The Murder Book

CHAPTER 8

Just as quickly as his moods had shifted, Schwinn bounded out of the car.

The guy was unstable, no question about it, Milo thought as he followed.

The front door was unlocked. Twelve mailboxes to the right. The layout was precisely as Milo had envisioned.

Screw you, expert.

Box Eleven was labeled Ingalls in smudged red ballpoint. They climbed the stairs, and Schwinn was out of breath by the time they reached the third floor. Tightening his tie knot, he pounded the door, and it opened a few seconds later.

The man who answered was bleary-eyed and skinny-fat.

All sharp bones and stick limbs and saggy sallow skin but with a melon gut. He wore a dirty yellow tank top and blue swim shorts. No hips or butt, and the shorts bagged under the swell of his pot. Not an ounce of extra flesh anywhere but his belly. But what he carried there was grotesque and Milo thought, Pregnant.

"Bowie Ingalls?" said Schwinn.

Two-second delay, then a small, squirrelly nod. Beery sweat poured out of the guy, and the sour smell wafted into the hallway.

Schwinn hadn't recited any physical stats on Ingalls- hadn't said anything at all by way of preparation. To Milo, Ingalls appeared in his midforties, with thick, wavy coarse black hair worn past his shoulders- too long and luxuriant for a guy his age- and five days of gray stubble that did nothing to mask his weak features. Where his eyes weren't pink they were jaundiced and unfocused. Deep brown irises, just like those of the dead girl.

Ingalls studied their badges. The guy's timing was off, like a clock with damaged works. He flinched, then grinned, said, "Whus up?" The words wheezed out on a cloud of hops and malt that mixed with the odors already saturated into the building's walls: mold and kerosene, the incongruous blessing of savory home cooking.

"Can we come in?" said Schwinn.

Ingalls had opened the door halfway. Behind him was dirt-colored furniture, heaps of rumpled clothes, takeout Chinese cartons, Bud empties.

Lots of empties, some crushed, some intact. Even at a good clip, the number of cans added up to more than one day of serious drinking.

A multiday bender. Unless the guy had company. Even with company, a focused juice-a-thon.

Guy's daughter goes missing for four days, he doesn't report it, holes up instead, sucking suds. Milo found himself entertaining the worst-case scenario: Daddy did it. Began scanning Ingalls's sallow face for anxiety, guilt, scratches, maybe that explained the delays…

But all he saw was confusion. Ingalls stood there, caught up in a booze-flummox.

"Sir," said Schwinn, using the word as an insult, the way only cops can, "can we come in?"

"Uh- yeah, sure- whu for?"

"Whu for your daughter."

Ingalls's eyes drooped. Not anxiety. Resignation. As in, here we go again. Preparing himself for a lecture on child-rearing.

"Whu, she cut school again? They call in the cops for that now?"

Schwinn smiled and moved to enter the apartment and Ingalls stepped aside, nearly stumbling. When the three of them were on the other side of the door, Schwinn closed it. He and Milo began the instinctive visual scan.

Off-white walls, brown deepening to black in the cracks and the corners. The entire front space was maybe fifteen feet square, a living room-dining area-kitchen combo, the kitchen counters crowded with more take-out boxes, used paper plates, empty soup cans. Two miserly windows on the facing wall were shuttered by yellow plastic blinds. A scabrous brown-gray sofa and a red plastic chair were both heaped with unwashed clothes and crumpled paper. Next to the chair, a stack of records tilted precariously. The Mothers of Invention's Freak Out on top, a fifteen-year-old LP. Nearby was a cheap phonograph half-covered by a snot green bathrobe. An open doorway led to a dead-end wall.

A full-view of the front room revealed even more beer cans.

"Where does Janie go to school, sir?" said Schwinn.

"Hollywood High. What kinda hassle she get herself into now?" Bowie Ingalls scratched an armpit and drew himself up to his full height. Trying to produce some fatherly indignation.

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

"Um… she was- she slept over a friend's."

