The Murder Book

CHAPTER 22

I got on the computer, typed in "Paris Bartlett" as a keyphrase on several search engines, and came up with nothing.

Next, I tried "Playa del Sol" and its English translation: Sun Beach, and connected to hundreds of resort links all over the world. Costa del Sol. Costa del Amor. Playa Negra. Playa Blanca. Playa Azul. Sun City. Sunrise Beach. Excursion packages, time shares, white sand, blue water, adults only, bring the kids. Also, a guy who'd devoted an obsessive site to the old song "Cuando Caliente El Sol." The joys of the information age…

I stuck with it for hours, felt my eyes crossing and broke for a midnight sandwich, a beer, and a shower before returning to the screen. By 2 A.M., I was fighting sleep and nearly missed the article in a three-year-old issue of The Resort Journal elicited by yet another try at Playa del Sol. This time, I'd logged on to a pay service- a business-oriented data bank that I hadn't used since last fall, when I'd considered selling a lot of municipal bonds. I clicked my assent to pony up by credit card and continued.

What I got was a rear-of-the-magazine piece entitled "Seeking the Good Life on Distant Shores: Americans Looking for Foreign Bargains Often Find Themselves on the Losing End." The article recounted several real estate deals gone sour, among them a construction project down in Baja named Playa del Sol: high-end condos peddled to American retirees lured by American-style luxury living at Mexican prices. Two hundred units out of a planned four hundred fifty had been built and purchased. The first wave of retirees hadn't yet moved in when the Mexican government invoked a fine-print provision of an obscure regulation, confiscated the land, and sold it to a Saudi Arabian consortium who turned the condos into a hotel. The Playa del Sol Company, Ltd., incorporated in the Cayman Islands, dissolved itself and its American subsidiary, Playa Enterprises, declared Chapter 11. The retirees lost their money.

No comment from the president of Playa Enterprises, Michael Larner.

Recalling the obscure business journal references that had come up on my first search for Larner- magazines not in the Research Library's holdings- I looked for anything else I could find on the former Achievement House director and came across several other deals he'd put together during the past five years.

Larner's specialty was real estate syndication- getting moneyed people together to buy out incomplete building projects that had run into trouble. High-rise apartments in Atlanta, defunct country clubs in Colorado and New Mexico, a ski lodge in Vermont, a golf course in Arizona. Once the deal was inked, Larner took his cut and walked away.

All the subsequent articles had the rah-rah tone of paid ads. None mentioned the Mexican debacle, Playa Enterprises, or the Playa Del Sol Company, Ltd. Larner's corporate face was now the ML Group.

No mention of the Cossack brothers, either. Or any of Larner's fellow venture capitalists, though showbiz and Wall Street affiliations were implied. The only other ML staffer named was Larner's son, Bradley, executive vice president.

Using "ML Group" as a keyphrase, I retraced all the search machines and obtained the exact same articles, plus one more: a two-year-old stroke job in a glossy rag titled Southwest Leisure Builder.

Centered amid the text was a color photo: Larners, father and son, posing on a bright day in Phoenix, wearing matching royal blue golf shirts, white canvas slacks, white smiles.

Michael Larner looked around sixty-five. Square-faced and florid, he wore wide steel-framed aviator's glasses turned to mirrors by the Arizona sun. His smile was self-satisfied and heralded by overly large capped teeth. He had a drinker's nose, a big, hard-looking belly, and meticulously styled white hair. A casting agent would've seen Venal Executive.

Bradley Larner was thinner and smaller and paler than his father- barely a nuance of his father. Late thirties or early forties, he was also bespectacled, but his choice of eyewear ran to gold-framed, narrow, oval lenses so tiny they barely covered his irises. His hair was that lank, waxy blond destined to whiten, and it trailed past his shoulders. Less enthusiasm in his expression. Barely a smile at all, though to read the article, the Larners were riding the crest of the real estate wave.

Bradley Larner looked like a kid forced to sit for yet another obnoxious family snapshot.

