“The grumpy old guy?” She laughed. “Yeah, I can see why it would stick in his mind, the smell alone. It was for Billy Three’s thirteenth. I remember thinking this is baby stuff, he’s way too old for this. Except he was younger mentally and seemed to be digging it. All the kids were digging it, too, because the elephant was messing the street big time, we’re whooping and pointing at pounds of stuff coming out, holding our noses, you know? Meanwhile, Amelia’s looking ready to faint. Doing the whole Marilyn Monroe platinum-blond thing, tight silk dress, tons of makeup, running after the animal trainer on these gigantic spike heels, everyone’s waiting for her to step in elephant doo. Real tight dress, busting out of it. She was about twenty pounds past her prime.”

Milo took out the photos, showed her Michaela and Tori Giacomo’s head-shots.

“Nice-looking girls,” she said. “They still that cute or are we talking bad news?”

“Any resemblance to Amelia?”

“Maybe the blondeness. Amelia was more...constructed. Fuller in the face and she looked like she took all morning putting herself together.”

“What about Julie the Missing Showgirl, see any similarities?”

She peered closely. “I only saw one picture of her and it was twelve years ago...she was blond, too, so there’s that. She did make the Dunes stage so we’re not talking a toad...yeah, I guess, in a general way.”

“What about these people?” Flashing the MP shots of Cathy and Andy Gaidelas.

Marcia Peaty’s mouth opened and closed. “This could be Amelia Dowd, she’s heavy around the jaw and the cheeks in the exact same way. The guy’s not a dead-ringer for Bill Dowd Junior but he isn’t that different, either...similar around the eyes— the crags, the whole Gregory Peck thing.”

“Dowd looked like Peck?”

“My mom said Amelia bragged about it all the time. I guess there was some truth to it, except Captain Dowd was about five five. Mom used to say, ‘He’s Gregory Peck on the morning after an earthquake and a tornado and a flood, minus the charisma and sawed off at the knees.”

I said, “This guy’s been compared to Dennis Quaid.”

“I can see that...not as cute.” She studied the pictures some more, returned them. “You guys are dealing with serious bad, aren’t you?”

“You said Captain Dowd was no tough guy,” I said. “What else can you say about him?”

“Quiet, inoffensive, never seemed to do much.”

“Masculine?”

“What do you mean?”

“Manly man?”

“Hardly,” she said. “Just the opposite. Mom was convinced he was gay. Or as she put it, a homo. I can’t say I saw that, but I was too young to be thinking in those terms.”

“Your father have any opinions about it?” said Milo.

“Dad kept his opinions to himself.”

“But your mom was definite about it.”