“Only on alternate days.” He took another look back at the case. The unmarked stayed in lane. “Either way,” he said, “the motive for Rand’s the same, covering up the truth about Kristal. But there’s still the problem of how Rand found out. And the fact that Kristal was nearly two, talk about your late-term abortion. If Daney has this psycho lust to destroy his own sperm, why would he wait that long?”

“Maybe he kept working on Lara to terminate. She got angry, refused, broke off their relationship. Daney had to step aside but he couldn’t accept losing. He kept fantasizing. Plotting. Found a thirteen-year-old he could hire to kill.”

“Lara shopping at the mall, the boys hanging at the arcade.”

“Another possibility,” I said, “is that Lara’s relationship with Barnett grew progressively rockier and she decided to leave him. Because she had her own fantasies.”

“Hooking ol’ Drew.”

“The guy who’d come through biologically. But putting pressure on Drew would’ve been a fatal error.”

“He puts a hit on the kid. Does Lara, too.”

“Or she really was a suicide. She had an inkling of why Kristal had been killed, couldn’t come forward because it would have implicated her. Her depression deepened and she killed herself.”

“Head-shot in a car?” he said. “Same as Rand? To me that says they were both murdered by the same person.”

“Or whoever shot Rand imitated Lara’s suicide.”

He knuckled his temple, made an abrupt lane change, put on more speed. “Daney’s character notwithstanding, Malley’s the one with the guns and it was one of those that killed Lara. And he’s also got a thing for other guys’ wives.”

He slapped the dashboard. “How ‘bout this for a screenplay: The Malleys weren’t the only ones swinging. They met Drew and Cherish at a swap party. Drew and Lara parted ways but Malley and Cherish are still doing it.”

I considered that. “It might help explain Barnett accepting Lara’s pregnancy. If it was the product of a group scene, the threat would be depersonalized.”

“It takes a village,” he said. “Whatever the case, no way I’m scratching the cowboy off my list.”

* * *

We parked in the coroner’s lot and entered the north building. Milo talked to Dave O’Reilly, a thin, red-faced, white-haired man with a keen, searching intellect, and asked for Kristal Malley’s tissue samples and Valerie Quezada’s aborted fetus.

“You just dropped Quezada off,” said O’Reilly. “Something come up?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“I’m sure I don’t. Okay, I’ll call down and have them put it in a refrigerator bag and a Styrofoam biohazard box.”

“All official,” said Milo. “I like that.”

“I like tall, skinny brunettes with big natural boobs.”

* * *