“No, Professor, I keep it.”

“Snow,” said the driver. “Hollywood and Vine? Never seen no snow there.”

* * *

As I drove back to the station, Milo said, “Do me a favor and contact that lawyer— Montez— soon as you can. Find out if Michaela told him anything about Meserve and Nora that she didn’t tell you. Any idea who Meserve’s P.D. was?”

“Marjani Coolidge.”

“Don’t know her.”

“Me neither, but I can try.”

“Try is great.”

The second call to Binchy connected. Milo told him, “Check out your phone, Sean. You still on him? Nah, don’t worry about it, he’s probably working. I’ll figure something out for nights. What you can do for me is start calling health spas from Santa Barbara County down to mid-Baja and see if Nora Dowd or Dylan Meserve have checked in...spas— like in massages and health food. What?...no, it’s fine, Sean.”

He jammed the phone in his pocket.

“Stuck on robbery detail?” I said.

“Seems to be.” He beat a fast cha-cha rhythm on the dashboard. I could feel the vibrations through the steering wheel.

“Better get over to Peaty’s place myself tonight. The unregistered van’s grounds to arrest him. Maybe we can chat in his apartment so I get a look at the dump. Meanwhile, I make those spa calls myself— hello, ear cancer.”

“I can do that. Leave the big-strong-guy detective work to you.”

“Such as?”

“Finding out if Nora used her passport. Is it really tougher post Nine-Eleven? I’d think there’d be more interagency communication.”

“What a sage,” he said. “Yeah, I fibbed to Bradley, figuring he’d be motivated to get into Nora’s house, let me know if anything’s off. Technically, nothing’s changed, you still need a search warrant to access passenger lists. And the airlines, being busy figuring out ways to torment their passengers, still take their sweet time complying. But there is more buddy-buddy stuff. Remember that granny shooting I closed last year?”

“Sweet old lady subbing for her son at the liquor store.”

“Alma Napier. Eighty-two years old, perfect health, some methaddled dungball unloads a shotgun on her. The search of said dungball’s dump turns up a carton of video cameras from Indonesia hollowed out inside with pistol-shaped compartments. I thought the Federal Air Marshals might want to hear about that, got to know one of the supervisors there.”

He retrieved the phone, asked for Commander Budowski.

“Bud? Milo Sturgis...fine. You? Terrific. Listen, I need a favor.”

* * *

Fifteen minutes after we got to his office, a civilian clerk brought in the fax. We’d split the task of locating and phoning spas, were coming up empty.

Milo read Budowski’s report, handed it to me, got back on the phone.

Nora Dowd hadn’t used her passport for foreign travel since the previous April. Three-week trip to France, just as Brad had said.