“God help her,” said Milo. “Or she’s in on it. Santos’s boss said she was the last to complain about Williams’s stalking behavior but maybe that was a ruse.”

Gonzales said, “You know how it is with pervs, they start with peeping, some of them move on. But why would she lie about being bothered by him?”

“Good question—so maybe she is in trouble, they had a thing and it broke up nasty. Their getting together in the first place would be understandable. They worked in the same place for months, plenty of time to develop chemistry. But I didn’t pick up any tension between them the brief time I saw them. You?”

I shook my head.

Not that I’d been looking.

Guided somewhere else by a psychopath.

Sheila Entell would be flogging herself for a while, thinking she’d screwed up due to inexperience. But it could happen to anyone because by nature we expect the usual and it’s not that hard to fool anyone with minimal misdirection.

Achieving dominance by sticking it to authority.

To the world.

CHAPTER

37

The “good judge” called back twenty minutes later, agreeing to sign a warrant for the next-door unit. Agreeable jurist, but a stickler: telephonic wouldn’t cut it, everything had to be on paper, to satisfy those “ACLU types who’ve been major pains in the asses lately.”

Part of that attitude might’ve been due to being woken up and hell if he’d leave the house. He had a home fax, would wait but not for too long.

Frank Gonzales ran off to call someone at his office and get the process going.

As we waited outside the condo, vehicles converged from the east. Uniformed officers to tape and guard, techs toting forensic luggage.

The last to arrive was a coroner’s investigator who looked as if she’d seen it all twice. She examined the body quickly, emerged, saying, “Kind of obvious,” and released it for further examination.

Moments later, a tech stepped out and said, “Okay, you can come in.”

Milo and Gonzales returned to the death scene. I waited outside, the conspicuous civilian with no role, and used the time to phone Robin.

She said, “Oh, no. What’s going on?”

“We were right about Williams and Corey colluding. To the point of Williams living next door. But Williams decided to dissolve the partnership. Lots of reasons to do that—covering his tracks, enjoying it, and, probably foremost, making off with Corey’s cash-stash.”

“Right in front of the cops.”

“That’s part of what I meant by enjoying it.”

“What a monster,” she said. “When are you coming home?”

“Up to Milo, he’ll need me to drive him back. Don’t wait up.”

“I won’t,” she said. “But I probably won’t sleep too deeply.”