"Did you go back and question her about the dead kid in Bellevue?"

"You bet we did," said Lindstrom. "She never wavered from her initial story: She was snugly bed-a-bye at Hope Lodge the night it happened, was sure none of her pals were involved, they'd never do something like that."

"She did mention Backer being her travel companion," I said.

"But she didn't incriminate him in anything, Doctor. In fact, each time we brought his name up, she made him out to be Johnny Appleseed, not some maniac firebomber. Still, we checked him out and like you said, he was in architecture school, channeling his green impulses in a socially acceptable manner."

Milo said, "How soon after you gave her deep cover did she split?"

"She's been off our screen for thirty months, two weeks, and three days," said Lindstrom. "You want hours and minutes, I'll go back to my federal cubicle and use a calculator. I was a.s.signed her file-and others-a little over a year ago, have been staring at her face with nowhere to go. All of a sudden, there she is on the evening news and I just about spew my Lean Cuisine. Your artist did a pretty good job."

"My name was on the screen, too, Gayle. So instead of picking up the phone, you tell Hal to stonewall."

"No choice, the directive came from on up."

When Milo didn't respond, she said, "Like it's different with you?"

"I'm sensing a theme here, Gayle. Everyone does it as a defense."

"What do you want from me?" said Lindstrom. "Flash back to your Hollywood D all roofied up with her legs spread and guess what, you won't find a trace of those dirty pictures anywhere on the Web. Any written record of the operation, period. What comes from on top filters down to the peons. Our job is to clean up messes."

"Fine," said Milo. "Kafka's G.o.d and we're all c.o.c.kroaches. But even bugs know how to be social. Why did your bosses want to obstruct me?"

"They wanted to make sure everything was squared up before we interfaced."

"As in cleaning Doreen's file of anything useful so as not to look stupid?"

"As in getting my own facts straight. As in a sudden trip to Seattle yesterday morning in a coach seat next to a snoring fat guy."

"If I hadn't bugged Hal, would we be sitting here, Gayle?"

"I can't answer theoretical questions," said Lindstrom. "Point is, I'm here and I told you what I know about Doreen. If it helps you close her out, I'll celebrate along with you. Because one of my a.s.signments is to get her the h.e.l.l off my desk."

"Then write a bulls.h.i.t report. I'm a c.o.c.kroach enabler."

"First enable some more. As in telling me what you can about Doreen's murder."

"Doreen and Backer were enjoying s.e.xual congress in a big house and got surprised in the act."

"Ouch," said Lindstrom. "Mode?"

"He was shot once in the head, probably a .22, she was strangled."

"Forensics?

"His and her prints in expected places, no one else's, nothing at Backer's crib. No crib at all for Doreen, because some unnamed government agency helped her go bye-bye and let her stay underground even after she screwed them. Why, once you realized she'd conned you, didn't you put her factoids back in place?"

"It's not done that way."

"She was an embarra.s.sment, so no sense calling attention to her before the next begging session at Congress."

"Whatever," said Lindstrom. "I really wish you'd stop b.i.t.c.hing, because I didn't cause any of this. All I'm after is enough data to write her d.a.m.n epitaph. What else do you have?"

"Nada."

She toed her bag closer. "I did some checking and the owner of the property might be of interest."

"Really," said Milo. Grinning, his hands had curled into ma.s.sive flesh-mitts, pink and glossy and twitching. Like a pair of Christmas hams revivified by some mad scientist.

Gayle Lindstrom watched them, fascinated.

Milo stood. "Special Agent Lindstrom, I believe we're through here."

"Oh, Jesus," she said. "What's with you?"

"First you say you've told me everything, then you toss in your own little morsel to spice up the bulls.h.i.t. Unlike the Bureau, I don't have years to put up with gamers."

Lindstrom's jaw jutted. "I never used the word everything."

"Well, that sure clarifies it," he said, heading for the door.

Gayle Lindstrom said, "I am not gaming you. I didn't say anything in the beginning because I a.s.sumed you knew about the owner. After you didn't say anything, I thought you didn't so I told you, okay?"

Silence.

"I didn't think I had to spoon-feed you basic-"

"Who owns the property, Gayle?"

"You really don't know?"

Milo smiled.

"C'mon," said Lindstrom. "Just like you, I'm a salaried employee far from the top of the food chain. You want to keep picking at me, I can't stop you, but it won't close your double homicide. You want me to go first, fine? Prince Tariq of Sranil, aka Teddy."

