“I should have something,” said Ingalls, “but hell if I can find anything—if I do, I’ll call you.”

“I noticed,” said Milo, “that there was no diary in Janie’s room.”

“You say so.”

“You never saw a diary or a date book—a photo album?”

Ingalls shook his head. “I stayed out of Janie’s stuff, but she wouldn’t have any of that. Janie didn’t like to write. Writing was hard for her. Her mother was like that, too: never really learned to read. I tried to teach Janie. The school didn’t do shit.”

Papa Juicehead huddled with Janie, tutoring. Hard to picture.

Schwinn frowned—he’d lost patience with Milo’s line of questioning and gave the doorknob a sharp twist. “Afternoon, Mr. Ingalls.”

As the door closed, Ingalls cried out: “She was my kid.”

“What a stupid asshole,” said Schwinn, as they headed to Hollywood High. “Stupid parents, stupid kid. Genes. That’s what you were getting at, right, with those questions about school?”

“I was thinking learning problems coulda made her an easier victim,” said Milo.

Schwinn grumbled, “Anyone can be a victim.”

The school was an ugly pile of gray-brown stucco that filled a block on the north side of Sunset just west of Highland. As impersonal as an airport, and Milo felt the curse of futility the moment his feet touched down on the campus. He and Schwinn walked past what seemed to be thousands of kids—every one of them bored, spaced, surly. Smiles and laughter were aberrations, and any eye contact directed at the detectives was hostile.

They asked directions of a teacher, got the same icy reception, not much better at the principal’s office. As Schwinn talked to a secretary, Milo studied girls walking through the sweaty corridor. Tight or minimal clothes and hooker makeup seemed to be the mode, all those freshly developed bodies promising something they might not be able to deliver, and he wondered how many potential Janies were out there.

The principal was at a meeting downtown, and the secretary routed them to the vice principal for operations, who sent them farther down the line to the guidance office. The counselor they spoke to was a pretty young woman named Ellen Sato, tiny, Eurasian, with long, side-winged, blond-tipped hair. The news of Janie’s murder made her face crumple, and Schwinn took advantage of it by pressing her with questions.

Useless. She’d never heard of Janie, finally admitted she’d been on the job for less than a month. Schwinn kept pushing and she disappeared for a while, then returned with bad news: no Ingalls, J. files on record for any guidance sessions or disciplinary actions.

The girl was a habitual truant, but hadn’t entered the system. Bowie Ingalls had been right about one thing: No one cared.