He grimaced. “Help setting the damn table, you wash, I dry.”

“Or Sullivan’s role was more subtle,” I said. “You know what we usually see when there’s a female involved.”

“She’s the lure. If she is involved. Because let’s face it, kiddo, we’re running all over the place because she had a brief schmooze with Fellinger.”

“It’s more than that. She definitely knew Frankie.”

He put his fork down. “Poor kid delivers party-kinky duds, gets tagged and bagged—hell, a woman might be even better at spotting female vulnerability than a man, no?”

“She’d certainly be less threatening.”

“Maybe it went down that way with Kathy, too. It wasn’t Fellinger who snagged her in the elevator, it was his partnerette and now I’ve got both of them to keep an eye on.”

His eyes hooded. “Or we’re wrong about Sullivan in a real bad way.”

I said, “He’s grooming her as his next victim?”

“Why not? Suppose she did play a role introducing him to Frankie but had nothing to do with the bad stuff? Offing Ursula turned out to be a huge kick so he’s decided to raise his standards—capturing higher-level prey. That’s the moral dilemma, no? We spot Sullivan hanging out too long with Fellinger, do we warn her? If she really is his co-star, we’ve just blown the entire investigation.”

He downed two glasses of water, conference-called Reed and Binchy and informed them of the new surveillance regimen.

First step: pull up Flora Sullivan’s DMV so they’d know what she looked like and where she lived. Then get right on her at the same time Fellinger was being watched. But separately, both of them assigned to the building on Avenue of the Stars.

A scenario that would work well with half a dozen detectives. Reed and Binchy alternating with Milo meant long shifts, the risk that new cases would pull the young detectives off.

“At least,” he told them, “you’ll earn mucho overtime, kids, I’ll make sure of it.”

“Either way, L.T.”

“You bet, Loot.”

Milo hung up, grinning.

“What?” I said.

“It’s so nice when the kids turn out well.”

CHAPTER

21

For three days running, Flora Sullivan and Grant Fellinger arrived for work between eight thirty and ten a.m. Neither attorney was spotted leaving the building during the day; each was observed driving out of the parking lot between five thirty-four and six fifty-eight, p.m.

Night one: Ensconced in his Pacific Palisades house, Grant Fellinger never left. Flora Sullivan, on the other hand, paused only for a one-hour stopover at her Georgian mansion on June Street in Hancock Park before emerging wearing a black-spangled trouser outfit and jewelry that Binchy could see glinting clear across the street. Her hair was brushed out, curls slackened to waves. She carried a white purse not much larger than a cigarette pack.