Milo sat back down. "More coffee, Gayle? We're nothing if not hospitable."

Lindstrom gaped. "Not that it matters, but I only learned about him right before I came over here. You don't consider him a suspect. Not directly, I mean. He's back in Sranil."

Milo said, "He's alleged to have killed another girl."

Lindstrom sat up. "Who, where, when?"

"Don't know, don't know, around two years ago. It's still at the rumor level, a foreign national, maybe a party girl, maybe Swedish."

"Who's your source?"

"Someone who heard a rumor."

"Who?"

Milo shook his head. "We've got secrecy issues, too. For all I know, it's baloney but the timing's right: just when construction stopped on Teddy's shack. And he rabbited back home right after."

"Then Doreen ends up there." Lindstrom shook her head. "I'm not seeing any obvious link."

"Anything related to Sranil ever come up in Doreen's stories?"

"Nope. And that I can be sure of because soon as I found out about Teddy owning the property, I re-read every d.a.m.n word in her file."

"But she did talk about foreign terrorists confederating with local eco-nuts."

"It never came to anything, plus she never mentioned anything about Asians or Swedes or Ugandans or Lithuanians."

"Just Ahmed," said Milo.

"Quote unquote 'al-Qaeda types.'"

"Sranil's Muslim, Gayle. And the sultan's got two groups of extremists itching to cut his head off and get control of all his oil. One of them's fundamentalist."

"Interesting," said Lindstrom. "You're really thinking this could be political?"

"G.o.d, I hope not. Doreen ever travel abroad?"

"Never even had a pa.s.sport."

"Same question, Gayle."

"I just told you-oh. No, Lieutenant Sturgis, as far as my peon status can carry me, I'm unaware of the Bureau or anyone else furnishing her funny travel papers."

Milo said, "So someone upstairs could've granted it."

"Sure, but why would the Bureau help her evade when we were paying her to blab and she hadn't come through? The only time she could've traveled abroad would've been between splitting on us and now."

"Exactly," said Milo.

Lindstrom thought about that. "Okay, I'll make some calls, promise to give you righteous info. Fair enough?"

He nodded. "After Doreen asked to be moved away from Seattle, where'd you safe-house her?"

"Sorry, not authorized. But trust me, it wasn't anywhere outside the continental U.S." Smiling. "Think acres of plains, not a mountain in sight."

Milo said, "Not here in L.A."

"Not even close."

"Seeing as you just read every d.a.m.n word of the file, is there anything in there about a gal-pal who had traveled abroad? Or came from abroad?"

"Swedish party girl? Negative, yet again," said Lindstrom. "You'll have to believe me on this, but that file contains squat-all international intrigue a.s.sociated with Doreen Fredd. And you've got no serious evidence Prince Teddy actually offed anyone. But even if he did, how would it connect to Doreen and Backer two years later? Burning down a big showy house, I can believe. They probably did that back in Bellevue and G.o.d knows how many other times. But targeting Teddy, specifically? This turning into some obnoxious 007 deal? I'm not seeing it."

Milo said, "What if Doreen and Backer somehow found out about the alleged murder and tried to cash in? From what you know about her, would that make sense?"

"Blackmail ... sure, why not? She wasn't a woman of high character." She sat forward. "She and Backer hooked up more for old times' sake, decided to do more than eat dandelions and screw? Hey, anything's possible, but there's nothing along those lines that I can help you with."

"Does the name Monte appear anywhere in your files?"

"Nope. Who is he?

"Maybe no one, Gayle."

"Obviously, you think he's someone."

"What happened to the other two kids Doreen and Backer hung with back in Seattle?"

"Dwayne Parris and Kathy Vanderveldt? They both went off to college and got on the straight and narrow. She was pre-med, he was pre-law. Tell me about Monte."

"Just a name that came up in a tip."

"As..."

"Someone who might've known Doreen."

"Might? That mean you don't think the tip's solid?"

Milo gave her the details.

"Geezer without a cell," she said. "Monte. Nope, doesn't ring a bell, but the moment I get back, I'll re-read the file, just in case it slipped by me. We're talking seven-hundred-plus pages."

"Doreen was small-time but she merited an encyclopedia?"

"One thing we're good at is churning paper." Lindstrom smiled. "Poor trees."

CHAPTER.

21.

We stood in front of the station and watched Lindstrom drive away in a government-issued Chevy.