“If Lauch is working baggage under another name, he's eligible for an employee discount,” said Petra. “Maybe he's still flying back and forth.”

“And ended up in L.A. again and did a repeat?”

“I sure hope not, Phil, but with what you've told me, it looks like we're going to have to check him out all over again. Could you please fax me his data?”

“Give me an hour,” said Sorensen. “Wouldn't that be something, the guy having that kind of nerve. Of course, first you'd have to establish Lauch was here when the Ramsey girl was killed, then you'd have to connect him with her- meanwhile, you've got DV on the husband. Sounds like fun.”

“Big fun. Thanks for your help, Phil.”

“Hey,” he said, “if by some miracle it ends up helping you, it'll help me, too. It always bothered me, not being able to close that one. She was a nice-looking girl, and he turned her into something horrible.”

It was 1 P.M., time to start looking for Darrell/Darren the film editor, but now she wanted to wait around until Karlheinz Lauch's data came through the fax.

The Ilse Eggermann news was a surprise, but Sorensen was right: The points of similarity could be explained by domestic-violence patterns, the same old tragedies, all the way back to Othello.

Or statistical fluke- seek and ye shall find something. Over a three-year-period, L.A. saw well over three thousand homicides. One similar in all that time wasn't the stuff of the Guinness Book.

Meanwhile, she'd reach the rest of the Pacific detectives, do follow-up on some Valley D's she'd missed the first time around, maybe pay another telephonic condolence call to Lisa's family in Chagrin Falls, see if Mrs. Boehlinger was available, find out when the parents were coming out to see what was left of their daughter.

Did Mrs. B. feel as strongly about Ramsey as her husband?

Petra sorted out her own feelings about the guy: providing an alibi right off, letting them know about Lisa's drug problems, going over their heads to Schoelkopf. The subtle Don Juan stuff he'd thrown her way.

It smelled of ego, real narcissism. Did that make him someone who'd go berserk if a woman angered or rejected him?

Hard to say, but in her mind, Ramsey had done nothing to dispel suspicion. Despite Ilse Eggermann, the actor was clearly the main man.

She played out a scenario in her head: Lisa, like Ilse Eggermann- like so many battered women- had somehow allowed her ex to talk her into a date. Renewal of old passions, or maybe Ramsey'd tossed her the ultimate female bait: the chance to talk things out.

Because once upon a time there'd been chemistry between them, and chemicals didn't disappear, they just faded. Because memories could be selective, and women kept hoping men would change.

A date… where? Not at a restaurant- somewhere private. Romantic. Secluded.

Not the Calabasas house, too risky. Even if Greg Balch was lying for his boss, someone else could have taken note- the guard, a neighbor. The maid.

Petra remembered how squirrelly Estrella Flores had been. Definitely worth a recontact, but how to do it without alerting Ramsey? And something basic needed to be added to the list: talk to the night-shift guard at RanchHaven. A glaring omission. The hands-off policy was really mucking things up.

So many things to do… she returned to her last-date melodrama. Where would Ramsey have taken Lisa?

Did he have another home, a weekend hideaway? Didn't actors always have weekend places?

The beach? The mountains? Arrowhead, Big Bear? Or up north- Santa Barbara, Santa Ynez. Lots of industry folks had gotten into the ranch thing…

The beach would probably be Malibu. Waves crashing, smooth sand, what could be more romantic?

She made a note to search records for every real estate parcel Ramsey owned.

Go with the beach, for the moment. She pictured it: Ramsey and Lisa on an overstuffed sofa in some wood-and-glass thing on the sand. The three c's: champagne, caviar, coke. Maybe a nicely hissing fireplace. Ramsey turning on the charm.

Lisa responding? That sexy little black dress riding up on her thighs? Chemistry… helped along by fish eggs, Moët & Chandon, and Medellín's finest? Or another kind of incentive: money. Lisa had a job, but Ramsey still provided the bulk of her income.

The purchase of love? Same old story? Petra felt sad, then reminded herself not to judge. If her own phone rang on a particularly lonely and/or horny night and it was Nick on the other end, saying, “Hey, Pet,” what would she do?

Hang up on the selfish fuck and wish she could make his ears bleed.

Back to Malibu. Tides crashing, tender reminiscence, the nudge toward intimacy.

Ramsey makes his move.

But Lisa changes her mind, resists, shuts him down.

Ramsey seethes, feels like slugging her. But remembering the way she went public, he keeps his rage to himself.

Stays cool, drives her home.

Malibu to Doheny Drive Hills would mean Pacific Coast Highway to Sunset or the freeway through the Valley, then down one of the canyons. But instead of hooking south, he continues east, maybe Laurel Canyon down Hollywood Boulevard, up Western to Los Feliz, then over to Griffith Park.

That hour, not much traffic. He drives to the parking lot. Lisa knows something's wrong, tries to escape.

He holds out for one last embrace.

Then a steel kiss.

No sexual assault, because he'd had a blood orgasm.

It felt right to Petra.

It also depended on Gregory Balch lying straight-facedly about Ramsey's alibi.

She'd have to learn more about Balch, too. Eventually.

Along with Ilse Eggermann and Karlheinz Lauch. A similar- unbelievable. She imagined Schoelkopf's grin, the disgusted look on Stu's face. When she'd left, he hadn't looked up, just muttered a halfhearted good-bye.

The library-book thing, so out of the blue. Stu was compulsive, mega-organized. Maybe it wasn't his marriage; maybe it was career anxiety- the chance to apply for lieutenant suddenly coming up and he found himself stuck with a big-time loser whodunit? For Petra, just another case. For him, do or die?

Would he bail on her? Sacrifice her if he needed to?

For eight months, they'd ridden together, eaten together, worked side by side, Stu spending as much time with her as he did with Kathy, sometimes more, and he'd never laid a hand on her, never made a suggestive comment, not even the slightest hint of double entendre.

She'd thought she knew him, but eight months wasn't very long, was it?

She and Nick had been together over two years. About the same as Lisa and Ramsey.

Men and women…

Once, when she was fifteen, home for summer vacation, she'd woken up at 1 A.M. on a long night in Arizona, hearing imaginary things, finally realizing it was the hot desert wind scraping the side of the house. Itchy, jumpy, she'd walked out to the hallway, spied the familiar splinter of light under the door of her father's office, knocked, entered the tiny, dim, detritus-clogged room.

Dad was sitting low in his oak chair facing his Royal manual, blank sheet in the roller. He saw her, gave a slack smile, and when she came closer, she smelled the Scotch on his breath, saw the dullness in his eyes, and took advantage of it as only a teenager can. Getting him to talk about what he hated talking about- the woman who'd died birthing her.

Aware that it would cause him pain, but damnit, she had a right to know!

And talk he did, in a low, slurred voice.

Anecdotes, remembrances, how gawky Kenneth Connor and gorgeous Maureen McIlwaine had met on the Long Island Ferry and found true love. The same old stories, but she thirsted for them, could never get enough.

That night she sat at his feet on the warped hardwood floor, motionless, silent, afraid any distraction would cause him to stop.