shonsky’s goddamn Mustang.”

“Yet, you are not happy.”

“Guess where the hell it’s been all this time? Department contract tow yard. Called in as an abandoned vehicle at five a.m. the same damn night she disappeared. Found midway up the Pass, just like you guessed.”

I said, “Any idea who called it in?”

“No record,” he growled. “They treated it as a routine nuisance call, sent a tow driver. Genius shows up, there’s no reg or insurance in the car and the plates are gone. He hooks it up anyway and dumps it in the yard. Where it’s been sitting.”

“What about the VIN?” I said.