“Because she’s like that. Manipulative, out for herself. She’d fly to Aspen for the weekend on a private jet, be at work Monday in a Chanel suit and try to sound convincing about fighting for justice for some dude from Compton. By lunchtime, she’d be dropping names about who sat next to her at The Palm.” He laughed. “I’d like to think she’s not real happy, but she probably is.”

“Did you hear any specific rumors about a movie deal?” I said.

“I do know that she wrangled to get the case.”

“How?”

“By kissing up to the boss. The way it works at the P.D. is whoever’s top of the list gets the next client. Unless the boss handpicks someone for a specific case. I know for a fact that Sydney wasn’t next up on Troy Turner because the guy who was told me he’d been bumped. He wasn’t bitching, he had no stomach for high-profile bullshit. The way he phrased it was ‘The bitch did me a favor.’ ”

“Was she qualified?”

Montez clicked his teeth together. “I’d like to say no, but yeah, she was smart enough. By that time she had three, four years under her belt and her win-loss record was as good as anyone’s.”

“Three or four years out of school?” I said. “I remember her as older.”

“She was older. After she passed the bar she got married, did the mommy bit, waited until the kids were older.” He wiped his mouth and folded his napkin. “When you see her, give my regards.”

“I will.”

“I was kidding.”

* * *

I phoned Milo’s desk from the car. He was out and I asked for Detective Binchy.

Sean said, “Hey, Dr. Delaware.”

“Could you get me an unlisted address?”

“I don’t know, Doc, it’s kind of against regulations.”

“Milo asked me to talk to this person, so in a sense I’m a police surrogate.”

“A surrogate . . . okay. I guess. You’re not going to shoot anyone, are you?”

“Not unless they piss me off.”

Silence.

He said, “Ha. Okay, hold on.”

Lauritz Montez’s rant about Sydney Weider’s lifestyle had cited houses in Brentwood and Malibu but maybe that had been metaphorical, too. Or, she’d defied his rich-get-richer expectations and downsized.

Her listed residence was a smallish, single-story ranch house on La Cumbre Del Mar, on the western edge of Pacific Palisades. Sunny street cooled by Pacific currents, seven-figure ocean view, but by no means palatial. Splintering redwood siding striped the white stucco front. Half-dead sago palms and droopy ferns backed a flat lawn spiked with crabgrass. A shaggy old blue-leafed eucalyptus created gray litter on the grass. The driveway was occupied by a dented, gray Nissan Pathfinder filthy with gull shit.