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I was playing guitar in the living room as Robin read a book about Amati violins when he called again just before nine p.m.
“Her lawyer claims she has something to offer. I authorized bringing her over from the Pacific Jail, she’s en route. Too late for you?”
I looked at Robin.
She laughed.
I said, “On the way.”
—
When I arrived, he showed me a cell-tower ping chart that mapped Tyler Hoffgarden’s phone.
Small map: During the last hour of Hoffgarden’s life, he’d traveled from his apartment in Culver City to Montag’s place in Venice. Then the phone was shut off.
Also available was a transcript of texts between Hoffgarden and Montag for five days prior.
No hostility; flirting advancing to sexting.
The three final contacts were calls, not texts, so impossible to know what was said. But given the steamy tenor of the texts, not hard to imagine.
Milo said, “Like we said, booty-call. Works every time.”
He hummed a few bars of “Isn’t It Romantic.” Better than the ringtones but not by much.
I said, “She lured him to her place, his guard was down, the twins materialized from the back of the house, blitzed, bound, and gagged him, then stowed him in the Explorer.”
“Then they all take a ride. I’d be sympathetic but he still coulda killedmyvictims.”
Officially, Hoffgarden was also his victim. No sense getting official.
He looked at his Timex. “Authorized the jail to deliver her an hour ago, hopefully this is gonna happen.”
Seconds later, his desk phone rang. “Sturgis. Bring her up.”
—
Milo and I waited by the elevator. A few minutes later, it opened and disgorged Lisette Montag in dark-blue jail clothes. White hair bunned, head down, hands cuffed in front, and shuffling in jail slippers, she was guided by a female uniform from downstairs.
Following closely was a tall, balding, stork-like man in his sixties wearing a black silk T-shirt with a visitor sticker and baggy, stonewashed jeans who introduced himself as Al Bloomfield.
Milo gave Bloomfield my name. It meant nothing to the attorney, which was just fine.
He said, “Pleased to meet you. Considering.”
I smiled and he returned the favor, flashing a great set of dentures.
Milo led the procession to the large room he uses for meetings and situations like this. He’d prepped the space, placing two chairs on either side of a small folding table in the center of the room. Asking the patrolwoman to wait outside, he showed Montag and Bloomfield to one side of the table and we took the other.
Montag’s head stayed down.
“Evening, Lisette. Mr. Bloomfield. Can I get you something to drink?”
“Thanks but no need,” said Bloomfield. “I made sure Lissy was hydrated. Had to, she was looking pretty peaked when I got there, you people should really do better when it comes to caring for your charges.”
Milo said, “I’ll bear that in mind. So what can I do for you?”
Bloomfield smiled, as if cued by a stooge for a punch line. “At the risk of engaging in an obnoxious cliché, it’s not what you can do for us, it’s…” Instead of finishing, he raised both hands like a conductor evoking a crescendo.
