“A whore?” I said. “I’d like to think of it as freelance investing.”

“Think what you want. Spread your legs and let’s get it over with.”

I let her stew some more. When her neck tendons grew rigid, I said, “One thing I learned from this case is that life really does imitate art. If you can call what you used to do art. The first time we met you I found you interesting, so I did a little research. Learned about that fall you took from a horse five years ago. All that pain and the prescription drug problem it got you into.”

“It happens. Big deal.”

I said, “Kind of ironic. You make all those movies, do all that serious riding and never get hurt. Only to get thrown by a twenty-year-old nag at a charity moonlight walk for the actors’ hospice.”

“No good deed,” she said. “So what? I’m fine now.”

“You tried to get fine by yourself, but when that didn’t work you had the smarts to check yourself into rehab. Awakenings, out in Pasadena, near the racetrack. You knew what you needed but going public was humiliating so you borrowed Connie’s identity and paid cash. Or maybe you just don’t like Connie, figured it was a way to stick it to her. Either way, the staff at Awakenings I.D.’d your picture. They remember you fondly. Only thing they didn’t like was your choice in new friends. Steven Muhrmann, your basic shiftless L.A. lowlife, pugnacious, no capacity for insight, and no motivation to change because he was there by court order. The staff was concerned he might corrupt you.”

I laughed. “Talk about a bad clinical guess, huh? Stevie couldn’t play in your league in every sense and from the moment you and he hooked up you called the shots. But he ended up as more than a boy-toy. When you confided your plans for Mark’s retirement, he said, ‘I know just the girl.’ ”

She sat there, inexpressive.

“And Stevie’s girl turned out to be perfect, Leona. Beautiful, pliable, not too bright. Exactly what Mark had always gone for. I was puzzled by your motivation. Why would a woman, even a tolerant woman, encourage her husband to troll the Internet for a mistress? And Mark had always been capable of finding his own bimbos. A fact you made sure to tell Lieutenant Sturgis and me minutes after we met you. We figured you as long-suffering. But that wasn’t it at all, Leona.”

No answer.

I said, “My first guess was logical but wrong—occupational hazard of being a shrink. I figured you assumed Mark would fool around anywhere, you might as well attempt some sort of control. Pure Hollywood: Everyone wants to direct. And maybe by getting involved, you could keep an eye on how much money he paid her.”

Her eyes had turned dead. A cheek muscle twitched.