"When, sir?" said Schwinn, still taking in the room. Cool, all business. No one watching him do the detective thing would've imagined his lunatic tirade five minutes ago.

Milo stood to the side, worked on his cool. His mind wanted to work, but his body wasn't giving up the anger planted by Schwinn's outburst; heart still racing, face still hot. Despite the importance of the task at hand, he kept entertaining himself with images of Schwinn falling on his ass- hoist on his own petard, the self-righteous fucker- busted in flagrante with Tonya or some other "source." That brought a smile to Milo's brain. Then a question arose: If Schwinn didn't trust him, why had he risked doing Tonya right in front of him? Maybe the guy was just nuts… he shook all that off and returned to Bowie Ingalls's face. Still no fear, just maddening dullness.

"Um… Friday night," Ingalls said, as if guessing. "You can sit down if you want."

There was only one place to sit in the damned sty. A man-sized clearing among the garbage on the couch. Ingalls's dozing spot. Appetizing.

"No, thanks," said Schwinn. He had his pad out now. Milo waited a few moments before producing his. Not wanting to be part of some Ike-and-Mike vaudeville routine. "So Janie slept at a friend's Friday night."

"Yeah. Friday."

"Four days ago." Schwinn's gold Parker ballpoint was out, and he scrawled.

"Yeah. She does it all the time."

"Sleeps over at a friend's?"

"She's sixteen," said Ingalls, whining a bit.

"What's the friend's name? The one from Friday night."

Ingalls's tongue rolled around his left cheek. "Linda… no- Melinda."

"Last name?"

Blank stare.

"You don't know Melinda's last name?"

"Don't like the little slut," said Ingalls. "Bad influence. Don't like her coming around."

"Melinda's a bad influence on Janie?"

"Yeah. You know."

"Gets Janie in trouble," said Schwinn.

"You know," said Ingalls. "Kids. Doing stuff."

Milo wondered what could possibly offend a scrote like Ingalls.

Schwinn said, "Stuff."

"Yeah."

"Such as?"

"You know," Ingalls insisted. "Cutting school, running around."

"Dope?"

"I dunno about that."

"Hmm," said Schwinn, writing. "So Melinda's a bad influence on Janie but you let Janie sleep over Melinda's house."

"Let?" said Ingalls, coughing. "You got kids?"

"Haven't been blessed."

"Figures you ask me that. Nowadays, kids don't get let anything. They do whatever the hell they want to. Can't even get her to tell me where she's going. Or to stay in school. I tried dropping her off, personally, but she just went in, waited till I was gone, and left. That's why I figured this was about school. What is it about, anyway? She in trouble?"

"You've had trouble with Janie before?"

"No," said Ingalls. "Not really. Like I said, just school and running around. Being gone for a few days. But she always comes back. Let me tell you, man, you can't control 'em. Once the hippies got in and took over the city, forget it. Her mother was a hippie back in the hippie days. Hippie junkie slut, ran out on us, left me with Janie."

"Janie into drugs?"

"Not around here," said Ingalls. "She knows better than that." He blinked several times, grimaced, trying to clear his head and not succeeding. "What's this about? What'd she do?"

Ignoring the question, Schwinn kept writing. Then: "Hollywood High… what year's she in?"

"Second year."

"Sophomore."

Another delayed-reaction nod from Ingalls. How many of the cans had been consumed this morning?

"Sophomore." Schwinn copied that down. "When's her birthday?"

"Um… March," said Ingalls. "March… um… ten."

"She was sixteen last March ten."

"Yeah."

Sixteen-and-a-half-year-old sophomore, thought Milo. A year behind. Borderline intelligence? Some kind of learning problem? Yet another factor that had propelled her toward victimhood? If she was the one…

He glanced at Schwinn but Schwinn was still writing and Milo hazarded a question of his own: "School's hard for Janie, huh?"

Schwinn's eyebrows rose for a second, but he kept making notes.

