Chapter 28 #2
Wig-Milt had set the smaller bedroom up as some kind of home studio, with sound-proofing, a reinforced door and window, and a built-in desk with shelves above it that elled around three of the walls, with a big video screen in the center.
It looked as if some of the computer equipment had been grabbed, possibly to make this appear more like a burglary, which is what the police were assuming until Lindsey had spoon-fed them the connection to the gunfire-riddled destruction at Emily Johnson’s house in Van Nuys.
Now it was part of their little ongoing what-the-fuck—although Sam was pretty sure that the conversation Jules was having with the detectives out in the living room didn’t include mention of any bodies buried in the Devonshire Place garden.
They had a few additional bullet-points to check off their to-do list before bringing that up with the authorities.
Like, for example, grabbing a shovel and digging around in that dirt a bit.
.. Hopefully while out of range of any additional gunmen.
Quite possibly in the presence of the entire, perimeter protecting, eyes-open-and-alert Troubleshooters team, who were being selected, right that very moment, by Alyssa and their CO, Tom Paoletti, from a long and shiny list of eager volunteers.
Which was saying something, since the question Who wants to make the ball-breaking drive up to LA in the late afternoon traffic? wasn’t usually met with an enthusiastic hand-raise and Ooh, ooh, pick me!
But everyone and their highly skilled operative sister wanted in on this chance to work with Jules.
And frankly, he and Sam could use as many eyes and brains on this situation as Tom and Alyssa could spare.
Because this break-in was, absolutely, another rung on the WTF ladder.
Just like at Emily’s, there appeared to be no sign of a struggle here—which didn’t mean that an abduction hadn’t occurred.
With the right equipment, it didn’t take long to bash in a door.
Someone sitting at the dining nook table wouldn’t have had time to do much more than leap to their feet.
And if the home-invader had a weapon, the scenario would pretty much go like:
Home-invader: Freeze! Hands where I can see ’em! Out the door! Now! Into the black SUV!
And... scene.
But there were no dishes out on the table. No half-eaten breakfast gathering flies. No crossword puzzle book dropped onto the floor.
Now tended to mean now, and not after loading the dishwasher.
The entire place was scrupulously tidy, the kitchen zealously clean.
The fridge held only a few perishables—a half-gallon of milk that was dated into next week, a few open containers of condiments, an unopened package of cheese.
Sports drinks, bottled water, sealed jars of juice—and exactly zero beer.
No cans, no bottles. No wine, either. No vodka in the freezer.
No alcohol in any other cabinets in the kitchen.
Which made sense in a world where three-days-after-a-bender-Wig-Milt’s alter-ego was the straight-laced sweater-guy in that photo with the cute young woman. Real-Milt apparently had gotten clean in lockup.
Sam headed back to look at the bedroom that was actually a bedroom, where the bed—a queen, because the room was so small—was neatly made.
There was no twin picture of Sweater-Milt and smiling Emily on the bedside table. In fact, there were no photos of any kind anywhere.
Kinda weird since the guy’s girlfriend was a photographer.
Sam wandered into the bathroom. Nothing was out on the shiny, clean sink counter except pump-bottles of soap and lotion.
No toothbrushes or paste. No shaving gear.
Home-invader: Freeze! Hands where I can see ’em! Go grab your toothpaste and razor—hygiene is important! You’re coming with me!
So that was a probable no on the whole abduction theory, with the most likely scenario being that Milt/Mick had left before the home-invaders’ arrival. In fact, Sam would guess that wherever he was, Emily Johnson was nearby.
It was entirely possible that Emily had been abducted—although the question there was: Did she know it, or did she just think she was off on a getaway with her boyfriend?
The tiny bathroom was as pristinely clean as the rest of the house, which was disappointing because one of their hopes and dreams in coming here was to grab some of the former Milt Junior’s DNA, to compare with the samples they’d taken from the estate earlier that day.
But there was no hairbrush in the drawer, no nail clippers or collection of toenails, no trash in any of the garbage cans—not even outside in the bins.
Which meant that Milt had likely been gone for several days, or at least since the last weekly trash pickup, if not longer.
A single, freshly clean towel hung neatly over the chrome handle of the 1960’s era glass sliding shower doors. The toilet gleamed, although the seat was up.
