The Wedding Guest

Chapter 34

We left Kramer’s house and rode a block before Milo pulled to the curb and began working his mobile computer.

Detective work is like building a suspension bridge: No matter how precise the engineering or elegant the architecture, nothing matters until the last gap is closed.

Armed with Susan Koster’s true identity, Milo began piling up facts like a spoiled kid hoarding Christmas gifts.

Within seconds he’d called up Susan Katherine Koster’s DMV records: first license at eighteen, two renewals followed by a two-year gap consistent with working in Panama. After that, nothing until she materialized as Suzanne Kimberlee DaCosta.

No paper trail in Nevada. If her story about working in Vegas was true, she hadn’t put down roots in the Silver State.

That was consistent with the type of short-term gig that brought some attractive young women in and out of Vegas. Working in the brothels of Nye and other counties with legalized prostitution would’ve resulted in some sort of registration. But illegality raises the price of goods and services and if she’d gone for the big bucks in Sin City and had never been arrested, no record.

One consistency on every Susan Koster license, an address on Mentor Place in North Hollywood.

The online map kicked out the image of a boxy green bungalow east of Laurel Canyon and two miles north of Ventura Boulevard.

A hop from the Studio City garage she’d sublet from Serena and Claire.

As Milo continued to type away, I logged onto a pay site I’d used before. PayPalling a few bucks hooked me into thousands of high school yearbooks. Knowing the age and address of my subject sped up the process and within seconds I had a North Hollywood High senior photo, taken twelve years ago.

The same pretty face, a bit fuller and less defined, obscured by bangs that hung to her eyebrows and curtained by long dark hair ironed straight. Her eyes were wary, heavily shadowed, her mouth sour and downturned.

Photo shoot on a bad day or high school hadn’t been her thing.

Maybe the second because she’d listed no achievements, academic or athletic, nor any extracurricular interests.

A dancer who’d failed to make the pep squad? Or an outsider who hadn’t regarded applying as worthwhile?

That set my mind racing but I kept my thoughts to myself and showed the thumbnail to Milo. He gave the V-sign and returned to his keyboard, pulling up the reverse directory and identifying the occupant of the house on Mentor Place.

Dorothy Maria Koster.

County tax files listed her as the owner and sole occupant and the house as nine hundred thirty-eight square feet sharing a four-thousand-foot lot with two equally petite residences. DMV made her forty-eight years old and served up a thin face topped by a curly blond bob. Blue eyes, five-four, one hundred eighteen pounds, corrective lenses required.

One registered vehicle: a ten-year-old blue Buick LaCrosse.

Impeccable driving record, not a trace of any sort of questionable activity.

Milo said, “Law-abiding citizen. Time to meet Mom and ruin today and every day that follows.”

He called the landline listed on the directory, held on for six rings, got a robotic male away-message and left his name, rank, and cell number. Then he sat back, closed his eyes, rubbed the lids, and rested his head against the seat. “I’ll try her again in an hour. What do you suggest, in the meantime?”

I said, “Not a bad time to theorize.”

“About?”

“Susan’s death.”

“Don’t make me beg. What?”

“She was with Peter Kramer for a while but he clearly wasn’t The Brain.”

“Maybe I should be looking into his genius brothers.” He opened his eyes and pivoted toward me. “Sad, kid like that in the wrong family.”

“Poor fit,” I said. “I see it all the time.”

“It causes problems all the time?”

“It can be worked with.”

He nodded. “My brother Brendan. The rest of us are built like beer kegs with legs. Football, weight lifting, wrestling. Then we get this when we turn thirty.” Patting the bulge of his gut. “Believe it or not, I’m not the tonnage champ in the family. My brother Mel beats me by at least thirty pounds, my brother Will’s six-five, gotta be three fifty minimum. Brendan, on the other hand, is not only the smartest, he takes after my mother’s side, a bunch of leprechauns. Five-seven, one thirty on a good day. The rest of us could bench-press him and not breathe hard. He became a graphic artist, moved to Pittsburgh, owns his own ad company.”

Abrupt laughter, bassoon-pitched, gushed from between his lips. Someone else might’ve thought he was smiling. I knew he was remembering.

“Little Brendan was the one everyone suspected was gay. He ended up married to a beauty queen and has five terrific kids.”

I said, “Keeps life interesting.”

“What does?”

“When order is disrupted.”

“Hah. I sure disrupted my family. When I finally snuck out of the closet, Dad came close to stroking out... so ol’ Peter wasn’t up to Suzy’s intellectual aspirations and she tossed him over for someone who was?”

“That’s the bet I’d take. He got replaced and eliminated.”

“By Susie and The Brain, or just The Brain?”

“Nothing suggests she was violent.”

“If she had no beef with Kramer, why would The Brain bother? Didn’t sound like he was serious competition.”

“Not for the time being,” I said.

“The Brain worried she might change her mind and took out death insurance? That’s pretty savage.”

“Or he’s got over-the-top dominance needs and decided to get rid of a complication.”

“And then Susie became a complication? What, she failed an achievement test? Forgot to put on her body shaper?”

“Or he simply got bored with her,” I said. “He was ready to end it but she wasn’t, because to her the relationship was more than romance. It represented what she thought was a new life. Feeling smart. That garage doesn’t look like full-time lodgings. She probably drifted back and forth between it and The Brain’s place. But then he kicked her out permanently. She found out he was going to the wedding and decided to confront him—”

“Or he was part of the wedding party.”

“Garrett?” I said. “Fine, either way. She threatened to show up, he said, No prob, see you there, wear that sexy red dress, we’ll have fun, discuss our issues. Instead, he sent Mike Lotz to take care of her. A junkie who also ended up replacing Pete Kramer. That can’t be coincidence, Big Guy. Maybe The Brain had something to do with Lotz being hired.”

“What kind of influence would he have?”

“He could be a longtime resident, comfy cozy in a penthouse, with access to vulnerable students like Cassy Booker.”

Maybe Amanda Burdette; I kept that to myself.

Milo said, “Older guy, gets all intellectual with younger women, gets into their pants... until he ditches them.”

“Easy to see why Lotz had to die. Addicts aren’t known for discretion so once he carried out his mission, he became a liability.”

“Or Mr. Cerebral just gets off on killing people.”

“They’re not separate issues,” I said. “View the world as your solo stage, everyone else becomes a prop.”

He returned to staring at the street. “Goddamn building. That obsequious little bastard Pena still isn’t returning calls. Same for the woman he gave me in Columbus — Masio — and everyone else I’ve tried at Academo. CCTV’s rarely a big deal. These people are starting to smell bad.”

Turning the ignition key violently, he revved the unmarked’s engine. “What to do before I get to death-knock poor Mrs. Koster has just made itself obvious.”

“Onward to the wilds of Westwood Village.”

“You are quite the brain, yourself.”