"Hi there, whoever you are, this is Sandy. I'm sure I'd love to talk to you but either I'm out or just catching a little California sunshine. So please leave a message."

Tempting offer, but I resisted.

One hit for cyrus freeman: a tiny squib in the Baltimore Sun.

Plans to name the auditorium at Chancellor Middle School in West Baltimore after its former principal had been deferred due to "institutional and budgetary concerns, including the expense of new signage."

I got on the phone. Milo picked up.

"Found you some next of kin, Big Guy." I filled in the details.

"Nothing like bitter exes for filling in blanks. Thanks for taking the time, Alex. Two lying sluts, huh? There's a clinical diagnosis for you."

"Sandy lives ninety miles away but hasn't contacted you, so most likely she doesn't know Elise has been murdered. That suggests the sisters weren't close. That could make her a less useful informant. On the other, she may be willing to give up some interesting details."

"I love Santa Barbara. Give me her number."

After he copied it down, I said, "Frank Stuehr's judgment is clouded by animosity but he's right about the link between a sexually abusive father and promiscuity." I told him about the change in Chancellor School's plans.

"The expense of signage," he said. "That's a new one. You're thinking something came out about Ol' Cyrus's past. A middle school, oh, man."

"Inner-city kids would be easy victims. Especially back then. Elise told Fidella her father was rough on her but she never said it was sexual. Clouding the truth is a common defense mechanism and that could've led to a lifelong pattern. Case in point: lying about where she attended college. I checked out Blessed Heart and it's a small, well-thought-of Catholic woman's college with high standards, by no means inferior to U. Maryland. So it's not like she was padding her resume."

"Lying for the hell of it?"

"That's possible," I said. "But I thought of something else: Turns out Blessed Heart's campus is two blocks from Chancellor Middle, so maybe she grew up in that neighborhood. That district is also close to the Pimlico racetrack. What if she developed an early affinity for gambling--and gamblers."

"Fidella," he said. "Yeah, blowing a jackpot in one day says he's probably got gaming issues. Maybe she did, too, and that's why one or both of them hatched up an extortion scheme. Then she changes her mind. My dear vic led a complicated life, talk about multitasking."

"Maybe just the opposite. She compartmentalized--divided her life into little boxes--trying to keep things simple."

"Esteemed teacher by day, wild girl by night. And somehow she ends up in the freezer compartment."

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER
16

Milo was at my house by nine the following morning. We took the Seville to Santa Barbara because "two hours on the road, pal, I like leather and functional A.C."

I said, "How'd the sister react to the news?"