"She hates it," said Ingalls. "Can barely read. That's why she hated to-" The bloodshot eyes filled with fear. "What's going on? What'd she do?"

Focused on Milo, now. Looking to Milo for an answer, but that was one ad lib Milo wasn't going to risk, and Ingalls shifted his attention back to Schwinn. "C'mon, what's going on, man? What'd she do?"

"Maybe nothing," said Schwinn, producing the blue envelope. "Maybe something was done to her."

He fanned out the snaps again, stretching his arm and offering Ingalls the display.

"Huh?" said Ingalls, not moving. Then: "No."

Calmly, no inflection. Milo thought: Okay, it wasn't her, false lead, good for him, bad for us, they'd accomplished nothing, Schwinn was right. As usual. The pompous bastard, he'd be gloating, the remainder of the shift would be unbearable-

But Schwinn continued to hold the pictures steady, and Bowie Ingalls continued to stare at them.

"No," Ingalls repeated. He made a grab for the pictures, not a serious attempt, just a pathetic stab. Schwinn held firm, and Ingalls stepped away from the horror, pressing his hands to the sides of his head. Stamping his foot hard enough to make the floor quake.

Suddenly, he grabbed his melon-belly, bent over as if seized by cramps. Stamped again, howled, "No!"

Kept howling.

Schwinn let him rant for a while, then eased him over to the clearing on the couch, and told Milo, "Get him some fortification."

Milo found an unopened Bud, popped the top, held it to Ingalls's lips, but Ingalls shook his head. "No, no, no. Get that the fuck away from me."

The guy lives in a booze-haze but won't medicate himself when he sinks to the bottom. Milo supposed that passed for dignity.

He and Schwinn stood there for what seemed to be an eternity. Schwinn serene- used to this. Enjoying it?

Finally, Ingalls looked up. "Where?" he said. "Who?"

Schwinn gave him the basic details, talking quietly. Ingalls moaned through the entire recitation.

"Janie, Janie-"

"What can you tell us that would help us?" said Schwinn.

"Nothing. What could I tell…?" Ingalls shuddered. Shivered. Crossed skinny arms over his chest. "That- who would- oh, God… Janie…"

"Tell us something," pressed Schwinn. "Anything. Help us."

"What… I don't know… She didn't- since she was fourteen, she's basically been gone, using this place as a crash pad but always gone, telling me to fuck off, mind my own business. Half the time, she ain't here, see what I'm sayin'?"

"Sleeping at friends' houses," said Schwinn. "Melinda, other friends."

"Whatever… oh God, I can't believe this…" Tears filled Ingalls's eyes, and Schwinn was there with a snow-white hankie. PS monogram in gold thread on a corner. The guy talked despair and pessimism, but offered his own starched linen to a drunk, for the sake of the job.

"Help me," he whispered to Ingalls. "For Janie."

"I would… I don't know- she… I… we didn't talk. Not since… she used to be my kid, but then she didn't want to be my kid, telling me to fuck off all the time. I'm not saying I was any big deal as a daddy, but still, without me, Janie would've… she turned thirteen and all of a sudden she didn't appreciate anything. Started going out all hours, the school didn't give a shit. Janie never went, no one from the school ever called me, not one time."

"You call them?"

Ingalls shook his head. "What's the point? Talking to people who don't give a shit. I'da called, they'da probably sent cops over and busted me for something, child neglect, whatever. I was busy, man. Working- I used to work at Paramount Studios."

"Oh, yeah?" said Schwinn.

"Yeah. Publicity department. Information transfer."

"Janie interested in the movies?"

"Nah," said Ingalls. "Anything I was into she wasn't into."

"What was she into?"

"Nothing. Running around."

"This friend, Melinda. If Janie never told you where she was going, how do you know she was with Melinda Friday night?"

"Because I seen her with Melinda on Friday."

"What time?"

"Around six. I was sleeping, and Janie busts in to get some clothes, I wake up, by the time I'm sitting up, she's heading out the door, and I look out there." He jabbed a thumb at the shuttered windows. "I seen her walking away with Melinda."

