He said, “Sure, I’ve seen that. Had a vic years ago, longtime fabric dyer, too many caustics, no more whorls and swirls. Fortunately we didn’t need to I.D. him, his wife stabbed him in the backyard.” He sighed. “So now I’ve got to consider Ms. Brand as a new member of a really bad club.”

“You’re not buying into a bad fall.”

“Normally, I might, but like you always say, context.”

“Did you ask Barrios if a meal was left—”

“Just about to tell you. Exactly the cuisine you predicted, given poor Deirdre’s station in life.”

“Fast food.”

“Burger, fries, small chocolate shake from Mickey D. Arranged neatly on the bench that was used to brain her.”

“Any of it eaten?”

“Not a crumb.”

“Barrios didn’t think that was strange?”

“Barrios wasn’t looking for strange. Also, there was an empty forty and a half-empty Night Train Express nearby. Barrios figured she blitzed herself dizzy, tumbled and smashed her head against the bench before she could go for the protein.”

I said, “Wining and dining her in the style to which she’s become accustomed.”

“Bastard. But why kill her when he’d already taken the time to sue her?”

“Maybe he lost patience. Or the suit was a way to intimidate her into hiding. He follows, goes after her. Thrill of the hunt.”

“He shows up at the park, she’s not going to panic?”

“With that level of intoxication, a sneak attack doesn’t sound too challenging. When do you start surveillance?”

“Past tense. Fellinger left his office twenty minutes ago and I am presently following in a professionally unobtrusive manner. As in sitting in traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard.”

“Good luck.”

“Good luck for me could mean bad luck for another woman, as in I spot him with another potential victim and can’t do anything unless he acts out in front of me.”

“At least you’ll be there.”

“Armed and dangerous.”

I hit three freeway underpasses, showing Deirdre Brand’s photo to any homeless person willing to acknowledge my presence. The financial outlay totaled a couple hundred bucks.

No one recognized her so I drove to Douglas Park on Wilshire and Twenty-Fifth Street. Pretty place, jeweled with ponds and play areas and smooth-skinned, happy-looking people. I strolled until I spotted an outlier: a grizzled, emaciated man sitting under a magnificent date palm.

I sat down next to him and he ignored me until I slipped a twenty into a filthy hand. Flashing pale toothless gums that said his liver didn’t have much longer, he licked his lips, already tasting the fortified wine he’d buy with the money. Trying to lift himself up with shaky arms, he failed several attempts and gave up.

I positioned the mugshot in front of him.

Nothing.

“You don’t know her?”

“That’s DeeDee,” he said, as if the fact was self-evident.

“She hangs out here?”