None of the detectives was successful locating the prostitutes Grant Fellinger had picked up at the Norman. Not one to dither during his wife’s absence, Fellinger repeated the pattern at two other Strip hotels, settling for one woman per night. Moe Reed managed to corner the hooker from the second night, a girl who looked like a high school sophomore and had obviously fake papers saying she was twenty-five. She yawned a lot and described Fellinger as “just a john, nothing crazy.”

“Meaning?”

“Suck and fuck, what do you think? I’m not saying nothing more on advice of counselor.”

Reed said, “Counselor, huh? Like in summer camp?”

The girl stuck out her tongue and kept her extended middle finger close to her thigh as she wiggled up the Strip.

On day eight, Fellinger picked up his wife at the airport and took her to dinner at the Hotel Bel Air.

As the couple dined on Wolfgang Puck creations, Flora Sullivan was having sex with a man in a Rolls-Royce.

The site of the tryst was a quiet stretch of Hudson Avenue, near the Wilshire Country Club, a short walk from Sullivan’s manse on June Street.

Milo told me about it, sitting in the garden between Robin’s studio and our house, tossing pellets to the koi. Telling his tale with utter lack of salaciousness and a whole lot of weariness.

A week-plus of brutally disrupted sleep and little to show for it but garden-variety infidelity.

“She leaves her house just before nine wearing a loose dress and sandals, circles her own block a couple of times, passes a neighbor walking a dog, makes chitchat, heads back, I’m ready to nod off. But she continues to Hudson and stops at a car parked under a big tree. Black Rolls-Royce Ghost, you can barely see it. Flora lets herself in and stays inside for nearly half an hour, gets out smoothing down her dress. As she’s putting on lipstick a guy exits the driver’s side and walks over to her. Around her age, only thing I could make out was a light-colored shirt and dark pants. The two of them get all huggy and kissy and gropey and then he gets back in the Rolls and drives away and she walks home. The Rolls tags trace to Leon Andrew Bonelli, San Marino. Big-time real estate development, his online bio puts him at Boalt law school the same time as Flora and her husband.”

“Auld acquaintances aren’t forgotten,” I said. “Any sign of pleather?”

“Can’t speak for her undies. Normally, I wouldn’t begrudge a girl her fun. Hubby’s incapacitated, she gets lonely, life’s short. But the possibility Sullivan had something to do with Fellinger’s game means I’m gonna blame her every chance I’ve got. Where’s that scarlet letter, Nathaniel?”