“Dutiful girlfriend posing as a dutiful wife,” he said. “That’s manipulation elevated to an art form. Wascomb said she was a spiritual girl.”

“Wascomb hasn’t learned the fine points of cynicism.”

He took out another cigar, left it in its plastic wrapper, and rolled it nimbly from finger to finger. Nifty little trick; I’d never seen it before.

“There’s another manipulation to think about,” I said. “Drew’s story about the black truck was the reason we started looking seriously at Barnett Malley. But given what we’ve learned about him, we need to consider that he was playing us.”

“Not afraid of Malley, just wanting to point us in Malley’s direction.”

“Unfortunately for Drew, it got us looking closely at him.”

“Three dead kids,” he said. “Maybe two teams of murderers.”

We turned a corner. “Alex, now I’m thinking I need to take Jane Hannabee more seriously as a related crime. If Troy told his mommy about the movie and she wanted in, that would’ve made her a problem for Sydney and Drew.”

“An addict down on her luck,” I said, “she’d definitely want in.”

“We were saying Cherish coulda known where Jane slept, being Jane’s spiritual adviser, but the same applies to Drew.” He jammed his hands in his pockets. “This is growing like cancer. You ever find out how much the Daneys are sucking from the county tit?”

“Seven thou a month.”

“Not bad for a coupla defrocked mopes.”

I said, “With some of it illegal. Olivia said no one enforces the regulations but it could be a wedge if you need one. I asked her to fax over the names of all the kids they’ve fostered. Drew’s got a history of falsifying documents. Maybe he’s been naughty in other ways.”

“Good thinking. What about Hot Pants Weider? Think I should confront her?”

“Boestling and Montez both said the way she went off at me was her usual approach to conflict. All you’ve got on her is hearsay adultery and she doesn’t practice law, so any threat of disbarment would be empty.”

“I could still embarrass her.”

“After the way Boestling humiliated her I don’t imagine there’d be much self-esteem left to threaten.”

“All the more so,” he said. “Hit her when she’s down.”

“You could try it.”

“But you wouldn’t.”

“Not now,” I said. “Too little bang for the buck.”

“Then who’s my target?”

“Not who,” I said. “What. Paperwork.”

* * *

I walked him to the lot across the street from the station where he retrieved his unmarked and followed me home. Passing me up at Westwood Boulevard, he got there first.

The fax from Olivia sat in my machine. One page of names and social security numbers, birth dates, periods of foster care.