"Walking which way?"

"That way." Hooking his finger north. Toward Sunset, maybe Hollywood Boulevard, if the girls had kept going.

"Anyone else with them?"

"No, just the two of them."

"Walking, not driving," said Schwinn.

"Janie didn't have no license. I got one car, and it barely drives. No way was I gonna- she didn't care, anyway. Got around by hitching. I told her about that- I used to hitch, back when you could do it, but now, with all the- you think that's what happened? She hitched and some… oh, God…"

Unaware of Janie's downtown rape? If so, the guy was being truthful about one thing: Janie had been lost to him for a long time.

"Some what?" said Schwinn.

"Some- you know," moaned Ingalls. "Getting picked up- some stranger."

The death snaps were back in the envelope, but Schwinn had kept the envelope in full view. Now he waved it inches from Ingalls's face. "I'd say, sir, that only a stranger would do something like this. Unless you have some other idea?"

"Me? No," said Ingalls. "She was like her mother. Didn't talk- gimme that beer."

When the can was empty, Schwinn waved the envelope again. "Let's get back to Friday. Janie came home to get clothes. What was she wearing?"

Ingalls thought. "Jeans and a T-shirt- red T-shirt… and those crazy black shoes with those heels- platform heels. She was carrying her party clothes."

"Party clothes."

"When I woke up and saw her going out the door, I could see part of what she had in the bag."

"What kind of bag?"

"Shopping bag. White- Zody's, probably, 'cause that's where she shops. She always stuffed her party stuff inside shopping bags."

"What did you see in the bag?"

"Red halter the size of a Band-Aid. I always told her it was hooker shit, she should throw it out, used to threaten her I'd throw it out."

"But you didn't."

"No," said Ingalls. "What woulda been the point?"

"A red halter," said Schwinn. "What else?"

"That's all I saw. Probably a skirt, one of those microminis, that's all she buys. The shoes she already had on."

"Black with big heels."

"Shiny black," said Ingalls. "Patent leather. Those crazy heels, I kept telling her she'd fall and break her neck."

"Party outfit," said Schwinn, copying.

Red-and-black party outfit, thought Milo. Remembering something that had gone round in high school, boys sitting around pontificating, pointing with glee: Red and black on Fridays meant a girl put out all the way. Him, laughing along, pretending to care…

Bowie Ingalls said, "Except for the jeans and T-shirts, that's all she buys. Party stuff."

"Speaking of which," said Schwinn, "let's take a look at her closet."

The rest of the apartment was two cell-sized bedrooms separated by a windowless bathroom stale with flatulence.

Schwinn and Milo glanced into Bowie Ingalls's sleep chamber as they passed. A queen-size mattress took up most of the floor. Unwashed sheets were pulled half-off, and they puddled on cheap carpeting. A tiny TV threatened to topple from a pressed-wood bureau. More Bud empties.

Janie's room was even smaller, with barely enough space for a single mattress and a nightstand of the same synthetic wood. Cutouts from teen magazines were taped to the walls, mounted at careless angles. A single, muddy-looking stuffed koala slumped on the nightstand, next to a soft pack of Kents and a half-empty box of Luden's cough drops. The room was so cramped that the mattress prevented the closet door from opening all the way, and Schwinn had to contort to get a look inside.

He winced, stepped out, and told Milo, "You do it."

Milo's size made the task excruciating, but he obeyed.

Zody's was a cut-rate barn. Even at their prices, Janie Ingalls hadn't assembled much of a wardrobe. On the dusty floor sat one pair of tennis shoes, size 8, next to red Thom McAn platform sandals and white plastic boots with see-through plastic soles. Two pairs of size S jeans were carelessly hung in the closet, one faded denim with holes that could've been genuine wear or contrivance, the other denim patchwork, both made in Taiwan. Four ribbed, snug-fit T-shirts with bias-cut sleeves, a floral cotton blouse with moth wounds pocking the breast pocket, three shiny, polyester halter tops not much bigger than the hankie Schwinn had offered to Ingalls- peacock blue, black, pearlescent white. A red sweatshirt emblazoned Hollywood in puffy gold letters, a black plastic shortie jacket pretending to be leather, cracking like an old lady's face.

