Clumsy but loose. Oblivious to any notion of imperfection.

Milo said, “Don’t need you for a diagnosis. She’s loony. Even without the dope.”

“What dope?”

“You didn’t smell it on her? She stinks of devil weed, dude. Those eyes?”

Red rims, lack of coordination, answers that seemed just a bit off-time. “I must be slipping.”

“You didn’t get close enough to smell it. When I handed her my business card, she reeked. Must’ve just finished toking.”

“Probably why she didn’t answer the door.”

He gazed down the block. The speck that was Nora Dowd had vanished. “Nuts and stoned and doesn’t keep records. Wonder if she married money or inherited it. Or maybe she had her time at the bottom of the funnel and invested well.”

“Never heard of her.”

“Like she said, the axis shifts.”

“Planets have axes, stars don’t.”

“Whatever. Not very sympathetic to Michaela, was she?”

“Not even faking it. When Dylan Meserve came up she bolted. Maybe because he avails himself in all sorts of ways.”

“Creative consultant,” he said. “Yeah, they’re doing the nasty.”

“Situation like that,” I said, “a gorgeous young woman could be a threat to a woman of her age.”

“Couple of good-looking kids, up in the hills, naked…Dowd’s gotta be what, forty-five, fifty?”

“That would be my guess.”

“Rich lady gets her strokes playing guru to the lean and hungry and pretty…she picks Dylan out of the fold, he goes and fools with Michaela. Yeah, it’s a motive, ain’t it? Maybe she told Dylan to clean things up. For all we know, he’s right there, holed up in that big house of hers, got his wheels stashed in her garage.”

I glanced back at the big, cream house. “It would also be a nice quiet place to keep Michaela while they figured out what to do with her.”

“Load her in the Range Rover and dump her near her apartment to distance themselves.” He crammed his hands in his pockets. “Wouldn’t that be ugger-ly. Okay, let’s see what the neighbors have to say about Ms. Stoner.”

Three bell rings brought three cleaning ladies to the door, each one intoning, “Senora no esta en la casa.”

At the well-kept brick Tudor three doors north of Nora Dowd’s house, an elderly man wearing a bright green cardigan, a red wool shirt, gray plaid pants, and burgundy house slippers studied us over the rim of his old-fashioned. The toes of his slippers were embroidered with black wolves’ heads. The dim marble entry behind him gave off a whiff of eau de codger.

He took a long time to examine Milo’s business card. Reacted to Milo’s inquiry about Nora Dowd with, “That one? Why?” A voice like gravel under heavy footsteps.

“Routine questions, sir.”

“Don’t give me that malarkey.” Tall but bent, he had foxed-paper skin, coarse white hair, and clouded blue eyes. Stiff fingers bent the card in half and palmed it. A fleshy, open-pored nose dipped toward a lopsided twig of an upper lip. “Albert Beamish, formerly of Martin, Crutch, and Melvyn and ninety-three other partners until the mandatory out-to-pasture clause kicked in and they sentenced me to ‘emeritus.’ That was eighteen years ago so do the arithmetic and choose your words efficiently. I could drop dead right in front of you and you’d have to lie to someone else.”

“Till a hundred and twenty, sir.”

Albert Beamish said, “Get on with it, kiddo. What’d that one do?”

“One of her students was murdered and we’re getting background information from people who knew the victim.”

“And you spoke to her and you saw what a lunatic she is.”

Milo chuckled.

Albert Beamish said, “Students? They let her teach? When did that start?”

“She runs her own acting school.”

Beamish’s laughter was jagged. It took a while for his cocktail to reach his lips. “Acting. That’s just more of the same.”

“The same what?”

“Being the indolent, spoiled brat she’s always been.”

Milo said, “You’ve known her for a while.”

“She grew up in that overgrown log cabin. Her grandfather built it back in the twenties, a blight on the neighborhood then, just as it is now. Doesn’t fit, should be in Pasadena or some place where they like that kind of thing.” Beamish’s filmy irises aimed across the street. “You see any others like it around here?”

“No, sir.”

“There’s a reason for that, kiddo. Doesn’t fit. Try telling that to Bill Dowd Senior- the grandfather. No sophistication. Came from Oklahoma, made money in groceries, dry goods, something of that sort. His wife was low-class, uneducated, thought she could buy her way in spending money. Same with the daughter-in-law- that one’s mother. Blond tramp, always throwing ostentatious parties.”

Beamish drank some more. “Damned elephant.”

Milo said, “Sir?”

“One time they brought in a damned elephant. For one of their birthdays, don’t remember which one. Filthied up the street, the stench lasted for days.” His nostrils quivered. “Bill Junior never worked a day in his life, fooled around on his daddy’s money, married late. Woman just like his mother, no class. Now you’re telling me that one teaches acting. Where does this travesty take place?”

“West L.A.,” said Milo. “The PlayHouse.”

“I never venture that far from civilization,” said Beamish. “A play house? Sounds damned frivolous.”

“It’s a Craftsman building, same as the house,” I said.

“Does it fit in over there?”

“The neighorhood’s pretty hetero- ”

“Piles of logs. All that gloomy wood and stained glass belongs in a church, where the intent is to simultaneously impress and depress. Bill Dowd Senior made his fortune with canned peas, whatever, nailed up that heap of timber. Probably got the idea when he was buying up properties in Pasadena, South Pasadena, Altadena, Lord knows what other ’denas. That’s what they’ve all been living off. She and her brothers. None of them worked a day in their lives.”

“How many brothers?” I said.

“Two. Bill the Third and Bradley. One’s a fool and the other’s shifty. The shifty one sneaked into my yard and stole my persimmons.” Pinpoints of anger livened the milky blue eyes. “Stripped the damn tree bare. He denied it but everyone knew.”

Milo said, “How long ago was this, sir?”

“Thanksgiving of ’72. Delinquent never owned up to it but my wife and I knew it was him.”

“Why’s that?” said Milo.

“Because he’d done it before.”

“Stole from you?”

“From others. Don’t ask me the who and what, never heard the details, just general woman’s talk. They must have believed it, too. They boarded him out. Some sort of military academy.”

“Because of the persimmons?”

“No,” said Beamish, exasperated. “We never told them about the persimmons. No sense being obtrusive.”

‘What about Nora Dowd?” said Milo. “Any problems with her?”

“She’s the youngest and the most spoiled. Always had those ideas.”

“What ideas, sir?”

“Being an actress.” Beamish’s lips curled. “Running around trying to get parts in movies. I always thought her mother was the one behind all that.”

“She ever get any parts?”

“Not that I heard. Do fools actually pay to hear what she has to say at her play house?”

“Seems to be that way,” said Milo. “Did she ever marry?”

“Negative.”

“Does she live with anyone?”

“She’s got that heap of sticks all to herself.”

Milo showed him the snap of Dylan Meserve.

Beamish said, “Who’s that?”

“One of her students.”

“Looks like a delinquent, himself. Are they fornicating?”

Milo said, “What about visitors?”

Beamish snatched the picture from between Milo ’s fingers. “Numbers around his neck. He’s a damned felon?”