I said, "I'm figuring over a two-year period Mark paid Tiara close to a hundred and fifty thousand, probably more. Given the circ.u.mstances, I don't think twice that amount is unreasonable."

She wriggled. I let go. She tried to slap me again. I backed away. Stood.

"You're out of your mind," she said.

"How about two hundred, then? Less than you paid for the Rolls and Phil and Frank get to continue as best friends forever. Not to mention, you stay out of jail."

"I'll never see the inside of any jail, darling. It's a story, nothing more."

"A true story."

"Prove it."

"If you're that confident, why haven't you gone for the Glock?"

"That's obvious," she said. "The other thing."

"Phil and Frank."

"Even so, two hundred is ridiculous. Even half that's ridiculous."

"I disagree, Leona. Two hundred's my my best offer and if you don't meet it, I'll walk out of here and tell my story to Lieutenant Sturgis. Like I said, the cops aren't geniuses but they can connect dots." best offer and if you don't meet it, I'll walk out of here and tell my story to Lieutenant Sturgis. Like I said, the cops aren't geniuses but they can connect dots."

"And what will happen to you?"

"They'll thank me and pay a consultant's fee."

"Fifty thousand. That is my my best offer and you'd do well to take it." best offer and you'd do well to take it."

"A hundred."

"You are tiresome. Seventy-five."

"Split the difference," I said.

"Eighty-seven five. Exorbitant, but fine. I'll have cash for you in three days. Give me that card of yours, I'll call you and inform you where to pick it up."

"Don't think so, Leona. I'll set up the date. When you orchestrate the score, the band tends to go out of tune."

"Not to my ear," she said, gaily. "It was beautiful music."

"Three days," I said. "I'll call you."

"All right," she said. Far too quickly. Way too syrupy. Definitely time to leave.

Retrieving the laptop, I left the room, crossed the cavernous entry hall.

The photo of the woman in white was gone.

Leona Suss made no attempt to follow and that raised the short hairs on the back of my neck.

As I reached the door, my head whiplashed for a backward look.

She stood, hands on hips, at the foot of the stairs. Rubbed her crotch briefly. Said, "Ta-ta." I knew she was already screenwriting.

The cat purred by her feet.

I turned the k.n.o.b.

The army stormed through.

*nfantry charge.

Milo.

Sheriff's Homicide Investigator Laurentzen "Larry" Palmberg.

Three uniformed sheriff's deputies, an equal number of LAPD uniforms.

Twice that many from Beverly Hills PD, along with two B.H. detectives thrilled to be "doing something exciting."

Seven crime scene techs. Because of all the square footage.

Dr. Clarice Jernigan, wearing a hand-tailored coroner's windbreaker over an expensive pantsuit, even though she rarely showed up at any crime scene and there was no dead body. Because, in the event the murder weapons showed up, she wanted an unsullied chain of evidence.

Last in: Deputy D.A. John Nguyen, clutching the search warrant he knew he'd be serving and the arrest warrant he hadn't been sure about before watching the feed from the laptop.

Because "filthy-rich folk hire media-savvy loudmouths who spin like dervishes and I need to make sure nothing stupid happens."

"Also," Milo confided to me, "everyone likes to see a fancy house."

One person, wandering the mansion casually, could've found it.

In the living-room-sized closet of Leona Suss's Louis XIV bedroom, a push-door behind racks of Chanel, Dior, Gucci, and Patrice Lerange opened to reveal a six-foot-tall, bird's-eye-maple-veneered jewelry safe. Whatever treasures nested within would await discovery until a locksmith arrived.

The adjoining stainless-steel gun safe, a foot taller and double wide, had been left unlocked. Inside, oiled and boxed and beautifully maintained, were two shotguns, a rifle, and fourteen handguns, many of which bore original tags and had never been fired, including a ma.s.sive, gold-plated Magnum Research Desert Eagle Mark VII.

Milo hefted that one in gloved hands. "Work of art. But probably too d.a.m.n heavy for her."

Palmberg said, "Yeah, it's a beaut...pretending she's our size, huh? Both my daughters were like that when I took 'em to the range. I'm guiding them to lower caliber, they want to go nuclear."

"They still shoot?"

"Nah, too busy, they're surgeons. One does veins, the other does bones."

"Nice."

"You get what you put in."

