“He comes across dumb and weird but think about it: He sweeps up at an acting school.”

“He was playing us?”

“The world’s a stage,” he said. “Sure be nice to have the script.”

“If he was performing, why would he put on a weird act?” I said.

“True...let’s head back.”

I drove toward the West L.A. station as he phoned the MTA and learned which buses Peaty would’ve taken from Pico-Robertson to the PlayHouse. Transfers and the need to cover several blocks on foot stretched a half-hour car trip to at least a ninety-minute journey.

I said, “Michaela’s Honda show up yet?”

“Nope...you’re thinking Peaty coulda jacked her?”

“The hoax might’ve given him ideas.”

“Life imitating art.” He punched numbers on his cell, talked briefly, hung up. “No sign of it yet. But we’re not talking conspicuous. A Civic, black no less. If the plates are off or replaced, it could take a long time to spot it.”

“If Peaty is the bad guy,” I said, “maybe he decided to drive to work this morning and ditched it within walking distance of the PlayHouse.”

“That would be pretty damned stupid.”

“Yes, it would.”

He chewed his cheek. “Mind turning around?”

* * *

We cruised the half-mile radius surrounding the acting school, peering up and down streets and alleys, driveways and parking lots. Taking more than an hour, then expanding to another half mile and spending another hundred minutes. Spotting lots of Civics, three of them black, all with plates that checked out.

On the way back to the station, Milo tried the coroner’s office and learned that Michaela’s autopsy was scheduled in four days, maybe longer if the body count stayed high. “Any way to prioritize? Yeah, yeah, I know...but if there’s anything you can do. Appreciate it, this one could get complicated.”

* * *

I sat in the spare chair of Milo’s tiny, windowless office as he tried to plug Reynold Peaty into the data banks. His computer took a long time to sputter to life, even longer for icons to fill the screen. Then they disappeared and the screen went black and he started all over again.

Fourth PC in eight months, yet another hand-me-down, this one from a prep school in Pacific Palisades. The last few donated machines had enjoyed the shelf life of raw milk. In between Clunkers Two and Three, Milo had paid for a high-priced laptop with his own money, only to see some glitch in the station’s electrical system fry his hard drive.