The remaining citations preceded Weider’s assignment to the P.D. by years. An obituary for Weider’s father listed him as Gunnar Weider, a producer of low-budget horror flicks and, later, episodic TV. Sydney was listed as his only survivor and as the wife of Martin Boestling, a CAA film agent.

The Times used to run a social page before political correctness took over. I logged onto the archives and found notice, twenty-eight years ago, of the Weider-Boestling nuptials. The Beverly Hills Hotel, Sydney had been twenty-three, her groom, two years older. Big wedding, lots of Faces in attendance.

I plugged in Boestling’s name. A few years after marrying Sydney he had left CAA for ICM, then William Morris. After that, he took a business affairs post at Miramax, where he’d stayed until a year before the Malley murder, when he resigned to start MBP Ltd., his own production company.

According to the press release in Variety, the new firm’s emphasis would be on “quality, moderately budgeted feature films.” The only MBP credits I could find were three made-for-TV cheapies, including a remake of a sitcom that had been stale in its first incarnation.

Lauritz Montez had talked about a script. Had there been a real one and had Boestling gone out on his own to peddle it?

To my mind, the Malley case had nothing to offer cinematically— no happy ending, no redemption, no character development— but what did I know?

Maybe it would’ve worked as a quickie cable stinker. I searched some more. As far as I could tell, no one, Martin Boestling included, had done the project.

The other hits were mentions of Sydney and Martin at fund-raisers for the predictable causes: Santa Monica Mountains Conservation League, Save the Bay, The Women’s Wellness Place, Citizen’s Initiative for Gun Control, The Greater L.A. Zoo Association.

The single photo I found showed the couple at a Women’s Wellness benefit. Weider looked the way I remembered her from eight years ago: sleek, blond, haute coutured. Martin Boestling was dark, stocky, pitched forward like an attack dog.

She’d always been a fast talker but now her cool, deliberative demeanor had given way to manic speech patterns and ragged fear. From private jets and a Porsche/Beemer combo to a bird-splotched Nissan.

Did only one car in the driveway mean Boestling was away at work? Or was Weider living alone?

I phoned Binchy. Now he was out, but Milo was in.

I recounted the talk with Montez, the welcome I’d received from Weider, her house, her car.

“Sounds like an unhappy woman,” he said.

“Jumpy woman and I made her jumpier. Scared the hell out of her.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to be reminded of her former life. Getting poorer can do that to you. Not that I’m weeping, she’s still living in the Palisades.”

I said, “Can you find out if she and Boestling split up?”

“Why?”