An accompanying picture on the following page showed Michael Larner in an ice-cream suit, blue shirt, and pink tie posed next to a white-on-white Rolls Royce Silver Spirit. To his father's right, Brad Larner perched atop a gold Harley-Davidson, wearing black leather.

The caption read: Different generations, but the same flair for the Ultimate Ride.

The Playa del Sol link meant "Paris Bartlett" was likely an envoy to Milo from the Larners.

Warning him off the trail of Caroline Cossack.

Because the Larners and the Cossacks went way back.

The families had something else in common: big deals that often went bad. But all of them managed to stay on top, maintaining the good life.

The Ultimate Ride.

In the Cossacks' case, inherited wealth might've provided a nice safety blanket. Michael Larner, on the other hand, had bounced from job to job and industry to industry, leaving scandal or bankruptcy in his wake but always managing to position himself higher.

That smile, teeth as white and gleaming as his Rolls Royce. A man willing to do whatever it took? Or friends in the right places? Or both.

Back when Larner had bent the rules and admitted Caroline Cossack to Achievement House, her brothers had been barely out of adolescence but already in the real estate business. Larner might have dealt initially with Garvey Cossack, Senior, but the relationship endured well after Senior's demise and found Larner working for men twenty-five years his junior. Then I thought of something: Bradley Larner was about the same age as the Cossack brothers. Was there some link, there? Something that went beyond business?

When searching for school data on Caroline, Milo hadn't gotten very far with the local high schools. Because everyone was litigation-wary and watched episodic TV and believed cops without warrants were impotent.

Maybe also because Caroline's emotional problems meant she hadn't enjoyed much of a school history. But perhaps tracking her brothers would be easier.

The next morning, I was back at the library thumbing through Who's Who. Neither Bob Cossack nor Bradley Larner were listed, but Garvey Cossack had merited a biography: a single paragraph of puffery, mostly what I'd already learned from the Web.

Tucked among all the corporate braggadocio was Garvey's educational history. He'd completed two years of college at Cal State Northridge but hadn't graduated. Maybe that's why he'd bothered to list his high school. And the fact that he'd been student body treasurer during his senior year.

University High.

I checked with the reference desk and found that the library maintained three decades of local yearbooks in the reference section. Uni was as local as it got.

Finding the right volume wasn't hard. I estimated Garvey's age and nailed it on the second try.

His graduation picture revealed a full-faced, acne-plagued eighteen-year-old with long, wavy hair, wearing a light-colored turtleneck. Sandwiched between the top of the sweater's collar and the boy's meaty chin was a puka-shell necklace. His grin was mischievous.

Listed under his picture were memberships in the Business Club, the "managerial staff" of the football team, and something called the King's Men. But there was no mention of his being treasurer. According to the Student Council page, the treasurer was a girl named Sarah Buckley. Thumbing through the three preceding yearbooks taught me that Garvey Cossack had never served in any student-government capacity.

Petty fib for a middle-aged millionaire; that made it all the more interesting.

I located Robert "Bobo" Cossack's headshot one class back. He'd come to photo day wearing a black shirt with a high collar and a choker-length chain. Equine face, hair darker and even longer than his brother's, a more severe blemish. Bobo wore a sullen expression and his eyes were half-shut. Sleepy or stoned- or trying to look the part. His attempts to grow a beard and mustache had resulted in a halo of dark fuzz around his chin and spidery wisps above his upper lip.

No affiliations below his picture other than the King's Men.

Also in the junior class was a very skinny Bradley Larner, wearing tinted aviator glasses, a button-down shirt, and peroxide surfer-do that obscured half his face. The part that was visible was as dispirited as Bobo Cossack's.

Another King's Man.

I searched the yearbook for mention of the club, found a listing in the roster of school service organizations but no details. Finally, in a breathless account of the homecoming game I spotted a reference to "the revelry, high jinks (and other good stuff) perpetrated by the King's Men."

