“Depression, anxiety, or just plain worry.”

“No, I couldn’t say that, she wasn’t moody at all. Just the opposite, she was even-tempered, never raised her voice. I just felt she wanted her privacy and I respected that.”

“Unemotional,” said Milo.

“No, I wouldn’t say that, either. Her default mood was … even is the best word I can come up with. Going through her day, pleasant, never complaining. Once in a while—infrequently—I’d catch her with a remote look on her face. Like she was remembering something troubling. But, honestly, it was nothing dramatic.”

I said, “She lost a fiancé to a farm accident.”

“Oh, my. Well, that could be it, then.”

Donald put his arm around Lilly’s shoulder. “Honey, you’re an emotional detective. I’m impressed.”

A beep sounded on the monitor. Both Changs turned to the machine.

Silence.

“Back to sleep,” said Donald, crossing his fingers.

Lilly said, “That’s really all I can tell you about Adriana. Would you like to collect her belongings?”

Donald said, “So to speak.”

Milo said, “Not much in the way of worldly possessions?”

“Let’s put it this way, guys. Everything fit into two boxes and one of them’s small. That’s not much of a life, is it?”

CHAPTER
22

Donald Chang took us down in the elevator to a parking garage filled with vehicles save for a section cordoned by a mesh gate. Behind the mesh was a wall lined with storage lockers.

Chang unlocked the gate and one of the lockers and stood back. “The two in front are Adriana’s, everything else is our stuff.”

Milo drew out a cardboard wardrobe and a carton of the same material, around two feet square. Both boxes had been sealed cleanly with packing tape and neatly labeled Adriana Betts’s Belongings.

Chang said, “Can’t tell you what’s in there, Lilly packed. Do you want to go upstairs to look at them?”

“Thanks, but we’ll take them back to L.A.”

“Forensic procedure and all that? Makes sense. Good luck, guys.”

Milo gave him a card. “In case you or your wife remember something.”

Chang tugged a mustache end. “I don’t want to demean the dead but my opinion is Adriana was a bit odder than you just heard from Lilly.”

“How so, Dr. Chang?”

“My wife sees the good in everyone, puts a gloss on everything. The way I perceived Adriana she was a total loner, no life at all other than caring for May and cleaning like a demon.”

I said, “Except for that one time the red car picked her up.”

“Yes, that would be the exception, but outliers don’t necessarily say much, do they?”

Milo said, “When she got back from the date she looked okay.”

“Nothing stood out but bear in mind that neither of us was psychoanalyzing Adriana, our priority was that May stay calm during the drive home.”