She said, “I’ve got kids of my own, now. I set limits, am probably too strict because I know what’s out there. In ten years, I haven’t touched anything stronger than chardonnay. I love my husband. He’s going places. My practice is rewarding—I don’t see why any of that should be derailed because of mistakes I made twenty years ago.”

“Neither do I,” said Milo. “I’m not taking notes, and none of that goes in any file. I just want to know what happened to Janie Ingalls that Friday night. And anything else you can tell me about the man who raped her downtown.”

“I told you everything I know about him.”

“Young and nice-looking with a nice car.”

“The car could’ve been Janie’s fantasy.”

“How young?”

“She didn’t say.”

“Race?”

“I assume he was white, because Janie didn’t say he wasn’t. And she would’ve. She was a bit of a racist—got it from her father.”

“Any other physical description?”

“No.”

“A fancy car,” said Milo. “What kind?”

“I think she said a Jaguar, but I can’t be sure. With fur rugs—I do remember that because Janie talked about how her feet sank into the rug. But with Janie, who knows? I’m trying to tell you: She was always fantasizing.”

“About what?”

“Mostly about getting loaded and partying with rock stars.”

“That ever happen?”

She laughed. “Not hardly. Janie was a sad little girl from the wrong part of Hollywood.”

“A young guy with a Jaguar,” said Milo. “What else?”

“That’s all I know,” said Waters. “Really.”

“Which hotel did he take her to?”

“She just said it was downtown, in an area full of bums. She also said the guy seemed to know the place—the desk clerk tossed him a key the moment he walked in. But she didn’t think he was actually staying there because the room he took her to didn’t look lived in. He wasn’t keeping any clothes there, and the bed wasn’t even covered. Just a mattress. And rope. He’d put the rope in a dresser drawer.”

“She didn’t try to escape when she saw that?”

Waters shook her head. “He gave her a joint on the ride over. A huge one, high-grade, maybe laced with hash, because she was really floating and that’s what hash usually did to her. She told me the whole experience was like watching someone else. Even when he pushed her down on the bed and started tying her up.”

“Her arms and legs and her neck.”

“That’s where the marks were.”

“What happened next?”

Anger flashed behind Waters’s eyeglass lenses. “What do you think? He did his thing with her. Used every orifice.”

“She said that?”