“They went up there to fool around, I dunno, maybe some psycho crashed the party. That’s my point: Way the chain was before, anyone could get in.”

“So you should be happy I put on a new one.”

“Leave the key, I’ll say thank you. Now I need to get back there. Can I have that ride?”

“Happy to arrange it, Doyle. If you take a polygraph before you leave.”

Bryczinski’s eyes widened. “Company gave me a poly when they hired me. I passed with honors, ask ’em for a copy.”

“So you wouldn’t mind doing it again.”

Bryczinski thought. “Hell, why not? If it don’t take too long.”

Detective Three Delano Hardy was the closet to a polygraph specialist the day shift had going. He hadn’t administered the test in over a year, wasn’t even sure where the gear was, but he agreed to look for it.

Ninety minutes later, the procedure was over and Hardy stepped out of the room, shaking his head. “A little jumpy on baseline, but I’m not seeing deception, not even close, sorry.”

Milo took the printout. “Thanks for trying, amigo.”

Milo and Del had partnered a long time ago, until Del’s devout wife had objected to her husband working with a homosexual.

Del said, “No sweat, Big Guy. Good luck.”

A uniform drove Bryczinski back to Borodi. I scanned the poly results.

Milo said, “You see something?”

“Nothing but truth,” I said. “Especially given the anxious baseline. He’s not a cold psychopath able to fake the machine.”

Milo said, “But he is overinvolved with that site. Him and Charlie Rutger.”

“Must be the edifice complex.”

We returned to his office, where he picked up a fresh message slip. “Well, well, well, Professor Ned Holman wants to talk.”

He returned the call. “Professor? Lieutenant Sturgis … yes, sir, of course I remember… that so? No prob, I can be at your house in—all right, yes, I know where it is. An hour would be fine.”

Dropping the receiver in its cradle, he said, “First time we met him, he was all mellow. Now just the opposite, definitely something on his mind. Wonder what his baseline is.”

CHAPTER

14

Ned Holman had chosen to meet at a public parking lot in Playa Del Rey, the westernmost tip of the district where the neighborhood turns to a village and the ocean washes past dreamily.

Just a few miles past the Bird Marsh, where the bodies of four women had shown up last year, minus right hands, and facing east. Milo and Moe Reed had closed that case, solved two other homicides in the process.

Not a word about it as we sped past. Like a lot of driven people, he prefers the agony of living in the moment.