"My instructions are as of five minutes ago and they trump your instructions."

"Who are yours from?" said Bill.

"From where you can't go higher."

"Just like that, you've got a direct line to God."

"Santa, too. Don't believe me, here's the number. Now tell me what I need to know. Were there dry ice bags at the scene, empty booze bottles, drugs, or drug paraphernalia?"

"Negative on the bags," said Bill. "One empty Grey Goose bottle in the kitchen, negative on the dope. And here's a freebie: The only prints throughout the house are the vic's and that's just on a corner of the bed. Which is not right. My guess? Someone wiped the place down. But I'm not allowed to guess on this one. Now do me a favor, okay?"

"What?"

"Don't call for a while."

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER
9

The following noon, Milo phoned. "Ready for a DTA meeting?"

It took a moment to process that. "There's a detective-teacher association?"

"There is now. His Exaltedness just let me know three members of Windsor Prep's faculty will avail themselves to me at two p.m., three fifteen, and four thirty. Not at the school, God forbid. Some address in Beverly Hills. I said, 'Arbitrary time limits don't help, sir.' He said, 'Be thankful you're getting more than a forty-five-minute hour, ask Delaware.' That was his way of saying you can be there."

"Are they coming with lawyers?"

"Didn't get the chance to ask. Here's the place."

McCarty Drive, two blocks south of Wilshire.

I said, "Nice neighborhood. Who lives there?"

"Guess we'll find out when we get there."

We got there twenty minutes early. The house was a white two-story Mediterranean with diamond mullion windows, a front courtyard teeming with flowers beginning to go to seed, a lawn greener than envy. A For Sale sign was staked to the left of a gracefully winding stone footpath.

The front door was unlocked. We stepped into a high, tiled entry. Clean, warm light filtered to the right of a sinuous staircase. In an otherwise empty living room, a woman sat reading in a folding chair. From what I could see, the entire house was vacant.

She put her book down. Ash blond, midforties, she wore a black pantsuit and a white silk blouse with ruffles that spilled over her lapels like whipped cream.

The book was a four-inch-thick bio of Lincoln. She placed it on the chair. "Lieutenant, Doctor, you're a little early."

"And you are..."

"Mary Jane Rollins." Her face was round, soft, and unlined. Pale eyes and lashes said the blond was probably a renewal of her childhood.

"Nice to meet you, Headmaster Rollins. Mr. Helfgott assigned you to me?"

"Dr. Helfgott," she said, standing. "He's got an Ed.D. in educational administration. And yes, he asked me to facilitate."

"Ed.D. from Brown?" said Milo.

Rollins cocked an eyebrow. "From the U."

"Going the public route, huh?"

"The U. runs a fine program in education, Lieutenant."