Sam went back into the bedroom and opened the top drawer of the single bedside table—the room was so compact that only one would fit on one side of the bed.
The drawer held very little. A notepad and some pens.
A few sandstone drink coasters. A lot of loose change, like Milt/Mick had emptied his pockets into it, daily for the past five years.
It also held zero condoms, which seemed to work in tandem with that clue from the raised toilet seat.
Sam opened the closet door and there it was.
In a sealed ziplock baggie atop a built-in dresser.
Wig-Milt’s glorious wig. A larger bag held the jeans and T-shirt that the man had worn to the meeting at Harper’s office.
Good call, Milt/Mick. That shit no doubt had a strong odor best kept tightly sealed up.
And that pretty much clinched it. Sam would’ve bet big money that at no time, ever, in the existence of Milt/Mick’s ownership of this little house, had Emily been an overnight guest or maybe even just a visitor here.
Honey, what’s this weird hair-like-thing in your closet?
That’s part of the disguise I wear when I go to visit my dead father’s asshole lawyer.
No, it was likely Milt/Mick would’ve hidden that thing a little better rather than have that conversation. But he didn’t need to hide his wig—or put Emily’s photos on the walls, or lower his toilet bowl seat, or provision the house with condoms—if he never let his girlfriend hang out here.
Which felt kind of suspicious.
Kind of predatory.
He tried calling Wig-Milt’s phone again, but again he went straight to voicemail. “This is Starrett, calling again,” he said, letting a little of his annoyance creep into his tone. “Call me back ASAP, Milt, because, yeah, turns out we have quite a few more questions for you.”
He was intentionally not calling the number that the TS report had turned up for Mick O’Rourke, which was different from this number the client had given them. So. Which was the burner phone? Probably the number he’d given them as Milt.
And wasn’t the very fact that the man so much as had a burner suspicious, too?
But Jules wasn’t ready to try to contact the man through his Mick O’Rourke number, or even to drop a loaded Hey, Milt or should I say Mick into the messages they were leaving on their client’s voicemail.
Seeing the damage done from the break-in at Mick/Milt’s house had served to convince Jules even more so that the man wasn’t part of the whole bodies-in-the-garden plot.
But Sam was still far from sure. Break into my house, too, while you’re at it, guys in the black SUV, so the PIs that I hired don’t find out I’m working with you. ..
That was what he would’ve done if he were a convicted felon asshole looking to scam a young woman out of her twenty million dollar inheritance.
Sam went back into the living room, where Jules had just finished his friendly discussion with the detectives.
His phone swooshed as a text from Robin came in, on a thread with both Sam and Jules asking....
What...?
“Still nothing from Wig-Milt,” Sam reported to Jules before adding, “And Robin wants to know if I have... a pair of tweezers...?”
He followed Jules, who was now making the same walk-through of the little house that Sam had just done, seeing all of the things that Sam had seen and probably even more. Yup, he checked inside the dishwasher—empty—Sam hadn’t done that.
After this morning’s gunfire-filled incident at Emily Johnson’s house in Van Nuys, Jules had made the command decision to immediately move out of their rental house and into the far more secure and easily-guarded home that Robin’s producer sister Jane shared with her husband, former SEAL chief Cosmo Richter.
Their house, similar to Devonshire Place in its 1930s architecture, large but much less sprawling, was set up with high-tech security equipment and could withstand a full-on siege including—especially—a clown-car attack like this morning’s hail of bullets.
If only because it was set back quite a bit from the street.
The fact that Cos was a former SEAL chief was a new and exciting development.
Richter had been on Sam’s personal must-recruit-for-TS list for years.
But Sam kept his celebratory hoo-yahing to himself—with the exception of an emoji-filled text to Alyssa—because he was well aware that Jules was worried about Emily and the now absolutely-definitely-ghosting-them Wig-Milt/Mick.
And then there was Robin. He was safely with Cosmo—who’d taken him from the studio straight to their new home base without stopping. He was secure, but not happy about all those bullets that had recently been fired in Jules and Sam’s direction.
“He was worried we were hurt,” Jules told Sam now. “I told him the worst of it was a few nasty splinters. He’s a little hyper-focused on that.”
Sam looked at Robin’s text again. Do you have a pair of tweezers?