“I wouldn’t think so, but feel free to ask her.”

“Thanks, Doctor.”

“There is one thing,” said Katzman. “Sandra gave her age as fifteen, but my guess is she’s older. Closer to eighteen or nineteen. I can’t back that up scientifically; it’s just something that came to me after I realized I’d been conned. There was a certain… I wouldn’t say sophistication… a certain confidence.” He laughed. “About her confidence game.”

She called Brainerd. The social worker barely remembered Sandra Leon.

Hanging up, Petra thought back to the parking lot interview. The girl had just witnessed the violent death of her “cousin” but had displayed no shock, no grief, none of the emotionality you’d expect from a teenage girl confronted by tragedy. On the contrary, she’d been dry-eyed. Tapping her foot… impatient. As if Petra was taking up her precious time.

The only thing that had sparked anxiety in the girl’s eyes had been initial eye contact with Petra.

Cool about the homicide but nervous about the cops.

Claiming to be fifteen when she faked her patient status, but that night she’d given her age as sixteen.

Her dress and makeup fit with Katzman’s guess that she was older.

Dolled up fancier than the girl in the pink sneakers. Party garb, down to the appliqué mole. Celebrating what?

An adult male had accompanied both girls. Sandra had mentioned a convict brother, a car thief. Petra flipped through her notepad, found her hastily scrawled shorthand.

Bro. GTA. Lompoc.

She called the state prison, spoke to an assistant warden, learned that two “Leons” resided within the walls: Robert Leroy, age sixty-three, fraud and grand theft, and Rudolfo Sabino, age forty-five, manslaughter and mayhem. The warden was kind enough to check both inmates’ visitors’ lists. No one had been to see Rudolfo Leon for over three years. Sad case, he was HIV positive and suffering from dementia. The older man, Robert Leroy Leon, had a bevy of visitors but no Sandra, no one close to the girl in approximate age and appearance.

Another lie?

Sandra Leon had progressed, officially, from witness to Person of Interest.

Petra paged Mac Dilbeck and told him about the scam.

He said, “She knew the vic but wasn’t upset. So maybe she knew it was going to happen.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

“Good work, Petra. Nothing else on this adult male?”

“Not yet. I’m wondering about something else. Leon quoted me her rights and I asked her if she had experience with the law. She told me a story about a brother locked up at Lompoc. Turns out to be another load of b.s., but why would she volunteer the information when it would tie her in with a criminal? Why not just dummy up?”

“Maybe your question threw her off,” said Mac. “She’s a liar but still in training. So she blurted out a half-truth, covered with a phony detail.”

“A relative in the system,” said Petra, “but not a brother. Maybe even a brother but not at Lompoc. That cancer scam was sophisticated, not the kind of thing a virgin would try. This girl’s had experience, I wonder if she’s part of a criminal enterprise- a family thing.”

“Some kind of gypsy thing? Like the Tinkers. Like those Somalians we busted last year. Yeah, why not? If there’s an Inmate Leon somewhere in the system for scamming, that would be really interesting.”

“Robert Leon’s locked up for fraud and theft but he’s too old to be her brother.”

“Interesting.”

“Maybe the murder’s related to some scam thing and the girl in the pink shoes was the intended victim,” she said. “They set it up to look like some gang thing. Sandra wasn’t freaked out because she knew.”

“Cold,” said Dilbeck. “Very cold. Okay, time to check the entire system, state and federal pens, even county jails.”

“Who’s going to do it?”

“You mind?”

“I’m doing it solo?”

“Well,” said Mac, “Montoya’s already been assigned a fresh case and the rest of my day is committed: meeting with the hotshots downtown. Gonna sit there while they explain why they’re so much smarter than we are. Course, if you want to trade places…”

“No, thanks,” said Petra. “I’ll go fetch my magic wand.”

She ran cons named Leon through NCIC and the rest of the data banks, came up with way too many hits. Time for a little logic. Sandra Leon had brought Katzman a letter from a clinic in Oakland, meaning she, or someone she knew, had spent some time there.

She focused on Bay Area Leons, which narrowed the search to twelve.

Two inmates- John B., twenty-five, Charles C., twenty-four- fit the brother age-range. Both were from Oakland and when she pulled up their stats, she knew she’d earned her share of the taxpayers’ money.

John’s middle name was “Barrymore,” and Charles’s was “Chaplin.”

Katzman’s take on Sandra: She’s a pretty good actress.

Then she learned that the men were brothers and allowed herself a grin.

A passing detective said, “You’re sure happy.”

Petra said, “Once in a while.”

John Barrymore Leon was serving a five-year sentence at Norco for mail fraud and Charlie Chaplin Leon had earned himself two years at Chino for theft- breaking into vending machines in an Oakland arcade.

The wardens at Norco were unavailable and the guard supervisor was new on the job. But his counterpart at Chino turned out to be a font of information. The Leons were members of an Oakland-based crime group called The Players, and several of their cousins had done penitentiary time. His estimate of their membership was fifty to sixty, most related by blood, but some who’d married in or had been informally adopted. The majority were Hispanic- Guatemalan Americans- but there were plenty of whites and blacks and at least two Asians.

Petra said, “Diversity in the workplace.”

The Chino guard laughed.

“They use violence?” she asked him.

“Not that I’ve heard. They concentrate on scams, run a lot of welfare schemes. They like to think of themselves as actors because the boss tried to be one.”

The boss was a failed actor with a forty-year history of property crimes. Robert Leroy Leon, sixty-three, aka The Director. Currently residing at Lompoc. Lots of visitors but no Sandra.

Mac had been dead-on: The girl had slipped, blurted out a partial truth.

Petra pressed the Chino guy for everything he knew about The Players. He gave her the names of some possible members but not much more. She wrote down copious notes and booted up her computer.

Logging on to Google, she plugged in “The Players” and came up with 1,640,000 hits. “Players scams” pulled up exactly one website, a protest against corporate malfeasance.

It was nearly seven P.M. and she was suddenly tired and overwhelmed. She was staring at the screen and wondering where to go next when Isaac’s voice drew her away from all those zeros.

“Hi,” he said.

Her eyes shot to the bruise on his cheek. Faded- no, covered up. He’d tried to mask it with makeup. The result was clumsy, a flaking splotch.

“Hey,” she said. “I hope the other guy came out of it worse.”