An accompanying snapshot showed a group of six boys at the beach, wearing bathing trunks and striped beanies and clowning around with cross-eyed grins, goofy poses, behind-the-head rabbit ears. The beer cans in their hands had been blacked out clumsily. In one case, the Miller logo was still visible. The caption: Surf's Up! but the King's Men crave other liquid entertainment! Partying at Zuma: G. Cossack, L. Chapman, R. Cossack, V. Coury, B. Larner, N. Hansen.

The Cossack brothers had been high school party animals, and the Bel Air bash a couple of years later was just more of the same. And the link between them and the Larners had been forged on the sands of Zuma, not in the boardroom.

That made me wonder if the idea for secreting problematic sister Caroline might have originated with the boys, not their father. "Hey, Dad, Brad's dad works at this place for weirdos, maybe he can help out."

I searched the yearbooks for mention or a picture of Caroline Cossack.

Nothing.

I drove around the pretty residential streets of Westwood, thinking about Pierce Schwinn and what he'd really wanted from Milo. Had the former detective finally decided to come clean with secrets held for two decades, as I'd suggested, or had he undertaken his own freelance investigation late in life and come up with new leads?

Either way, Schwinn hadn't been as serene as his second wife believed. Or as faithful: He'd found a confidante to mail the murder book.

As I'd told Milo, Ojai was a small town and it was doubtful Schwinn could've pulled off a regular assignation there without Marge finding out. But before he'd married Marge, he'd lived in Oxnard in a fleabag motel. Marge hadn't mentioned the name, but she had given us the site of Schwinn's minimum-wage job, and said Schwinn hadn't owned a car. Taking out the trash at Randall's Western Wear. Somewhere within walking distance.

The place was still in business, on Oxnard Boulevard.

I'd taken the scenic route because it was the quickest way and I had no stomach for the freeway: Sunset to PCH, then north on the coast highway past the L.A.-Ventura line and Deer Creek Road and the campgrounds of Sycamore Creek- fifteen miles of state land that kissed the ocean and separated the last private beach in Malibu from Oxnard. The water was sapphire blue under a chamber-of-commerce sky, and the bodies that graced the sand were brown and perfect.

At Las Posas Road, I avoided the eastern fork that swoops into glorious, green tables of farmland and up to the foothills of Camarillo and continued on Route 1.

Nature's beauty gave way, soon enough, to dinge and depression and seventy-five minutes after leaving the house I was enjoying the sights of central Oxnard.

Oxnard's a funny place. The town's beach sports a marina and luxury hotels and fishing excursions and tour boats to the Channel Islands. But the core is built around agriculture and the migrant workers whose dreadful lives put food on the nation's tables. The crime rate's high, and the air stinks of manure and pesticide. Once you get past the marina turnoff, Oxnard Boulevard is a low-rent artery lined with trailer parks, auto-parts yards, thrift shops, taco bars, taverns blaring Mexican music, and more Spanish than English on the signage.

Randall's Western Wear was a red barn in the center of the strip, stuck between Bernardo's Batteries and a windowless bar called El Guapo. Plenty of parking in back; only two pickups and an old Chrysler 300 in the lot.

Inside was the smell of leather and sawdust and sweat, ceiling-high racks of denim and flannel, Stetsons stacked like waffles, cowboy boots and belts on sale, one corner devoted to sacks of feed, a few saddles and bridles off in another. Travis Tritt's mellow baritone eased through scratchy speakers, trying to convince some woman of his good intentions.

Slow day in the ranch-duds biz. No customers, just two salesmen on duty, both white men in their thirties. One wore gray sweats, the other jeans and a black Harley-Davidson T-shirt. Both smoked behind the counter, showing no interest in my arrival.

I browsed, found a tooled cowhide belt that I liked, brought it to the counter and paid. Harley-D rang me up, offering no eye contact or conversation. As he handed back my credit card, I let my wallet open and showed him my LAPD consultant badge. It's a clip-on deal with the department's badge as a logo, not good for much and if you look closely it tells you that I'm no cop. But few people get past the insignia, and Harley was no exception.

"Police?" he said, as I closed the wallet. He wore a bad haircut like his own badge of honor, had a handlebar mustache that drooped to his chin, and a clogged-sinus voice. Stringy arms and stringy hair, a scatter of faded tattoos.

