I said, “Not to me. What, shades of the Menendez brothers?”

“At this point I need to consider everything. Lyle and Erik were spoiled slackers looking to cash in, why not a couple of spoiled rich girls in line for big bucks? They did know exactly where their mother would be this morning.”

“The Menendez brothers shotgunned their parents themselves and left tons of evidence. I don’t see these girls being smart enough to find a reliable contract killer.”

“I’m sure you’re right.” A beat. “Remember Katherine Hennepin? All my assumptions coming to squat? It does wonders for a boy’s self-esteem.”

“Why don’t you call Fellinger, see if you can learn where Ursula’s money is going to.”

He punched the preset he’d loaded for the lawyer’s office, caught the woman behind the counter edging closer, and took his phone outside the bakery. When he finished talking he motioned for me to join him. I paid for the food and we returned to the car.

“How much?” he said, reaching into his pocket.

“On me.”

“No way.”

“Fellinger give up anything about Ursula’s will?”

“Off the record, the estate’s divided four ways: Thirty-five percent goes to Richard because that was the amount Fellinger and Cohen finally negotiated after three years of bickering. Another twenty-five percent goes to a list of charities Ursula stipulated and the remaining forty is divided equally between Ashley and Marissa. But it’s in trust, they don’t get their hands on it for years.”

“Who’s the trustee?”

“Not Richard, a lawyer in Fellinger’s firm.”

“Fellinger recused himself from that function?”

“The other guy’s a trust and inheritance specialist, Fellinger said he wanted it done right.”

I said, “How much delay of gratification are we talking about?”

“The girls will have their basic needs taken care of from the get-go but no access to big bucks until they turn thirty. When they’re thirty-five, the trust terminates and they get everything.”

“Do the girls know the details?”

“As far as Fellinger knows, they don’t. They were described to him by both Richard and Ursula as not interested in the world of finance.”

“So Richard gets the single biggest chunk.”

“Nice for him,” said Milo. “Let’s see what his ex-girlfriend has to say about it. Maybe her husband, too.”

Long day since I’d seen Ursula Corey’s corpse in the parking garage. Darkness had settled by the time I drove into Beverly Hills.

The Tranh residence on the 600 block of North Maple Drive was an ungated, two-story, salmon stucco Mediterranean with a clipped lawn and a modest bed of palms and begonias. The neighborhood was mansions of varying vintage. Compared with its neighbors, this house was understated.