“Her getting poorer. And I got the feeling she lived alone.”

“So?”

“Her reaction was bizarre.”

“Hold on.” He went off the line, came back several minutes later.

“Yeah, they’re divorced. Filed seven years ago and closed three years after that. That’s as much as I can get without driving downtown. Three years of drawn-out legal battle couldn’t be fun and maybe she didn’t get what she wanted. Now here’s my show-and-tell: Went over to Nestor Almedeira’s dump on Shatto. All the roaches you can stomp. Like Krug said, no one remembers Nestor ever existing. After some prodding, the clerk thought maybe Nestor sometimes hung out with another junkie named Spanky, but he had no idea what Spanky’s real name was. Male white, twenty-five to forty-five, tall, dark hair and mustache. Possibly.”

“Possibly?”

“The hair coulda been dark blond or maybe reddish or reddish brown. The mustache coulda been a beard. Clerk’s about five-two, so I’m figuring anyone would look tall to him. At eight a.m. his breath reeked of booze, so don’t buy stock on his advice. Nestor’s belongings are nowhere to be found. I asked around about Krug and he’s got a rep as a lazy guy. I’d bet he never bothered to go through Nestor’s treasures, gave the other junkies in the place time to do the vulture bit on Nestor’s dope kit, whatever else they figured they could use or sell. The rest probably got tossed.”

“Including Troy Turner’s prison I.D.,” I said. “No street value in that. Or maybe Nestor carried it on him and the killer took it as a souvenir.”

“If the motive was hushing Nestor, that’s a real good bet. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could get a warrant for Cowboy Barnett’s cabin and the damn thing’s sitting in a drawer? Next item: Jane Hannabee. Central can’t seem to find her murder book, one of the D’s who worked the case is dead and the other moved to Portland, Oregon. I’m waiting for his callback. I did manage to locate the coroner’s report on Hannabee, they’re supposed to be faxing it any minute. Last but not least, I background-checked the old stunt gal, Bunny MacIntyre. She’s an upright citizen, has owned the campsite for twenty-four years. Anyway, that’s my life. Suggestions?”

“With no dramatic leads, I’d follow up on Sydney Weider.”

“Back to her? Why such a big deal?”

“You had to be there,” I said. “The way she went from wary to panicked. Also, she angled for the case eight years ago and Montez voiced a half-joking suspicion that she and Boestling wanted to make a movie about it. I know none of that ties together, but she twanged my antenna.”