“Coupla DUIs lost him his license, at the second he also had what the arresting officer thought was traces of meth in a Baggie but turned out to be steroid powder. Despite the unfortunate absence of violence, I like him. Because he makes his mommy nervous. She’s the one tipped me off. Phoned this morning at seven and said the girl on the news was someone her son might know. I didn’t need to press her for details but she sounded like she wanted to get something off her chest, I figured an in-person would be better. What I did get was that she’d last seen him eight months ago, was calling himself Ste-fahn.”

Pronouncing it exactly as Gretchen had. Before Milo showed up, I’d been wondering how to deal with her tip. Some deity was kind.

He said, “This is the guy you saw, right?”

I nodded. “Mommy sells out Junior. What’s this world coming to?”

“More important, Mommy’s pretty sure she saw Princess with Junior. Princess never actually came in the house but when Mom walked Stefahn to the car, she was there. He introduced her as ‘Mystery.’ Mom said she thought it was ‘Ms. Terry,’ but Stevie corrected her. Girl never said a word, Mom thought she looked a little sad. Or maybe just shy.”

“Any guns registered to Stefan?”

“Nope and I didn’t press Mom, didn’t want to overload her before we meet in person. Which is due to happen in an hour, she lives out in Covina. That gives us just enough time to wolf down this repast. Ingest, lad, ingest.”

East Dexter Street in Covina was a thirty-minute cruise on the 10E followed by half a dozen quick turns onto sun-bright residential streets. Harriet Muhrmann’s house was no different than most of her neighbors’: a one-story fifties ranch the color of coffee laced with too much cream. White-painted lava rock girdled the width of the structure. Crescent-shaped windows were cut into the brown door of the double garage. Eight monumental date palms columned the driveway. The rest of the landscaping was velvet lawn and neat little pockets of impatiens and begonias. The block was silent.

A sisal mat trumpeted Welcome!

The woman who stood waiting for us in the doorway was trim with mannish gray hair, a long pleasant face, and soft eyes behind gold-framed glasses. She wore a cinnamon turtleneck, brown jeans, white deck shoes.

“Ms. Muhrmann?”

“Harriet.” She looked up and down the street. “Better come in, we don’t want to alarm anyone.”

The door opened directly into a twelve-by-twelve living room. Brown-velvet couches compressed grape-colored carpeting. The TV, stout and gray-screened, was a borderline relic. A bookshelf held paperback bestsellers, souvenirs from theme parks, a collection of ceramic deer, framed snapshots of cute little kids.

Harriet Muhrmann walked to her picture window, parted the drapes an inch, peered through. “Make yourselves comfortable. Coffee or tea?”