Portico Place was a gracious stretch of big houses shielded by healthy shrubbery and high gates. Phil and Connie Suss’s address matched one of the grandest constructions: two towering stories of hand-troweled, tile-roofed, ocher-stucco Tuscan Revival set off by meticulously shaped date palms and brandy-colored bougainvillea and preceded by a cobbled motor court. Filigree double gates revealed a white BMW 3 series and a bronze Lexus convertible.

Milo said, “Mama and Brother Frank go for 90210 but Phil and Connie sure ain’t slumming. Pretty good for a guy with no obvious income.”

He eased a soft whistle through his front teeth. “Nothing like the lucky sperm club.”

We watched nothing happen for nearly an hour before returning to the city.

Drs. Frank and Isabel Suss resided in 90210 but their house on the 500 block of North Camden Drive would’ve fit any middle-class suburb.

The one-story ranch was painted pinkish beige. A skimpy front yard was mostly concrete. An older Honda sat in front.

“Two doctors,” he said. “They’re probably gonna be at work.”

During the twenty minutes we sat there, the only action was a neighbor’s uniformed maid walking a mouse-sized Chihuahua.

He said, “Kinda downscale for two skin docs, no? I thought Botox brought in the bucks.”

“Maybe they don’t care about the material world.”

“Numbing faces for fun? The way things are going, I’ll believe anything.”

From the look of her real estate, Leona Suss cared plenty for the material world.

The three-story brown-brick Georgian evoked Monticello. If Thomas Jefferson hadn’t run out of cash. The property was thirty car lengths wide, cordoned by matching brick walls topped by verdigris metalwork. Granite medallions carved into camellia blossoms punctuated every ten feet. Smudges of moss were too perfectly spaced to be accidental. Topping the grille, variegated ivy streamed gracefully through coppery spikes, loops, and finials. Pruned to the precise point where light peeked through but privacy held fast.

A copper pedestrian gate offered glimpses of the front acre. No parking area, just shaded patches on lawn and brick walkway cast by specimen pines, sycamores, and cedars. Half the lot spread to the left of the house, offering glimpses of boxwood parterres, columnate Italian cypresses, rose gardens spitting color, a lattice pavilion.

I coasted along the west side of the property where automobile access was provided through a ten-foot slab-steel gate set nearly flush with the street. An exquisitely laced Chinese elm spread to the right. Something in the tree caught sun and glinted.

Security camera tethered to a stout branch, nearly concealed by foliage.

We returned to the front, looked for another camera, spotted it winking from the largest cedar.

Milo said, “If little Ms. Tara ever caught a glimpse of this, she’d be inspired. Want to take bets ol’ Markham showed it to her?”

I said, “Too bad for her.”

His cell played Shubert. He plugged into the hands-off, barked, “Sturgis.”

A woman barked back louder: “Jernigan!”

“Hi, Doc.”