The Wedding Guest

Chapter 26

The nearest public library was the Studio City branch on Moorpark, white stucco under a swooping half dome of pale blue. Airy inside, gray carpeting and golden wood furniture and shelves.

We walked past a sandwich board advertising upcoming events.

L’Ecole French Conversation Group; Laughter Yoga; Rolfian Deep Tissue Massage as a Pathway to the Center of Consciousness; Baby & Toddler Story-Time.

Milo said, “Yoga can make you laugh? Yeah, probably, if you saw me in yoga pants.”

A sprinkle of people sat at tables working laptops and phones. One woman read a book: S&M porn for the middle-aged.

A single librarian, thin, brunette, around thirty, with sleeve tattoos and black, dime-sized gauges in her elongated earlobes. A slide-in sign in a slotted holder said Stevie L. Dent.

She’d watched us since we stepped in. When Milo introduced himself, her eyes narrowed. When he showed her Kimbee DaCosta’s photo she shook her head, primed to respond.

“We don’t give out information on patrons.”

“As well you shouldn’t. However, this patron is dead.”

Stevie Dent’s mouth dropped open. “You’re serious.”

“Nothing but serious. We’re trying to learn what we can about her.”

“I see... well, I guess you’ll need to prove she’s deceased, Officer. We’re a primary community data hub and our strict policy is guarding against unauthorized release of personal information.”

“Good policy,” said Milo. “And no problem proving it to you. How about we take you to the morgue? You won’t be allowed to view her body but you can examine her paperwork.”

Stevie Dent gulped. “Who murdered her?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. We’ve been told by her friends that she used the library. Was it here?”

Hesitation. Minimal nod. “She came here to read.” As if clarification was necessary. Maybe, in a world of deep tissue massage and hilarious Eastern exercise, it was.

“How often?”

“Maybe once a week,” said Dent. “Sometimes less, sometimes more? I really can’t say.”

“Any particular day or time?”

“The afternoon. I figured she had a flex job, maybe an actress. Because of how she looked and dressed. All in red.”

Milo said, “A little theatrical?”

Stevie Dent shifted in her chair. “That’s an adjective. I’m not judging. All I’m saying is she was possibly used to being noticed. I had a roommate in college who majored in theater and she was like that. Clothes you’d notice.”

I said, “Did you ever see anyone noticing her?”

“Never. She sat over there and read and minded her own business.” Pointing to the farthest corner of the main room. Close to the stacks but visible from the desk.

I said, “What contact did you have with her?”

“Just to see her come and go.”

I said, “She didn’t check out books?”

“No, she just took them from the stacks and put them back. We don’t encourage that, volumes get misfiled, but as far as I know she never caused problems.”

“What kind of books did she go for?”

Dent shook her head. “Couldn’t tell you.”

“Was she ever with someone?”

“Always by herself.”

“How long would she stay?”

“An hour, maybe two?” said Dent. “I wasn’t spying on her. She was upright.”

Milo said, “In what way?”

“Sometimes she’d bring her own books and she’d make sure to show them to me inside her backpack. So I’d know she wasn’t stealing.”

Milo said, “Books to the library, coals to Newcastle.”

“Pardon?”

“Did you find that unusual? Bringing her own reading material?”

“Not at all,” said Dent. “People come with laptops and devices, everyone’s welcome, we want to satisfy a diversity of needs — we just installed a charging station outside for hybrids and electrics.”

“Making yourselves relevant,” I said.

“We’ve always been relevant, sir. We just need to market our brand.”

“Got it. Anything else you can tell us about Kimbee?”

“That’s her name?”

“Suzanne Kimberlee DaCosta. Her friends call her Kimbee.”

“Cute name,” said Dent. “Sweet, fits. She seemed like a sweet girl.”

We waited.

She said, “That’s it.”

Milo said, “Thanks. How’s your Hardy Boys selection?”

“What’s that?” said Stevie Dent.

I took Moorpark to Van Nuys, headed south, and merged onto the Glen. As we began climbing, Milo sent a long text.

When he was finished, he said, “Today’s bucket list.”

“What comes after scaling Everest with no supplemental oxygen?”

“The really challenging stuff,” he said. “Looking for Kimbee’s relatives, following up with Homeland on Garrett, then, depending on what I find, maybe another chat with Garrett when his wife’s not around. That I could use you for. How’s your schedule?”

“Late afternoon would work best.”

“Let’s see how it shakes out.” He sat back, stretched his long legs, closed his eyes.

I said, “If COD on Cassy Booker’s suicide turns out to be heroin and fentanyl, it might bear a closer look.”

“You called Lopatinski. Any reason for me to take over?”

“Only if you have a problem with me following up.”

“None whatsoever, amigo.” His eyes shut again. “While you’re talking chemistry, ask her about Lotz’s — anything on the bloods, has she been able to change their mind about the autopsy.”

“Will do. I’d also like to look into Pena’s assistant, Pete Kramer. He handled the situation with Booker before he was made redundant.”

“You think there’s a connection?”

“I think former employees can be helpful same as exes.”

“Ah, the fine art of cultivating hostility. Sure, delve.”

Then he slept.

I dropped him at the station, took Pico to Westwood Boulevard, where I sat in burgeoning traffic that lasted well into the Village. Students jaywalking obliviously didn’t help. Neither did random road work. Trailing the lower rim of the U.’s city-sized campus, I continued the northward trek onto Hilgard and hooked east on Sunset. Every turn slowed the mph, as if some sadistic traffic Satan were churning chrome butter, and by the time I entered the Glen, the trip was long stretches of inertia peppered by momentary spurts of forward movement.

Faster to walk the three miles to my house, but I was stuck with a combustion engine. I never use the phone while driving but this was driving like prison’s a hotel. I began the search for Peter Kramer.

Common name spanning multiple continents. I added property manager and got hits in Brooklyn, Fort Lauderdale, and Silver Spring, Maryland. Images accompanied the last two: a thirtysomething condo superintendent in Florida, a seventysomething, yarmulke-wearing nonspecified in Maryland.

The car in front of me moved a few inches. Before I did the same, the driver behind me leaned on the horn. I checked the rearview. Young woman, maybe a student, in a VW Bug. Bouncing in her seat and waving a phone and flipping me off.

Another half-foot roll, then a total stop. The ranting behind me persisted.

The car stuck in the southbound lane opposite me was a Tesla driven by a black-T-shirted, white-haired man with flabby, crepe-laced arms unimproved by a barbed-wire biceps tattoo. He looked at me and shook his head.

Appreciating the empathy, I shrugged.

His face darkened. “You don’t fucking get it. If you didn’t use your fucking phone, we could all fucking go home.”

A woman in an open-air Fiat behind him raised her eyebrows and did a he’s-nuts corkscrew motion with her index finger.

Hoping she meant him, not me, I smiled at her, rolled up my window, turned on the radio. Given the miasma of the moment, the blues seemed about right. Anything but the news.