The Wedding Guest

Chapter 21

Memo paper torn from an ACADEMO, INC., pad.

The logo a Greek Revival building fit for the Ivy League, below that: We house the leaders of tomorrow.

Below that, clumsy block lettering in red ballpoint.

An address on Corner Avenue.

Then: aura 8–10 Sat pm.

I said, “Lotz’s handwriting?”

Milo said, “Matches his DMV signature and the ink’s the same as an Academo pen in one of his drawers.”

He shook the paper, green eyes incandescent. “You still feeling cautious? What this look like to you?”

“A game plan.”

He crossed himself. “Hell, yeah. Unless Lotz was on the invite list, he was a very bad boy. And he doesn’t sound like some homicidal mastermind. More like the type who could be bought. Maybe by a resident who does have a high IQ.”

“Amanda commissioned a hit on Red Dress?”

“She’d have the opportunity to know Lotz. Yeah, she’s young, but she’s also a brain with abnormal emotions, so why not? It makes other stuff fall into place. Like Garrett’s squirrelly look when we mentioned Poland. That coulda been him knowing something nasty about baby sis. Or he’s involved more directly. As in Red Dress is a girl from his past who threatened to embarrass him on his big day. For all his Joe Nerd thing, maybe he’s got some bigger secrets than his wife’s Vegas fling.”

He took the paper back. “I got sidetracked to the Rapfogels because Denny’s a dog and Corinne pointed me toward him. But looks like it’s the wholesome Burdettes I need to focus on. As in back to Pa Walton and his farm animals. Because vets use fentanyl, easy enough for Amanda to waltz into a barn, lift what she needs, and pass it along to Lotz. Maybe he kept some for himself and that’s how he ended up dead. Or she hot-shotted him to clear her tracks.”

He took a breath, flapped the paper against his thigh. “I’m not making sense?”

“You’re making a lot of sense.”

“But?”

“No buts.”

“This is a game changer, Alex. I find out any of the Burdettes visited Warsaw — hell, if they like to polka I’m on them.”

“Anything else come up in Lotz’s room?”

“His wallet had an expired Discover card and I found five fifties behind a bunch of underwear.”

“Lots of cash for a junkie to keep around.”

“Exactly, money’s like water to them. So it had to be a recent cash infusion. Everything else I found is: stash of baggies, two dozen disposable hypos, another scorched spoon, collection of disposable lighters, more candy and cookies, also with his skivvies. All I’ve got left is pawing under the bed, then looking at the bathroom. I find a guitar string, I’m Nirvana-bound.”

“Good luck.”

“You’re not coming?”

“For what?”

“You don’t mind getting dusty, you can do the bed. Bathroom’s too gross, I’ll do that.”

“All is forgiven?”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“Slip of the tongue.” As we returned to Lotz’s hole, I told him about calling Lopatinski.

He said, “Great idea!”

That level of glee, I kept one thought to myself: Still no I.D. on the victim.

I followed his lope back to the room. In the doorway, he said, “I’m having second thoughts about you getting under the bed, amigo. Those are nice pants.”

“Protect and serve. As in you,” I said. “Give me gloves.”

Everything he’d found was tagged and bagged and arrayed neatly in a corner of the cramped room.

I said, “Have you flipped the mattress?”

“Yeah, but not the spring. Sure you want to do it?”

The “nice pants” were black jeans. My shirt was ash-colored chambray. Both would dust off.

“No prob.”

He went into the bathroom and I pushed the mattress half off the box spring. Lifting one side revealed a partial view of dust motes and a trio of dead roaches, maybe cousins of the tribe in the stairwell.

From the bathroom, Milo said, “Gimme a break. Old junkie and his cabinet’s got nothing but aspirin and shaving stuff and a stick of Mennen... okay, here we go, conveniently behind the stick. Ciprofloxacin, prescribed last year at a clinic in Venice. What’s that, Alex? Like methadone?”

I said, “Antibiotic.”

“What do the pills look like?”

“Round, white, a number on one side.”

“Hmm... maybe they’re real, I’ll have the lab verify... looks like Lotz was old-school, didn’t get into the prescription game.”

I said, “Heroin’s relatively cheap nowadays. If he’s got a reliable supplier, why mess with anything new?”

“A stodgy type, huh? Okay, time to check the toilet tank... nothing. You finished?”

“Halfway there.” I walked around to the other side of the bed, lifted the mattress on a notably more generous supply of motes, along with woolly swirls of dirt, six dead roaches, three dehydrated M&M’s — orange, blue, brown — and an errant baggie.

Right half of the bed, if you were lying down. If Lotz was right-handed like ninety percent of the population, the side he’d favor.

I began probing the dirt, found nothing in the first couple of piles. But as I nudged the third, a sharp white corner asserted itself like a tiny shark fin.

I tweezed it out, setting off a tiny dust storm.

Another remnant from an Academo notepad, folded in half.

Black-and-white photocopy of a six-month-old California driver’s license issued to Suzanne Kimberlee DaCosta. Thirty-one years old, five-seven, one twenty-four, black, brown, address on Amadeo Drive in Studio City.

Familiar face, pretty even under heartless DMV lighting.

Now Red Dress had a name.

I said, “No protection but I’ve definitely served.”

Milo stepped out of the bathroom. I showed him the license.

He put his palms together. “Thank you, God. And your personal assistant, this guy.”

He turned away quickly but I’m pretty sure his eyes were wet.