“Nah,” said Gonzales. “My case was morons against morons, yours actually sounds interesting. Give me time to catch some Z’s, then you can buy me dinner.”

“When and where, Detective?”

“Frank. Give me your number, I’ll call you.”

Three and a half hours later, Milo and I were at a corner table in an Oxnard winery restaurant. High-end industrial park, the kind of businesses that required massive buildings and didn’t advertise.

This building was prettier than its neighbors, stuccoed ocher and rust and set up with a self-guided tour. The tasting room out front was filled with happy-looking sippers. I knew the place, had been there years ago for a meet with the young widow of a bad man. But I hadn’t suggested the place, Gonzales had.

He arrived moments after Milo and I had been seated, a pigeon-chested, large-bellied six-footer with slicked black hair and a gray Zapata mustache. He wore a white polo shirt, black slacks, white-soled black deck shoes. Heavy man but firmly packed; he moved quickly and smoothly, a tree-trunk prop in a school play wheeled across the stage.

Handshakes all around. Gonzales had a strong grip and clear eyes, the only sign of fatigue some imprecise shaving where his jowls met his neck.

Dipping bread in olive oil, he chewed and swallowed, wiped the mustache.

A waitress showed up with menus and a special smile for Gonzales. The order was quick and easy: three 16-ounce rib eyes, medium rare, salad in lieu of potatoes the nod to virtue. The waitress said, “Of course,” as if everything had been preordained.

The salads arrived quickly, followed by gratis bowls of cured olives, fried squash blossoms, and salt-cod beignets. Frank Gonzales wasn’t surprised.

Milo said, “You’re a regular?”

“Regular as I can be. Mostly I have to eat crap on the go.”

“Know what you mean,” said Milo.

Gonzales’s curious, hazel eyes glided toward me. “Psychologist. My daughter wants to be one.”

Milo gave him the short version of my involvement with the department followed by a short-version summary of all the murders. Even abbreviated the account took a while. Gonzales possessed a detective’s most important trait: good listener.

When Milo was finished, he said, “So this Corey character, you’re figuring a John List–type thing? One of those tight-ass types who offs their entire family and reinvents himself?” Aiming the question at me.

I said, “There are elements of that but most family slaughterers do it in one bloody show.”

“This guy’s more calculated?”

“Or his motives were mixed and he decided recently to get his daughters.”

“Mixed how?”

“His wife was done for money and because he hated her, it took a while for him to feel secure enough to aggress against the girls.”

“And the other murders?”