On the top shelf were bikini underpants, bras, panty hose, more dust. Everything stank of tobacco. Only a few pockets to search. Other than grit and lint and a Doublemint wrapper, Milo found nothing. Such a blank existence- not unlike his own apartment, he hadn't bothered to furnish much since arriving in L.A., had never been sure he'd be staying.

He searched the rest of the room. The magazine posters were the closest thing to personal possessions. No diary or date book or photographs of friends. If Janie had ever called this dump home, she'd changed her mind sometime ago. He wondered if she had some other place of refuge- a crash pad, a sanctuary, somewhere she kept stuff.

He checked under the bed, found dirt. When he extricated himself, his neck killed and his shoulders throbbed.

Schwinn and Ingalls were back in the front room, and Milo stopped to check out the bathroom, compressing his nostrils to block out the stench, examining the medicine cabinet. All over-the-counter stuff- painkillers, laxatives, diarrhea remedies, antacids- a host of antacids. Something eating at Bowie Ingalls's gut? Guilt or just alcohol?

Milo found himself craving a drink.

When he joined Schwinn and Ingalls, Ingalls was slumped on the couch, looking disoriented, saying, "What do I do now?"

Schwinn stood away from the guy, detached. No more use for Ingalls. "There'll be some procedures to go through- identification, filling out forms. Identification can wait till after the autopsy. We may have more questions for you."

Ingalls looked up. "About what?"

Schwinn handed Ingalls his card. "If you think of anything, give a call."

"I already told you everything."

Milo said, "Was there anywhere else Janie mighta crashed?"

"Like what?"

"Like a crash pad. Somewhere kids go."

"I dunno where kids go. Dunno where my own kid goes, so how would I know?"

"Okay, thanks. Sorry for your loss, Mr. Ingalls."

Schwinn motioned Milo to the door, but when they got there, he turned back to Ingalls. "One more thing: What does Melinda look like?"

Basic question, thought Milo, but he hadn't thought to ask it. Schwinn had, but he orchestrated it, timed everything. The guy was nuts but miles ahead of him.

"Short, big tits- built big- kinda fat. Blond hair, real long, straight."

"Voluptuous," said Schwinn, enjoying the word.

"Whatever."

"And she's Janie's age?"

"Maybe a little older," said Ingalls.

"A sophomore, too?"

"I dunno what she is."

"Bad influence," said Schwinn.

"Yeah."

"Do you have a picture of Janie? Something we could show around?"

"I'd have to have one, wouldn't I?" said Bowie, making it sound like the answer to an oral exam. Pulling himself to his feet, he stumbled to his bedroom, returned moments later with a three-by-five snap.

A dark-haired child around ten years old, wearing a sleeveless dress and staring at a five-foot-tall Mickey Mouse. Mickey giving that idiot grin, the kid unimpressed- scared, actually. No way to connect this child to the outrage on Beaudry.

"Disneyland," said Ingalls.

"You took Janie there?" said Milo, trying to imagine that.

"Nah, it was a school trip. They got a group discount."

Schwinn returned the photo to Ingalls. "I was thinking in terms of something more recent."

"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.

The poor kid had never had any moorings, thought Milo, remembering his own brush with truancy: back when his family still lived in Gary and his father was working steel, making good money, feeling like a breadwinner. Milo was nine, had been plagued by terrible dreams since the summer- visions of men. One dreary Monday, he got off the school bus and instead of entering the school grounds just kept walking aimlessly, placing one foot in front of the other. Ending up at a park, where he sat on a bench like a tired old man. All day. A friend of his mother spotted him, reported him. Mom had been perplexed; Dad, always action-oriented, knew just what to do. Out came the strap. Ten pounds of oily ironworker's belt. Milo hadn't sat comfortably for a long, long time.