I said, "Thought maybe you could help me with something."

"With what?"

Sweats looked up. He was a few years younger than Harley, with a blond-gray crew cut, a square shelf of a chin finishing a florid face. Stocky build, quiet eyes. My guess was ex-military.

"A few questions about a guy who worked here a while back. Pierce Schwinn."

"Him?" said Harley. "He hasn't been here for what- coupla years?" He looked back at Sweats.

"Coupla," Sweats agreed.

Harley looked at the belt. "What, you bought that to get friendly or something?"

"I bought it because it's a nice belt," I said. "But I have no problem with being friendly. What do you remember about Schwinn?"

Harley frowned. "When he worked here he was a bum. What's up with him now?"

"Have you seen him since he stopped working here?"

"Maybe once," he said. "Or maybe not. If he did come in, it was with his wife- that right?" Another consultation with Sweats.

"Probably."

"Why?" said Harley. "What he do?"

"Nothing. Just a routine investigation." Even as I said it, I felt ridiculous, not to mention criminal. But if Milo could risk violations of the public order, so could I. "So the last time Mr. Schwinn worked here was a couple of years ago?"

"That's right." Harley's smile was derisive. "If you wanna call it work."

"It wasn't?"

"Man," he said, leaning on the counter, "let me tell you: It was a gift. From our mom to him. She owns the place. He used to live down the block, at the Happy Night. Mom felt sorry for him, let him clean up for spare change."

"The Happy Night Motel?" I said.

"Right down the block."

"So it was a sympathy thing," I said. "From your mother."

"She's got a soft heart," said Harley. "Ain't that so, Roger?"

Sweats nodded and smoked and turned up the volume on Travis Tritt. The singer's voice was plaintive and rich; I'd have been convinced.

"Schwinn have any friends?" I said.

"Nope."

"What about Marge- the woman who married him."

"She comes in for feed when she runs out on her bulk order," said Harley. "Yeah, she married him, but that makes her his wife, not his friend."

And when are you entering law school, F. Lee Picky?

I said, "Marge met him here."

"Guess so." Harley's brows knitted. "Haven't seen her either, for a while."

Roger said, "She's probably ordering off the Internet, like everyone. We gotta get with that."

"Yeah," said Harley, listlessly. "So, c'mon tell me, man, why're you asking about him? Someone off him or something?"

"No," I said. "He's dead, all right. Fell off a horse a few months ago."

"That so. Well, she never mentioned it. Marge didn't."

"When's the last time you saw her?"

Harley looked back at Roger. "When's the last time I saw her?"

Roger shrugged. "Maybe four, five months ago."

"Mostly everyone orders bulk from suppliers," said Harley. "And the Internet. We do gotta get hooked up."

"So Marge has been in since Schwinn died, but she never mentioned his death."

"Probably- I couldn't swear to it, man. Listen, don't pin me down on any a this."

Roger gave another sweat-suited shrug. "Marge don't talk much, period."

Travis Tritt bowed out and Pam Tillis weighed in about "The Queen of Denial."

Harley said, "Is this about drugs, or something?"

"Why do you say that?"

Harley fidgeted. His brother said, "What Vance means is that the Happy Night- everyone knows about it. People go in and out. You wanna do us a favor? Get it moved outta here. This block used to be a nice place."

I kept my car in the Randall's lot and walked the block to the motel. The place was a twelve-unit gray stucco C built around a central courtyard and open to the street. The yard was tiled with crumbling bricks, didn't look as if it had been designed for parking, but four dirty compact cars and an equally grubby truck with a camper shell occupied the space. The office was off to the right- a cubicle that smelled of gym sweat manned by a young skin-headed Hispanic man wearing an aqua blue cowboy shirt with bloodred piping. Spangling on the yokes, too, but oily splotches in the armpits and ketchup-colored freckles across the front mitigated the garment's charm. Resting on the pleat was a heavy iron crucifix attached to a stainless-steel chain.

