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She smiled. “Good guess. Yeah, they’re coming back. Bears and wolves and actors trying to be cowboys. Most of my time is spent making people look like they never used sunscreen but still stayed gorgeous.”
“Do you know if Caspian took jobs out of town?”
“Couldn’t tell you,” she said. “He was easy to talk to but never revealed much about himself. In our business that helps. People want it to be all about them.”
Milo said, “Like being a therapist.”
“We probably hear more juicy stuff than most therapists.”
Back when I was in grad school, a professor had proposed giving bartenders and barbers a few courses in active listening and client-centered therapy. No progress on the project that I’d ever heard, but he had a good point.
I said, “So Caspian was easy to talk to but private.”
“He was easygoing, period. Which was part of his being great with hair. He didn’t try to push his ego on people. He took the time to find out about them so he could learn what they were after and give it to them.”
That synced with the varying hairdos on the Instagram pages.
I thought of gentle, agreeable Caspian Delage, sinking into wine-enhanced sleep and never waking up.
Brain stem destroyed, then hurled like garbage at a lumbering beast of a vehicle.
Shari Benedetto sniffed back tears. “They didn’t deserve it. Who would do this, guys?”
Milo said, “Wish we could answer that. But your help identifying Caspian gets us closer.”
“Good,” she said. “I felt so hopeless. Hearing about it. Can you tell me where it happened? No one seems to know.”
“In Cordi’s house.”
A hand shot to her mouth. “Oh my God, that’s my worst nightmare. Every time I come home after being away, it’s like approaching a strange place. So first I go and collect Boris from Mrs. Lipschitz, my neighbor down below. She’s around ninety and has lost eight cats to cancer or gout or whatever and Boris must sense her neediness because he’s super obedient with her.”
She stroked black fur. “Aren’tyou, littleman?”
The cat purred, shut its eyes, sank lower.
“Goo-boy,yourest.So I get Boris and check with Mrs. Lipschitz ifanything weird has happened. One time there was a suspected burglar, so I called West Hollywood Sheriff’s to see if there was anything I should know and they said they caught someone who was probably him. After Mrs. Lipschitz, I check my camera feed on my phone, then I make sure the alarm’s still set and I untrigger it on my phone.ThenI step in.”
Milo said, “Impressive.” He scanned the room.
Shari Benedetto smiled. “Looking for the cameras? The first one’s right in the peephole. Then there are two magnets on the fridge and in two of the lamps. In my bedroom, I’ve got six more plus a motion detector. The alarm code’s on my phone but there’s also a keypad in my bedroom closet and both have a two-digit panic number.”
“Beyond impressive.”
“My dad’s idea, he insisted. He’s a Broward County sheriff in Florida. Didn’t want me to leave until I put together what he approved of as an adequate security plan. When I got off the phone with you, I called him and he checked you out. If you’d have been hinky, I’d have called the cops.”
Her fingers danced just above Boris’s spine. “What kind of security did Cordi have?”
“Nothing like yours.”
“It happening in her house, does that mean probably someone she knew?”
Milo said, “We’re nowhere near theorizing.”
She nodded. “That’s what my dad says. Assume means make an ass of you and me.”
Something her security setup had illustrated brilliantly.
She uncrossed her legs, stretched them in front, retracted, placed her feet on the floor and her hands back in her lap.