Yet another reason to hate the old man. Still, he'd never repeated the offense, ended up graduating with good grades. Despite the dreams. And all that followed. Certain his father would've killed him if he knew what was really going on.

So he made plans at age nine: You need to get away from these people.

Now he mused: Maybe I was the lucky one.

"Okay," Schwinn was telling Ellen Sato, "so you people don't know much about her-"

The young woman was on the verge of tears. "I'm sorry, sir, but as I said, I just… what happened to her?"

"Someone killed her," said Schwinn. "We're looking for a friend of hers, probably a student here, also. Melinda, sixteen or seventeen. Long blond hair. Voluptuous." Cupping his hands in front of his own, scrawny chest.

Sato's ivory skin pinkened. "Melinda's a common name-"

"How about a look at your student roster?"

"The roster…" Sato's graceful hands fluttered. "I could find a yearbook for you."

"You have no student roster?"

"I- I know we have class lists, but they're over in V.P. Sullivan's office and there are forms to be filled out. Okay, sure, I'll go look. In the meantime, I know where the yearbooks are. Right here." Pointing to a closet.

"Great," said Schwinn, without graciousness.

"Poor Janie," said Sato. "Who would do such a thing?"

"Someone evil, ma'am. Anyone come to mind?"

"Oh, heavens no- I wasn't… let me go get that list."

The two detectives sat on a bench in the counseling office waiting room, flipping through the yearbooks, ignoring the scornful eyes of the students who came and went. Copying down the names of every Caucasian Melinda, freshmen included, because who knew how accurate Bowie Ingalls was about age. Not limiting the count to blondes, either, because hair dye was a teenage-girl staple.

Milo said, "What about light-skinned Mexicans?"

"Nah," said Schwinn. "If she was a greaser, Ingalls would've mentioned it."

"Why?"

"Because he doesn't like her, would've loved to add another bad point to the list."

Milo returned to checking out young white faces.

The end product: eighteen possibles.

Schwinn regarded the list and scowled. "Names but no numbers. We'll still need a fucking roster to track her down."

Talking low but his tone was unmistakable and the receptionist a few feet away looked over and frowned.

"Howdy," said Schwinn, raising his voice and grinning at the woman furiously. She flinched and returned to her typewriter.

Milo looked up Janie Ingalls's freshman photo. No list of extracurricular activities. Huge, dark hair teased with abandon over a pretty oval face turned ghostly by slathers of makeup and ghoulish eye shadow. The image before him was neither the ten-year-old hanging with Mickey nor the corpse atop the freeway ramp. So many identities for a sixteen-year-old kid. He asked the receptionist to make a photocopy, and she agreed, grudgingly. Staring first at the picture.

"Know her, ma'am?" Milo asked her as pleasantly as possible.

"No. Here you go. It didn't come out too good. Our machine needs adjusting."

Ellen Sato returned, freshly made-up, weak-eyed, forcing a smile. "How'd we do?"

Schwinn bounded up quickly, was in her face, bullying her with body language, beaming that same hostile grin. "Oh, just great, ma'am." He brandished the list of eighteen names. "Now how about introducing us to these lovely ladies?"

Rounding up the Melindas took another forty minutes. Twelve out of eighteen girls were in attendance that day, and they marched in looking supremely bored. Only a couple were vaguely aware of Janie Ingalls's existence, none admitted to being a close friend or knowing anyone who was, none seemed to be holding back.

Not much curiosity, either, about why they'd been called in to talk to cops. As if a police presence was the usual thing at Hollywood High. Or they just didn't care.

One thing was clear: Janie hadn't made her mark on campus. The girl who was the most forthcoming ended up in Milo's queue. Barely blond, not-at-all voluptuous Melinda Kantor. "Oh yeah, her. She's a stoner, right?"