Weight issues, apparently, didn't apply to the Asp, squat and ugly and crude. Side-by-side barrels formed a nasty omega.

On a middle shelf, Milo found the Smith & Wesson .357 revolver later determined to be the conduit for Steven "Stefan" Muhrmann's trip to eternity.

In a drawer at the bottom of the safe were still shots from Leona Suss's films. A few love scenes but many more featuring death, terror, or simply the star bad girl brandishing weapons. Later photos, the most recent taken the previous year, chronicled the story of a steadily aging but still fit and agile woman who'd never lost her attraction to firepower. Some pictures captured her target shooting; in others she nestled the weapons like infants.

Those, especially, caused her to smile.

"Like they're her kids," said John Nguyen. "This is an interesting lady."

"She's got real kids," I said. "That'll make it more interesting."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll never go to trial."

"What if I want to?"

"Doesn't matter."

No sign Mark Suss had ever shared his widow's pa.s.sion for firepower.

No sign, either, of the Glock she'd threatened to use on me. That turned up at the log house on Old Topanga Road, fully loaded and resting in a bedroom nightstand drawer.

The room itself was pink, a lace-trimmed set-up with a heart-shaped canopy bed. One-quarter the size of the suite in her mansion, frilly and redolent of lavender and sharply discordant from the house's rustic charm. The door was dead-bolted but yielded easily to a battering ram. No sign anyone had slept there for years.

A screen porch set up with a propane heater had been used recently. Feminine products were stacked on a windowsill. Casual clothes hung in a cedar-lined chest. DNA recovered from the cot pushed into a corner was later found to match Tiara Grundy's. For three weeks, she'd been living out in the country, maybe enjoying the creek out back. Maybe deluding herself the rules were anything but Leona's.

Two smaller bedrooms at the opposite end of the house were set up as lairs for teenage boys, with rock posters, renderings of race cars, unstrung electric guitars. Alternative light sources picked up copious amounts of s.e.m.e.n on both twin beds. Same for pine flooring, hook rugs, a nearby bathroom.

In the same nightstand drawer that held the Glock was a Patek Philippe Ladies' Calatrava wrist.w.a.tch with diamond bezel. Thirty-five grand retail. Mark Suss had gone way off budget.

Swabs from the back of the watch also matched Tiara's nucleic acid. Not a trace of Leona's. She'd resisted the temptation to inherit.

But she had expressed herself; the watch's crystal face was ruined, scored to a ragged, filmy grid by some sort of sharp object. The tip of an empty ballpoint pen stamped with Markham Industries' address and phone number was later found to match the tool marks.

Milo said, "Love is fun but hatred's forever."

Leona Suss hired a team of Beverly Hills attorneys who soared straight over Nguyen's head. A deal was struck quickly and quietly: The accused would plead guilty to second-degree murder, receive fifteen years with possibility of parole after ten, and spend her time at a medium-security prison that had decent psychiatric care.

No need to confess, no airing of any motive.

Nguyen said, "Don't say I told you so. I told you so."

I said, "Eventually, you'll be happy about it."

"Why?"

"You'll shower and not feel dirty."

*hree days after the arrest, Robin and Milo and Rick and I went to dinner. The same family-run Italian place on Little Santa Monica.

Milo said, "Sir Alex Olivier. You poured it on heavy, amigo. Cops are idiots, huh?"

"I sacrifice for my art."

He laughed. "Yeah, I can see the pain."

Rick said, "Idiots? That could be one of your lines, Big Guy. When you're in that that mood." mood."

"Better believe it," said Milo. "Anyway, thanks for figuring it out, Dottore Dottore. Chief says this time you'll get some serious consulting dough. Soon as he figures out a way to make it kosher."

"Sorry," I said, "but I turn blue."

"What?"

"When I'm holding my breath."

Everyone laughed. My head was elsewhere but I was pretty sure I'd done a decent job of faking sociable.

As our gla.s.ses clinked, my cell beeped.

Robin said, "You didn't turn it off?"

I held the phone to my ear, did a few "Uh-huhs," clicked off, and stood and squeezed Robin's hand. "Sorry, genuine emergency."

"That hasn't happened in a while."

"All the more reason I need to respond."

She gazed up at me. "Any idea when you'll be through?"

"Not for a while-enjoy, guys."

"Least it's not another acting gig," said Milo.

"No, this is honest labor."