A young woman from Goteborg missing three years seemed promising. Inge Samuelsson had worked as a bar hostess in various European and Asian cities, tried Las Vegas, vanished. But the final citation was happy news: She’d shown up in New Zealand, living on a commune, tending sheep.

“Lucky her,” said Milo. “South Pacific, plus all that lanolin.”

The phone rang. Sean Binchy said, “Hey, Loot, finally got employment records out of Beaudry. They really stonewalled until I threatened to go to the press, call them Constructiongate.”

“Creative, Sean.”

“I was actually joking, but they bit. A couple of suits went into an office and they must’ve called a lawyer because they came out announcing the gag agreement didn’t apply to subcontractors, they’d give me names when they found them but it would take a while, there was no central list. I said you guys do government projects, I’ve got friends at INS, they’re pretty interested in illegals working construction. And they went back to check again and said, ‘Guess what, we do have a list.’ Problem is, they keep all their old records in Costa Mesa. I’m heading there right now, but with traffic, it’s going to be a while.”

“Time for some ska punk, Sean.”

“Pardon?”

“Play a CD, go back to your roots. It’ll lighten the journey.”

“I’ve got a bunch of downloads. Third Day, MercyMe, Switch-foot. That’s all faith-based, Loot.”

“I could use some faith right now, Sean.”

Milo returned to the screen, broadened his search to female victims throughout Europe, had plodded through a nonproductive list when Delano Hardy stuck his head in and handed him a message slip. “Showed up in my box.”

“Thanks, Del.”

“Why I get your stuff is beyond me, we’re nowhere near each other alphabetically.”

“It’s happened before?”

“Last week,” said Hardy. “Bunch of solicitations for those fictitious charities pretend to be raising money for cops and firemen. Those, I tossed.”

“Thanks again, Del.”

“Hey, you’d do the same for me.”

Hardy left and Milo read the slip. Sat up and punched air and said, “Welcome back, Teach. Backer’s sister Ricki is home from Yosemite and wishes to talk.”

I said, “Recess is over.”

Ricki Flatt’s voice said she was expecting bad, but not that bad.

Milo tried to be gentle but there’s no easy way and she wept for a long time. He stretched to turn the volume down on the conference setting, but it was already on low.

She said, “Oh, God, Desi. I don’t understand. Was it a mugging? Some random thing?”

Tensing up, I was sure, on “random.”

Milo heard it, too; his eyebrows climbed. “We’re still trying to sort things out, Ms. Flatt, so anything you can tell us would be helpful.”

“You’re in L.A. What could I tell you?”

“Did your brother have any enemies, ma’am?”

“Of course not.”