My entry rang a bell over the door and the clerk shot a look at me then glanced under the counter. Reflexively. Probably checking out the requisite pistol. Or just wanting to let me know he was armed. A sign on the wall behind him said CASH ONLY. Same message in Spanish, right below. He didn't move but his eyes jumped around and the left lid twitched. He couldn't be more than twenty-two or -three, could probably take the adrenaline surges and blood-pressure spikes for a few more years.

I showed him the badge, and he shook his head. Atop the counter was a novella- black-and-white photos of characters speaking in captions, storyboard laid out like a comic book. Upside down I caught a few words "sexualismo" "con passion."

He said, "Don' know nothin' " Heavy accent.

"I haven't asked anything."

"Don' know nothin' "

"Good for you," I said. "Ignorance is bliss."

His stare was dull.

"Pierce Schwinn," I said. "He used to live here."

No answer.

I repeated the name.

"Don' know nothin' "

"An old man, Anglo, white hair, white beard?"

Nothing.

"He used to work at Randall's."

Uncomprehending look.

"Randall's Western Wear- down the block?"

"Don't know nothin' "

"What's your name?"

"Don' kno-" Lights on in the brown eyes. "Gustavo."

"Gustavo what?"

"Gustavo Martinez Reyes."

"You speak any English, Mr. Martinez Reyes?"

Headshake.

"Anyone work here who does?"

"Don' know noth-"

So much for ace detective work. But I'd come this far, why not give Ojai another try- check out a place I knew Marge Schwinn had frequented. The shop where she'd bought the blue albums- O'Neill & Chapin… over by the Celestial Café… from England… discontinued… I bought the last three.

Maybe she hadn't. Or maybe Schwinn had also shopped for himself.

I continued to the next freeway on-ramp and was back on Highway 33 within minutes. The air was cold and clean, every color on full volume, and I could smell ripening fruit in the neighboring groves.

O'Neill & Chapin sat in one of those cozy commercial groupings that had sprouted along the road, this one a well-shaded segment just past the center of Ojai but several miles before the turnoff to Marge Schwinn's ranch. The shop was a miniscule, shingle-roofed, clapboard cottage dominated by live oaks. The boards were painted forest green, and the store was fronted by five feet of cobblestones running from the earthen curb to Dutch doors painted creamy mint. Gold leaf lettering across the front window proclaimed:

O'Neill & Chapin, Purveyors of Fine Paper and Pigments. Est. 1986.

Behind the windows were dark, oak shutters. A sign leaning against the slats said:

On a buying trip in Europe. Back soon.

I checked out the neighboring business. To the right was the candlery, also shuttered. Then Marta, Spiritual Counselor and the Humanos Theosophic Institute. To the left was a one-story office building faced in river rock: chiropractor's office, a notary public-cum-insurance broker, a travel agent specializing in "nature-friendly excursions." Next to that, in a sunnier spot, sat an adobe cube with a wooden sign over the door.

Celestial Café.

Gold stars danced around the edges of the signs. Lights flickered behind blue gingham curtains. It was nearly 3 P.M. and I'd fed neither my brain nor my gut. Times like this, I supposed, organic muffins and herbal tea wouldn't be half-bad.

But according to the blackboard mounted above the open kitchen, the café specialized in country French food- crepes, quiche, soufflés, chocolate desserts. Real coffee, Lord amighty.

Some kind of New Age sound track- tinkly bells, flute, and harp- eased out of speakers set into the low, wood-beam ceiling. More blue gingham covered half a dozen tables. A woman with elaborately braided gray hair wearing a buckskin jacket over a crinkly, pink dress sat enjoying what looked to be ratatouille. No server was in sight, just a pasty-faced, heavyset, white-aproned woman wearing a blue bandana over her hair cutting vegetables in the kitchen. At her elbow was a six-burner Wolfe range, with one flame aglow under a cast-iron crepe pan. Fresh batter had just been poured into the pan, and the cook stopped cutting long enough to grab a towel and take hold of the handle. Tilting deftly, she created a perfect disc that she slid onto a plate, then topped with creamed spinach. A dash of nutmeg, and the crepe was rolled and placed on the counter. Then back to the vegetables.

