“She didn’t seem to be holding back. Still, it is a stretch. Either way, her knowing about the affair doesn’t alter the botched-extortion motive. You saw how she got when you mentioned the rest of the family.”

“Mama Lion,” he said. “It’s one thing for Mark to play around with some bimbo he found cybersurfing, a whole other ball game if Leona learned her daughter-in-law set it up.”

The closed-circuit camera rotated toward us and held fast.

Milo harrumphed. “Tara’s a house, not a name—we’re outclassed, c’mon.”

I drove away.

He said, “To Leona, six a month is chump change but to Tara it would’ve been serious dough. Her getting killed nine months after Suss bit it could mean she was living off savings, finally ran out, tried to replenish by leaning on Connie, and paid big-time. Be nice if I had a real name for her.”

“Try Tiara. Sometimes slips of the tongue are meaningful.”

He ran Tiara Sly through the banks. Still nothing. Stretching, he fooled with his notepad.

A mile later, I said, “Are you open to an alternative scenario?”

“Alternative to what?”

“Connie and Muhrmann as the killers.”

“Huff and puff and blow the whole damn house down and return to square one? Why wouldn’t I welcome that?”

I didn’t speak.

“Spit it out.”

“Leona just told us she met Mark when she was twenty-four. That’s the exact age Tara claimed to be on her profile. On top of that, the photo in the entry showed Leona wearing an outfit nearly identical to Tara’s the night she died. Consciously or not, Mark may have been looking for Leona the way she used to be. Everything Tara did was calculated to exploit that.”

“And to learn that, Tara had to be in contact with someone who knew the details of Mark and Leona’s life. Like a daughter-in-law. So why the need for an alternative?”