Free The Murder Book by Jonathan Kellerman Page A

Band-Aid. I always told her it was hooker shit, she should throw it out, used to threaten her I’d throw it out.”
    “But you didn’t.”
    “No,” said Ingalls. “What woulda been the point?”
    “A red halter,” said Schwinn. “What else?”
    “That’s all I saw. Probably a skirt, one of those microminis, that’s all she buys. The shoes she already had on.”
    “Black with big heels.”
    “Shiny black,” said Ingalls. “Patent leather. Those crazy heels, I kept telling her she’d fall and break her neck.”
    “Party outfit,” said Schwinn, copying.
    Red-and-black party outfit, thought Milo. Remembering something that had gone round in high school, boys sitting around pontificating, pointing with glee: Red and black on Fridays meant a girl put out all the way. Him, laughing along, pretending to care…
    Bowie Ingalls said, “Except for the jeans and T-shirts, that’s all she buys. Party stuff.”
    “Speaking of which,” said Schwinn, “let’s take a look at her closet.”
     
     
    The rest of the apartment was two cell-sized bedrooms separated by a windowless bathroom stale with flatulence.
    Schwinn and Milo glanced into Bowie Ingalls’s sleep chamber as they passed. A queen-size mattress took up most of the floor. Unwashed sheets were pulled half-off, and they puddled on cheap carpeting. A tiny TV threatened to topple from a pressed-wood bureau. More Bud empties.
    Janie’s room was even smaller, with barely enough space for a single mattress and a nightstand of the same synthetic wood. Cutouts from teen magazines were taped to the walls, mounted at careless angles. A single, muddy-looking stuffed koala slumped on the nightstand, next to a soft pack of Kents and a half-empty box of Luden’s cough drops. The room was so cramped that the mattress prevented the closet door from opening all the way, and Schwinn had to contort to get a look inside.
    He winced, stepped out, and told Milo, “You do it.”
    Milo’s size made the task excruciating, but he obeyed.
    Zody’s was a cut-rate barn. Even at their prices, Janie Ingalls hadn’t assembled much of a wardrobe. On the dusty floor sat one pair of tennis shoes, size 8, next to red Thom McAn platform sandals and white plastic boots with see-through plastic soles. Two pairs of size S jeans were carelessly hung in the closet, one faded denim with holes that could’ve been genuine wear or contrivance, the other denim patchwork, both made in Taiwan. Four ribbed, snug-fit T-shirts with bias-cut sleeves, a floral cotton blouse with moth wounds pocking the breast pocket, three shiny, polyester halter tops not much bigger than the hankie Schwinn had offered to Ingalls — peacock blue, black, pearlescent white. A red sweatshirt emblazoned
Hollywood
in puffy gold letters, a black plastic shortie jacket pretending to be leather, cracking like an old lady’s face.
    On the top shelf were bikini underpants, bras, panty hose, more dust. Everything stank of tobacco. Only a few pockets to search. Other than grit and lint and a Doublemint wrapper, Milo found nothing. Such a
blank
existence — not unlike his own apartment, he hadn’t bothered to furnish much since arriving in L.A., had never been sure he’d be staying.
    He searched the rest of the room. The magazine posters were the closest thing to personal possessions. No diary or date book or photographs of friends. If Janie had ever called this dump home, she’d changed her mind sometime ago. He wondered if she had some other place of refuge — a crash pad, a sanctuary, somewhere she
kept
stuff.
    He checked under the bed, found dirt. When he extricated himself, his neck killed and his shoulders throbbed.
    Schwinn and Ingalls were back in the front room, and Milo stopped to check out the bathroom, compressing his nostrils to block out the stench, examining the medicine cabinet. All over-the-counter stuff — painkillers, laxatives, diarrhea remedies, antacids — a host of antacids. Something eating at Bowie