CHAPTER 31

Billy had been attached to Peaty. And Billy had a temper.

Was he too dull to realize the implication of a relationship with Reynold Peaty? Or was there no implication?

One thing was likely: The janitor’s visits had been more than dropping off lost articles.

As I drove Sixth Street toward its terminus at San Vicente, I considered Billy’s reaction. Shock, anger, desire for vengeance.

Another sib defying Brad.

A child’s impulsiveness together with a grown man’s hormones could be a dangerous combination. As Milo had pointed out, Billy had begun living on his own right around the time of Tori Giacomo’s murder and the Gaidelases’ disappearance.

Perfect opportunity for Billy and Peaty to take their friendship to a new level? If the two of them had become a murder team, Peaty was certain to have been the dominant one.

Some leadership. An outwardly creepy alcoholic voyeur and a dullard man-boy didn’t add up to the kind of planning and care that had stripped Michaela’s dumpsite of forensic detail, concealed Tori Giacomo’s body long enough to reduce it to scattered bones.

Then there was the matter of the whispering phone call from Ventura County. No way Billy could’ve pulled that off.

Iago-prompt, courtesy of the phone lines. It had worked.

I’d hypothesized about a cruel side to the Gaidelases but there was another pair of performance buffs worth considering.

Nora Dowd was an eccentric dilettante and a failure as an actress, but she’d been skillful enough to fool her brother about breaking off with Dylan Meserve. Toss in a young lover with a penchant for rough sex and mind games and it cooked up interesting.

Maybe Brad had found no sign of struggle in Nora’s house because there’d been none. Travel brochures in a nightstand drawer and missing clothes plus Dylan Meserve’s skip on his rent weeks ago said a long-planned trip. Albert Beamish hadn’t seen anyone living with Nora but someone entering and exiting the house after dark would have escaped his notice.

A woman who thought private flying was a nifty idea.

Her passport hadn’t been used recently and Meserve had never applied for one. But he’d grown up on the streets of New York, could’ve known how to obtain fake paper. Getting through passport control at LAX might be a challenge. But jetting from Santa Monica to a landing strip in some south-of-the-border village with payoff cash would be another story.

Brochures in a drawer, no real attempt to conceal. Because Nora was confident no one would broach her privacy?

When I stopped for a red light at Melrose, I took a closer look at the resorts she’d researched.

Pretty places in South America. Maybe for more than the climate.

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