"Is she?" he said.

The girl shrugged. She had a long, pretty face, a bit equine. Two-inch nails glossed aqua, no bra.

Milo said, "Does she hang around with other stoners?"

"Uh-uh, she's not a social stoner- more like a loner stoner."

"A loner stoner."

"Yeah."

"Which means…"

The girl shot him a you-are-a-prime-lame-o look. "She run away or something?"

"Something like that."

"Well," said Melinda Kantor, "maybe she's over on the Boulevard."

"Hollywood Boulevard?"

The resultant smirk said, Another stupid question, and Milo knew he was losing her. "The boulevard's where the loner stoners go."

Now Melinda Kantor was regarding him as if he were brain-dead. "I was just making a suggestion. What'd she do?"

"Maybe nothing."

"Yeah, right," said the girl. "Weird."

"What is?"

"Usually they send over narcs who are young and cute."

Ellen Sato produced addresses and phone numbers for the six absent Melindas, and Milo and Schwinn spent the rest of the day paying house calls.

The first four girls lived in smallish but tidy single homes on Hollywood's border with the Los Feliz district and were out sick. Melindas Adams, Greenberg, Jordan were in bed with the flu, Melinda Hohlmeister had been felled by an asthma attack. All four mothers were in attendance, all were freaked out by the drop-in, but each allowed the detectives access. The previous generation still respected- or feared- authority.

Melinda Adams was a tiny, platinum-haired, fourteen-year-old freshman who looked eleven and had a little kid's demeanor to match. Melinda Jordan was a skinny fifteen-year-old brunette with a frighteningly runny nose and vengeful acne. Greenberg was blond and long-haired and somewhat chesty. Both she and her mother had thick, almost impenetrable accents- recent immigrants from Israel. Science and math books were spread over her bed. When the detectives had stepped in, she'd been underlining text in yellow marker, had no idea who Janie Ingalls was. Melinda Hohlmeister was a shy, chubby, stuttering, homely kid with short, corn-colored ringlets, a straight A average, and an audible wheeze.

No response to Janie's name from any of them.

No answer at Melinda Van Epps's big white contemporary house up in the hills. A woman next door picking flowers volunteered that the family was in Europe, had been gone for two weeks. The father was an executive with Standard Oil, the Van Eppses took all five kids out of school all the time for travel, provided tutors, lovely people.

No reply, either, at Melinda Waters's shabby bungalow on North Gower. Schwinn knocked hard because the bell was taped over and labeled "Broken."

"Okay, leave a note," he told Milo. "It'll probably be bullshit, too."

Just as Milo was slipping the please-call-us memo and his card through the mail slot, the door swung open.

The woman who stood there could have been Bowie Ingalls's spiritual sister. Fortyish, thin but flabby, wearing a faded brown housedress. She had a mustard complexion, wore her peroxided hair pinned back carelessly. Confused blue eyes, no makeup, cracked lips. That furtive look.

"Mrs. Waters?" said Milo.

"I'm Eileen." Cigarette voice. "What is it?"

Schwinn showed her the badge. "We'd like to talk to Melinda."

Eileen Waters's head retracted, as if he'd slapped her. "About what?"

"Her friend, Janie Ingalls."

"Oh. Her," said Waters. "What'd she do?"

"Someone killed her," said Schwinn. "Did a right sloppy job of it. Where's Melinda?"

Eileen Waters's parched lips parted, revealing uneven teeth coated with yellow scum. She'd relied upon suspiciousness as a substitute for dignity and now, losing both, she slumped against the doorjamb. "Oh my God."

"Where's Melinda?" demanded Schwinn.

Waters shook her head, lowered it. "Oh, God, oh God."

Schwinn took her arm. His voice remained firm. "Where's Melinda?"

More headshakes, and when Eileen Waters spoke again her voice was that of another woman: timid, chastened. Reduced.

She began crying. Finally stopped. "Melinda never came home, I haven't seen her since Friday."