“Her experiences,” said Ramos. “For Lee, foster care was a lot easier than being at home. Her father— my stepfather— is a fascist. Those preachers she lived with didn’t give her any supervision. Custom-order for someone like Lee.”

“What do you mean?” said Milo.

“Lee was rebellious in the womb, did her own thing no matter what. She got pregnant when she was in foster care, had an abortion. The coroner told us that after the autopsy. The preachers talked a good case but my feeling is they collected the money and let Lee run wild.”

“Which coroner told you this?”

“Santa Barbara County. Lee was living in Isla Vista, with some dopers, when she . . .” Ramos removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

“This was after she got out of foster care,” said Milo.

Ramos nodded. “The fascist finally allowed her to come home on condition she stick to all his rules. She was home for two days before she ran away. The fascist said she should live with the consequences of her own behavior and my mother has always been totally under his thumb. So no one went looking for Lee. We found out where she’d been staying after she died. Some crash pad in Isla Vista, ten kids living like animals.”

I said, “The fascist isn’t your father but you and Lee had the same last name.”

“We don’t. Her name’s Monahan. When he got so fed up with her that he made her a ward of the state, he burned her clothes and locked her out and told her she was no longer his daughter. She said fuck you and started calling herself Ramos.”

“Sweet guy,” said Milo.

“Real peach,” said Ramos, cracking his knuckles. “She phoned me from Isla Vista, wanted me to have her name changed legally. I told her I couldn’t do it because she was a minor and she hung up on me.”

I said, “ ‘Ramos’ is listed on state documents.”

Ramos laughed. “The state doesn’t know its ass from a crater on the moon. There’s little about the system that doesn’t need changing.”

Milo said, “That why you’re in law school?”

Ramos stared at him myopically. “That’s a joke, right?”

Milo smiled.

“Sure, I’m breaking my butt for a lifetime of mindless bureaucracy and shitty pay,” said Ramos. He laughed “When I get out I’m going corporate.”

* * *

We talked to him for another quarter hour. I ended up doing most of the talking because the topic had slid into my bailiwick.

Wilfreda Lee Monahan/Ramos had exhibited severe learning disabilities and a history of disruptive behavior as long as her brother could remember. George Ramos’s father had died when he was five and a few years later his mother married a former marine who thought raising kids was a variant of boot camp.