The husband, Leland McIntyre, who drove back from Palm Springs, had seemed genuinely upset. He had an alibi, but then murder-for-hire wasn’t an impossibility. An insurance broker, Leland McIntyre had taken out a whopper of a policy on his wife, over two million dollars. Then there was the list of her ex-husbands and the previous Mrs. McIntyre, Isabella, who, if you could believe the neighbors, had held a grudge against Shana for stealing her husband. It was hard to tell. There were so many ex-wives and husbands in the mix, it nearly took a flowchart to keep them all straight.

And all the suspects from dysfunctional relationships didn’t change the fact that Rick Bentz had visited Shana only days before her death. He’s in town less than a week, and she ends up dead.

The last person to see Shana alive was the gardener, earlier in the afternoon. The final call on her cell phone had been to her husband in Palm Springs. The phone records for her cell, the husband’s cell, and the home phone were already being checked.

No signs of forced entry at the house, but the killer had probably climbed the gate and walked around the house. Of course there were four security cameras in and around the house, but they had been inoperable for years.

No break there.

The McIntyre homicide was a tough one, Hayes thought, even if you pulled Bentz from the pool of suspects.

Damned Bentz. He was proving to be a real pain in the ass. Still, Hayes would give Bentz the benefit of the doubt and track down some of the information Bentz wanted. There was a chance it might even help with the case.

Just as soon as he fought his way through the statements and evidence of this latest crime.

He glanced at the clock again and figured it would be a long one. If he was lucky, he’d be home at midnight. Great. He glanced down and a note on his calendar caught his eye: Recital. Oh, hell, Maren was singing tonight at some church near Griffith Park in Hollywood. Hayes had promised his daughter he would attend and he couldn’t stand facing her disappointment or Delilah’s scowl of disgust. He had to show up. Somehow he’d take off an hour for the kid.

It was, as Delilah was always delighted to remind him, his responsibility.

Montoya was sweating, his muscles aching from running on the indoor track for half an hour, then working out on the weight machines—a new exercise regimen his wife had initiated by giving him a membership to a gym for his birthday. Yeah, it was a great stress reliever, and yeah, he was more toned, but this new “healthy” lifestyle was about to kill him. After all, what was wrong with a smoke and a beer?