Per directions, Milo drove up to the left-hand box. As we waited to enter, I spotted a black glass eye peering from the boughs of a pine. Closed-circuit lens focused on Prema’s gate. Then another, aimed at Donny Rader’s. Maybe he’d installed his own security system. Or Prema cared more about his comings and goings than she’d let on.

I pointed the cameras out to Milo. His placid nod said he’d already seen them.

Four beeps from the call box, the gate swung open smoothly, we rattled through. The brown van had been borrowed from the Westside LAPD impound yard. Cheap stick-on signs on each flank read Adaptive Plumbers. The 213 number below was printed in numerals too small to read from a distance. If someone actually called it, they’d get a disconnect.

I sat up front in the shotgun seat. Behind me was a tech sergeant named Morry Burns who occupied himself playing Sudoku online. The slew of equipment he’d brought, including a portable dolly, occupied the van’s rear storage area. Behind Burns sat K-9 specialist Tyler O’Shea and a panting retriever mix named Sally.

Milo said, “Pooch okay?”

O’Shea said, “She’s awesome. Lives to do the job.”

“All-American work ethic.”

“El Tee, I’ll take her any day over your garden-variety so-called human.”

Prema Moon was waiting for us in the parking lot west of her mansion. The area was an easy acre, paved beautifully, ringed by river rock, cordoned by low privet hedges. Space for dozens of cars but only four today, all compact sedans. Three bore the bumper sticker of a Spanish-language Christian station. The fourth had customized plates reading TRFFLES.

The mansion hovered in the distance, a frothy, pink-beige Mediterranean that almost succeeded in looking old, perched assertively on the property’s highest knoll. Windows gleamed like zircons. Red bougainvillea climbed the walls like gravity-defying rivulets of blood. The hue of the stucco was a perfect foil for an uncommonly blue sky.

Several smaller outbuildings dotted the property, same color, same genre, as if the mansion had dropped pups. North of the structures, walls of cypress surrounded something unseen. To the rear of the property was a black-green cloud of untamed conifer, sycamore, eucalyptus, and oak.

As we got out of the van, Prema strode toward us, holding a sheaf of papers. She wore form-fitted black jeans, a black mock turtle, red suede flats. Her hair was combed out and shiny, held in place by a thin black band. She’d put on lipstick and eye shadow and mascara.

New take on gorgeous.

Milo said, “Morning.”

“Morning, Lieutenant. I just called the tribe, they’re halfway to San Diego, should be gone until eight or even nine. Is that enough time?”

Milo said, “We’ll do our best.” He introduced her to Morry Burns.

She said, “Pleased to meet you.”