“Nothing overly interesting, let’s see what the lab comes up with. No hair fibers, either. Not even from the dog. Apparently, poodles don’t shed much.”

“Any of the wounds defensive?”

“No, she was dead before the cutting started. The neck wound was a little stick to the side, but it got the jugular.”

“Five’s too many for impulse cuts but less than you’d expect from an overkill frenzy. Any pattern?”

“With her clothes on, it was hard to see much of anything except wrinkles and blood. I’ll be at the autopsy, let you know.”

I stared at the glossy spot.

Milo said, “So she blamed Meserve for the hoax. Lots of love lost?”

“She said she’d come to hate him.”

“Hatred’s a fine motive. Let’s try to locate this movie star.”

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 7

Dylan Meserve had cleared out of his Culver City apartment six weeks ago, failing to give notice to the company that owned the place. The firm, represented by a pinch-featured man named Ralph Jabber, had been more lax than Michaela’s landlord: Dylan owed three months back rent.

We encountered Jabber walking through the empty flat and jotting notes on a clipboard. The unit was one of fifty-eight in a three-story complex the color of ripe cantaloupe. The Seville’s tripometer put it three miles from where Michaela’s body had been found. That placed the murder scene roughly equidistant from the couple’s respective apartments and I said so to Milo.

“What, the two of them reaching some kind of common ground?”

“I’m pointing out, not interpreting.”

He grunted and we walked through unguarded double glass doors into a musty-smelling lobby done up in copper foil wallpaper, pumpkin-colored industrial carpet, and U-build Scandinavian furniture made of something yellow that yearned to be wood.

Dylan Meserve’s unit was on the far end of a dark, narrow hallway. From ten yards away I could see the open door, hear the supercharged whine of an industrial vacuum cleaner.

Milo said, “So much for trace evidence,” and walked faster.

* * *

Ralph Jabber motioned to the dark little woman pushing the vacuum. She flipped a switch that quieted but didn’t silence the machine.

“What can I do for you?”

Milo flashed the badge and Jabber lowered his clipboard. I caught a glimpse of the checklist. 1. FLOORS: A. Normal Wear B. Tenant Liability 2. WALLS...

Jabber was sallow, short, and sunken-chested, in a shiny black four-button suit over a white silk T-shirt, brown mesh loafers without socks. He had nothing to offer about his former tenant, other than the outstanding rent.

Milo asked the woman what she knew and got an uncomprehending smile. She was less than five feet tall, sturdily built, with a carved-teak face.

Ralph Jabber said, “She doesn’t know the tenants.”