When she was gone, his eyes clouded. “Almost two years passed between Tori and Michaela. The nasty old question resurfaces.”

“How many others in between,” I said.

“Peaty tags ’em at the PlayHouse. No curriculum, no attendance roster, people drop in and out. It’s a predator’s dream. I thought maybe Nora was being evasive when she told me that. Now, with her looking more and more like a victim, I believe her.”

“We found no additional trophies in Peaty’s apartment or the van. So maybe there are no other victims.”

“Or he’s got a storage bin somewhere.”

“Could be. I’d start with the buildings where Peaty did janitorial work.”

“Grabbing freebie storage,” he said. “Maybe that explains stashing Meserve’s Toyota in Brad’s garage. It also fits big-time hostility toward authority. All those properties the Dowds own, Peaty doing the scut. Be hard for Brad to monitor every bit of space...so what were you calling me about before I told you about Peaty?”

“Not important.”

“It was important enough to call.”

I recounted the scene with Hauser.

“You and Robin?”

“Yup.”

He worked hard at stoicism. “Guy’s a shrink? Sounds like a nut.”

“At the very least he’s an ugly drunk.”

“They arrest him?”

“Don’t know,” I said. “They took him away in an ambulance.”

“You clocked him good, huh?”

“I used discretion.”

He squinted, turned his hands to blades, chopped the air, whispered, “ ‘Heeyah!’ I thought you’d given up on all that black belt stuff.”

“Never got past brown belt,” I said. “It’s like riding a bike.”

“Hopefully the fool will wake up with a sore nose and realize the error of his ways. Want me to get the reports?”

“I was hoping.”

“Any detectives show up?”

“Just uniforms. Hendricks and Minette. He-and-she team.”

He phoned Pacific Division, asked to speak to the watch commander, explained the situation, listened, hung up smiling. “In the official police record, you are treated as a victim. Hauser was booked for creating a disturbance in a public place and released. What kind of car does he drive?”

“Don’t waste time cruising by.”

“A shrink, let’s see...I’m guessing Volvo, maybe some kind of Volkswagen.”

“Audi Quattro.”

“Right continent,” he said. “Yeah, I’ll cruise by, you’re welcome.”

“It’s unlikely he’ll persist, Milo. When he sobers up he’ll realize another disturbance will mess him up in civil court. If he doesn’t, his lawyer will educate him.”

“If he was that smart, Alex, he’d never have stalked you in the first place.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’m okay and you’ve got a full plate.”

“Interesting,” he said.

“What is?”

He loosened his belt and suppressed a belch. “Your choice of gastronomic imagery.”

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 27