“They got around to logging the VIN a few days later, filed and forgot. All this time, I’m checking bulletins, wasting my time on the phone, and the damn thing’s in plain sight, blocks from my office, accumulating birdshit and storage fees. If I hadn’t been nagging every yard the department does business with, it probably would’ve ended up at a police auction. As is, I just spent an hour untangling the paperwork to get it to the motor lab. Eyeballed it, first. No obvious blood or sign of mischief. And here’s another good guess for you, Professor: Gas tank was bone-dry, talk about wrong place, wrong time.”

“Or someone siphoned it in the club parking lot and followed her until she shut down.”

“There you go,” he said. “That’s why we’re buddies.”

“I have a suspicious mind?”

“You know how to think like a really evil person. Let’s see what the motorheads turn up, but with the tow driver and Lord-knows-who-else pawing it and a suspect careful enough to strip I.D., I’m not expecting much. I’m on my way back to where it was found right now. After that I’ll be driving the hillside roads again, narrowing it down to the immediate vicinity. If I can get K-9 to help, we’ll do a sniffathon tomorrow. So what’s up in Toonerville?”

I told him about Mavis Wembley’s tip.

“Scary brother,” he said.

“A lock picker could’ve fooled with the chain at the rental lot, freed the Mercedes. Toss in Mancusi and we’ve got two crimes featuring stolen black luxury cars, bloody knifework, and a possible inheritance motive.”

“Unfortunately, Tony’s a homebody leading us nowhere and the tips have dried up. In terms of his being ‘kinky,’ I wouldn’t be surprised if that was Lamp Guy — Hochswelder — or one of the other loving relatives finking on him for being gay just in case we didn’t get it the first time. With the Mustang showing up I’m gonna concentrate on Shonsky as a possible corollary homicide, and that gives me cause for a warrant on her apartment. Judge Feldman’s at a fundraiser, said if I meet him at his house at ten, he’ll sign the papers. Hopefully Kat’s mother didn’t straighten up too much. Speaking of which, if I have time, I am gonna ask her for that cheek scrape ’cause if the chief meant what he said, he’ll get the mitochondrial prioritized. But even if we get a match to the stain, it just tells us what we know anyway.”

“Kat’s dead.”

“I wouldn’t sell her life insurance. Lord, I’m busy.”

Not the time to remind him of his lament last week. “If the chief meant what he said, maybe you can get more help watching Tony.”

“Hard to see Tony having anything to do with Shonsky.”