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“I wonder if that one guy lived with the other zoo animals in Laurel Canyon?”

“Julie might know. I’ll e-­mail her.”

“Send her my love.”

“See me typing? That means I’m ignoring you.”

I drop the rest of the Malediction out the window, look around for somewhere to get coffee. If I can’t have Aqua Regia, maybe caffeine will help me get my brain around all that’s happened in the last few days.

I say, “What do we have? Someone killed Eric Townsend and dragged him and another stiff out to a Nazi condo in the woods.”

Candy sets down her phone.

“One that’s not easy to get to. That would be a hard hike carrying two corpses.”

“Right. The White Lights performed a ritual to bind Death to one of the bodies, dumped it, and then went to all the trouble of hauling the first body out of there.”

“Why leave a body behind when you just bound an angel inside?” she says.

“Maybe those kids partying spooked them. Remember, Death was locked in a rotting corpse. He wasn’t going anywhere until Varg took the knife out of his chest. What I want to know is why the White Lights were so in love with one body that they dragged it to the ranch, then humped it all the way back out again.”

“And assuming it was magicians from the Silver Legion that did the ritual,” says Candy, “why talk about Wormwood? What does Tamerlan’s bank have to do with Death?”

“I’d like to see that other body. I bet it had an ECG brand on it too.”

“There’s a lot more we don’t know. Who is Sigrun?”

“And who or what is the new Death?”

“I’ve been looking for actors, singers—­anyone in L.A. involved in show business named Sigrun. I haven’t found anything.”

I point at the ECG building.

“I’ll bet you a dozen donuts she has a blue-­yonder contract with those creeps.”

“Or she could work there. Or just be a freelancer they brought in for the job, which will make it harder to track her down.”

A seagull circles overhead and shits on the Crown Vic’s hood. The bird was probably aiming for me and missed.

“It’s no fun going over things if you aren’t going to jump to conclusions with me.”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to avoid doing,” Candy says.

I look at her.

“I haven’t seen you so latched on to something since Doc Kinski died.”

She flips through screens on her phone, looks up at me.

“I’m liking this private-­eye thing. I like learning things and doing smart work.”

“So, does that makes the work we did before dumb stuff?”

“That’s not what I mean. I liked kicking in doors and punching bad guys with you. But sometimes I missed working with Doc. I learned things working at the clinic with Allegra, but it wasn’t the same. Now there’s this new thing and I think I could get pretty good at it. What do you think?”

“I think you can do whatever you set your mind to.”

“But do you think I’m wasting my time with Julie?”