“Marjorie and I disagree on many levels.”

“Marjorie has no problem mixing business with pleasure.”

“You’re being simplistic, Policeman. Everything is business and everything is pleasure. It is Marjorie who fails to integrate the two.”

“What do you mean?”

“She insists on drawing arbitrary boundaries—creates imaginary rules so that she can delight in violating them.”

“Forbidden fruit,” said Milo.

“Marjorie is quite the nibbler.”

“Is she married?”

“Yes. Now I must go.”

Milo asked her for addresses and phone numbers of the three women. Marjorie Holman’s, she knew by heart. For the others, she consulted a BlackBerry.

“Now I will walk you out.”

He showed her the female victim’s death shot.

Helga Gemein examined the image. “What is this?”

“A woman who died along with Mr. Backer.”

“So it was sexual.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Des with a woman. What else could it be?”

Milo smiled. “Maybe a meaningful spiritual relationship?”

Helga Gemein headed for the door.

We tagged along. I said, “How well did Des do his job?”

“Adequately. Before we dissolved, I’d contemplated letting him go.”

“Why?”

“The pathetic state of our planet demands better than adequate.”

CHAPTER

5

Helga Gemein marched through the courtyard and continued north on Main.

“Good stamina, considering those stilettos,” said Milo. “What a charmer.”

“Don’t think of her as hostile,” I said. “Just philosophically consistent.”

“What’s the philosophy?”

“Humanity is a blot on nature.”

“That’s kind of psychopathic—and she didn’t react emotionally to Backer’s death. Hang out with her, no need for air-conditioning.”

“Personal coolant,” I said. “There’s a green concept for you.”

“Backer jumps anything with ovaries but doesn’t come on to her. Maybe the jealousy you felt at the scene was anger at being rejected.”

“Woman scorned? Those stilettos would set off clacks on plywood.”

He sighted up Main. Crossed his arms over his barrel chest. “Asking women to screw. If Backer’s libido was really that over-the-top, it expands the potential suspect base to every hetero male in L.A. … wonderful.”

He scanned the addresses Gemein had provided. “The receptionist and the intern are both out in the Valley, but naughty Ms. Holman lives right here in Venice, Linnie Canal.”

“That’s about a mile in,” I said. “We could walk.”

“Oh, sure. And I’m gonna wear spandex bicycle shorts.”

Finding the nearest entrance to the canal district, and manipulating the byzantine network of one-ways and dead-ends by car, turned a geographic hop into a half-hour excursion. Once we got within eyeshot of Linnie Canal, the closest parking spot was two blocks east.

The canals are a century old, the product of a feverish mind devolving to yet another patch of high-priced real estate. The visionary in question, an eccentric named Abbot Kinney, had dug and dredged sinuous waterways, dreaming of replicating the original island city. A hundred years later, most of the quirky, original bungalows had been replaced by close-set McMansions high above footpaths.