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.
CHAPTER
22
What’s in a name? Plenty.
I sat in the passenger seat of the unmarked as Milo worked his department-issue laptop.
Within seconds he had Suzanne DaCosta’s criminal record at hand, a puny archive consisting of two marijuana busts seven years ago in Denver and a public indecency arrest pled down to misdemeanor nuisance three years after that in Oceanside. No jail time.
One registered vehicle, a six-year-old gray Honda Civic. He put out BOLOs on the car.
Suzanne DaCosta’s social network was almost as thin as Amanda Burdette’s: no accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or Twitter, no narcissistic display of pseudo-talent on YouTube. But a LinkedIn page advertised her availability as a “research assistant” and offered up an 818 landline.
He said, “Guess it depends what you’re researching,” and punched in the number. Disconnected.
The reverse directory offered up the same landline and Studio City residence. An image search pulled up no pictures of Suzanne DaCosta but it did flag the address as a one-story ranch house south of Ventura and west of Laurel Canyon.
Milo plugged in his GPS and shifted into Drive. “Ready for the Valley?”
“Got my car here, I’ll follow you.”
“Better yet, I follow you to your place and then we go over the hill in one set of wheels. Fuel conservation, as in mine. Also, A.C. in this thing sucks.”
* * *
—
We got to my house in ten minutes, took a moment to check in with Robin. She was making deft circular motions on the bowl back of an old Venetian mandola with a pad of cotton. French polishing. She held up a wait-a-sec finger.
Taking over the social obligations, Blanche toddled up with a chew stick in her mouth and got petted by both of us. Her smile said everything was right in the world.
Milo said, “Ah, yes, the sun is shining, Pooch.”
Robin put down her polishing pad, came over and kissed me on the lips, Milo on the cheek. “You’re looking rather pleased, Big Guy.”
“I see you, I’m full of glee.”
She flashed a gorgeous smile. “Flattered, but something tells me it’s more than that.”
Milo looked at me. “Smart girl, that where you get your insights? Yeah, I finally identified my victim. And Romeo found the crucial evidence.”
He summed up.
She said, “Dirt pile under the bed. In those nice jeans I bought you.”
She brushed something off my left leg. Everyone laughed and we left.
* * *
—
I drove north on the Glen while Milo looked up Michael Lotz’s criminal record.
The screen filled. “Oh, you’ve been a bad boy, Mikey…bunch of assaults from age eighteen on, probably has a sealed juvie record, too…looks like he started out in Pittsburgh…then over to Harrisburg…Philly…Akron, malicious mayhem in Patterson, New Jersey, couple of batteries in Newark.”
I slowed as a truck snail-crawled across two lanes and attempted a right turn. Milo showed me a page of mugshots. In most of them Lotz’s hair was long and unruly, his unremarkable face covered by a beard. Old eyes, slackening skin, deteriorating confidence.
I said, “Transient addict, maybe homeless.”
“Plenty of those…okay, here we go. He stabbed someone to death eighteen years ago, back in Akron…sounds like a bar brawl, voluntary manslaughter pled down to involuntary, he served five out of ten in Youngstown, Ohio…suspected prison gang involvement, probably has tattoos, need to see his corpse.”
He phoned the crypt, talked to an attendant named Pedro, and asked which pathologist would be doing Lotz’s autopsy.
“I don’t see any autopsy on the schedule, Lieutenant.”
“Big backlog.”
“Yeah,” said Pedro. “But that’s not it. He’s marked for X-ray and an exterior only. You know how it is with O.D. suicides.”
“This one might not be suicide.”
“Oh? How come?”
“He’s related to a homicide I’m working. If there was an autopsy, who’d be doing it?”
“Dr. Rosen filled out the forms. She’s out right now, teaching at the med school.”
“Don’t know her. New?”
“Yup,” said Pedro. “She’s part-time, we got a bunch of those.”
“Do me a favor. Ask Dr. Lopatinski if she can do the autopsy. If she can’t, have Dr. Rosen call me. Whoever does it, make sure every bit of body ink is logged.”
“He’s ganged up?”
“Good chance of that. More important, I need a tox screen A-sap.”
“Hold on,” said Pedro. “I’m writing it all down.”
“You’re a gentleman and a scholar.”
“Don’t know about scholar,” said Pedro, “but my mama raised me right.”
Milo returned to Michael Lotz’s criminal résumé. “So he’s capable of killing…okay, what’s next?” He frowned. “Nothing’s next, just a bunch of possessions for personal use…starting in Philly after his release. Straight release, no parole…now he’s heading west…west: Omaha, Tulsa…a second one in Tulsa five years ago…and a third. Then it stops. All of a sudden he switches from bruising to using?”
I said, “If you don’t need to mug someone to get heroin, it’s a great pacifier. Maybe he found himself that reliable supplier. Or began trading dope for favors.”
“Hit man for hire,” he said. “Stalking Suzanne to that bathroom, shooting her up, and garroting her doesn’t sound like a rookie move. So why’s he dead? I’m not thinking suicide due to guilt.”
“Unlikely,” I said. “He O.D.’d accidentally or someone made sure he O.D.’d.”
“Another fentanyl cocktail.”
“Or just purer heroin. If whoever hired him was also his supplier, it would be easy. Not hard to see a motive: He outlived his usefulness and his addiction made him unreliable. With the gang thing—three busts in Tulsa—maybe someone at their PD will know him.”
He pulled out his pad and scrawled. Laughed. “All these parents paying for their kids to have a safe space, this asshole’s lurking in the basement.”
“Pena said he came through Academo’s HR. The company’s headquartered in Columbus. Lotz has no record there but he did spend time in Ohio—Akron and then the prison time in Youngstown.”
“Long-term relationship with someone in the company?”
“Someone who also knew Suzanne. Lotz didn’t get a repro of her license by himself. Whoever hired him was close enough to her to get hold of the real one and photocopy. That fits with the personal nature of the crime.”
“Hostile boyfriend, maybe living right where we’re headed,” he said, tightening his jaw and patting his jacket where his gun bulged. “Or a girlfriend, God forbid I of all people should assume.”
Half a mile later, he frowned: “Lotz having the notes on the wedding and the photo says he’s involved but what if he was just a go-between who hired some other scrote to actually do the deed?”
I said, “Another reason to get rid of him.”
“But a complication. I need to trace his movements that day, see if he left the building at the right time.” He sent a text to Robert Pena about the CCTV feed. Waited for a reply, got none, and cursed.
I said, “Let’s take another look at Tomashev’s photos, see if Lotz shows up.”
“Good idea, soon as we check out Suzanne’s digs. I snag a shot of Lotz with Amanda, I don’t need any mood-elevating substance.”
“You see her as hiring a hit man.”