The gray-haired woman got up and took the crepe. "Beautiful, Aimee."

The cook nodded. She looked to be forty or so, had a squashed face and downturned eyes. The hairs that had peeked out from under the bandana were light brown and silver.

I smiled at her. Her face registered no expression, and she continued chopping. I read the blackboard. "How about a mixed-cheese crepe and coffee?"

She turned around, left the kitchen through a side door. I stood there, listening to bells and flute and harp.

Behind me, the gray-braided woman said, "Don't worry, she'll be back."

"I was wondering if it was something I said."

She laughed. "No, she's just shy. Heck of a cook, though."

Aimee returned with a small wheel of white cheese. "You can sit," she said, in a very soft voice. "I'll bring it to you."

"Thanks much." I tried another smile, and her mouth quivered upward for less than a second, and she began wiping the crepe pan.

The gray-haired woman finished her meal just as Aimee brought me my plate, a mug of coffee, utensils wrapped in a heavy yellow linen napkin. She returned to her vegetables and the gray-braided woman said, "Here you are, dear," and paid her cash. No change exchanged. No credit card signs anywhere in the café.

I unfolded the napkin, looked at my plate. Two crepes.

With her back to me, Aimee said, "You only have to pay for one. I had lots of cheese."

"Thank you," I said. "They look delicious."

Chop chop chop.

I cut into the first crepe and took a bite and flavor burst on my tongue. The coffee was the best I'd had in years, and I said so.

Chop chop chop.

I was working on the second crepe when the front door opened, and a man walked in and headed for the counter.

Short, chubby, white-haired, he wore a purplish red polyester jumpsuit, zipped in front, with big floppy lapels. Crimson clogs and white socks clad stubby feet. His fingers were attenuated, too, the thumbs little more than arced nubs. His ruddy face was impish but peaceful- an elf in repose. A leather-thonged bolo tie was held in place by a big, shapeless purple rock. Flashing on his left hand was a huge, gold pinkie ring set with a violet cabochon.

He looked to be in his midsixties, but I knew he was seventy-seven because I knew him. I also understood why he wore a single color: It was the only hue he could perceive in an otherwise black-and-white world. A rare form of color blindness was one of a host of physical anomalies he'd been born with. Some, like the shortened digits, were visible. Others, he'd assured me, were not.

Dr. Wilbert Harrison, psychiatrist, anthropologist, philosopher, eternal student. A sweet and decent man, and even a murderous psychopath bent on revenge had recognized that, sparing Harrison as he conducted a rampage against the doctors he believed had tormented him.

I hadn't been spared, and I'd met Bert Harrison, years ago, trying to figure all of that out. Since then we talked occasionally- infrequently.

"Bert," I said.

He turned, smiled. "Alex!" Holding up a finger, he greeted Aimee. Without making eye contact, she poured him tea and selected an almond-crusted pastry from the glass case beneath the blackboard.

A regular.

He said, "Thank you, darling," sat down at my table, placed his cup and plate in front of him, and grasped my hand with both of his.

"Alex. So good to see you."

"Good to see you, too, Bert."

"What have you been up to?"

"The usual. And you?"

Soft gray eyes twinkled. "I've embarked on a new hobby. Ethnic instruments, the more esoteric the better. I've discovered eBay- how wonderful, the global economy in its finest form. I find bargains, wait like a child on Christmas Eve for the packages to arrive, then try to figure out how to play them. This week my project is a one-stringed curiosity from Cambodia. I haven't learned its proper name, yet. The seller billed it as a 'Southeast Asian thingamajig.' Sounds dreadful, so far- like a cat with indigestion, but I have no neighbors, per se."

Harrison's home was a purple cottage, high on a hill above Ojai, bordered by olive groves and empty fields and nearly hidden by snarls of agave cactus. Bert's old Chevy station wagon sat in a dirt driveway, always freshly waxed. Each time I'd visited, the house's front door had been unlocked.

"Sounds like fun," I said.

