He hung up. "The barter is I come give a talk to some murder-mystery club she belongs to. They stage phony crimes, give out prizes for solving them, eat nachos. She wanted me next month but I deferred to their big bash at Christmas."

"Playing Santa?"

"Ho ho fucking ho."

"I tell you it's the musk."

"Yeah, next time I'll shower first.... The deal on Orson is, he joined Starkweather fifteen months ago, left after ten months of full-time employment."

"Five months ago," I said. "A month after Claire got there. So they had plenty of time to get acquainted."

"The brunette in the car," he said. "Itatani's three-second observation isn't much, but with this ... maybe. Orson's file says he worked primarily on the fifth floor, with the criminal fakers-how's mat for a match made in hell? But he did do some overtime down on the regular wards, so that gives him access to Peake. No infractions, no problems, he quit voluntarily. His photo's missing from me file, but Lindeen thinks she might remember him-maybe he had light brown hair. Probably being overly helpful. Or the guy's got a wig collection."

"Little dip into the costume box," I said. "He produces, directs, and acts. Five months ago is also shortly after Richard Dada's murder. Right when Orson closed up shop at Shenan-doah, packed up the machine shop. He keeps himself a moving target. Saves money on rent and gets off on the thrill of the con."

"His relationship with Claire. You think it could've gone beyond an interest in Peake?"

"Who knows? Castro said he wasn't very smooth in Miami, but he's had time to polish his act. For all her love of privacy, Claire might've been lonely and vulnerable. And we know she could be sexually aggressive. Maybe her interest in pathology went beyond the workday. Or Orson promised to put her in pictures."

He knuckled his eyes, let out air very slowly. "Okay, let's check out that Pico address."

As we left the building, I said, "One thing in our favor, he may trip himself up. Because there's rigidity and childishness to his technique. The way he scripted his Miami con. I'll bet he's done the same here. The way he stays in comfort zones, dumping Claire near one of his addresses, Richard near another. He sees himself as some creative wizard, but he always returns to the familiar."

"Sounds about right," he said, "for a showbiz guy."

Mailbox Heaven. Northeast corner of a scruffy strip mall just west of Barrington, a stuffy closet lined with brass boxes and smelling of wet paper. A young woman came out from the back room, redheaded, bright-eyed, brightening as Milo showed her his badge. Opining that police work was "cool."

George Orson's box had been rented to someone else for over a year and she had no records of the original transaction.

"No way," she said. "We don't keep stuff. People come and go. That's who uses us."