"It's great fun." He bit into the pastry, let loose a flow of custard, licked his lips, wiped his chin. "Delicious. What have you been doing for fun, Alex?"

Figuring out how to answer that must have done something to my face, because Harrison placed his hand atop mine and he looked like a concerned parent.

"That bad, son?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"Oh, yes, Alex. Oh, yes indeed."

I told him about Robin. He thought a while, and said, "Sounds like small things have been amplified."

"Not so small, Bert. She's really had it with my risk-taking behavior."

"I was referring to your feelings. Your anxiety about Robin."

"I know I'm being paranoid, but I keep flashing back to the last time she left."

"She made a mistake," he said. "But she bore the brunt of it, and you might think about disconnecting yourself from her pain."

"Her pain," I said. "Think it still bothers her after all these years?"

"If she allows herself to focus on it, my guess is she feels a good deal worse about it than you do."

He'd met Robin twice, and yet I didn't feel him presumptuous. A few months after our house had burned down, we'd driven up to Santa Barbara for a change of scenery and had run into Bert at an antiquarian bookstore on State Street. He'd been browsing through eighteenth-century scientific treatises. In Latin. ('My current hobby, kids.') Dust had speckled the front of his jumpsuit.

"She loves you deeply," he said. "At least she did when I saw her, and I have my doubts about that depth of feeling just vanishing." He ate more pastry, picked almond slivers from his plate, and slipped them between his lips. "The body language- the mind language, was all there. I remember thinking, 'This is the girl for Alex.' "

"I used to think so."

"Cherish what you've got. My second wife was like that, accepted me with all my irregularities."

"You think Robin accepts me, no matter what."

"If she didn't, she'd have left long ago."

"But putting her through more of my risk-taking would be cruel."

He squeezed my hand. "Life is like a bus stop, Alex. We map out our route but linger briefly between adventures. Only you can chart your itinerary- and hope God agrees with it. So what brings you to Ojai?"

"Enjoying the scenery."

"Then come up to my house, let me show you my acquisitions."

We finished our food and he insisted on paying. The old station wagon was parked out front, and I followed him into town and onto Signal Street, where we climbed past a drainage ditch paved with fieldstones and spanned by footbridges, up to the top of the road.

The front door to the purple house was open and shielded by a well-oxidized screen. Bert climbed the steps with agility and ushered me into the living room. The space was exactly as I remembered: small, dark, plank-floored, crammed with old furniture, shawls, throw pillows, an upright piano, the bay window lined with dusty bottles. But now there was no room to sit: A gigantic, hammered-bronze gong nudged the piano. Every couch and chair bore drums and bells and lyres and zithers and Pan pipes and harps and objects I couldn't identify. The floor space behind the piano bench was taken up by a six-foot dragon-shaped contraption topped with corrugated wood. Harrison ran a stick along the ridges and set off a percussive but melodic scale.

"Bali," he said. "I've learned 'Old MacDonald' on it." Sigh. "One day, Mozart."

He cleared instruments from a sagging sofa, and said, "Be comfortable."

As I sat, something metallic behind the couch caught my eye. A folded-up wheelchair.

Bert said, "I'm storing it for a friend," and settled his small frame on a hard-backed chair. The fingers of his right hand brushed against a pedal harp, but not hard enough to make a sound. "Despite your stress you look well."

"As do you."

"Knock wood." He rapped the rim of the harp, and this time a note rang out. "G sharp… so you're just passing through? Next time, call and we can have lunch. Unless, of course, you need solitude."

"No, I'd love to get together."

"Of course, we all need solitude," he said. "The key is finding the right balance."

"You live alone, Bert."

"I have friends."

"So do I."

"Milo."

"Milo and others."

"Well, that's good- Alex, is there anything I can do for you?"

"No," I said. "Like what?"

"Anything, Alex."

"If you could solve cold cases, that would be helpful."

"Cold cases," he said. "A murder."

I nodded.

"The body may be cold," he said, "but I wonder if the memory ever really cools. Care to tell me about it?"

I didn't. Yes, I did.