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something new and raw. Anger.
    “Brad wanted a trophy wife. Sara was too good for that. But he never saw it. He never respected her. I’m not even sure he ever loved her.”
    Whoa.
    “Why do you say that?” Jen asked.
    She didn’t answer right away. We waited.
    “Well, aside from his attitude,” she said, weighing her words carefully as she spoke, “he cheated on her. More than once.”
    Ding, ding, ding.
    “You say cheat
ed
,” Jen said. “Past tense?”
    “As far as Sara knew. He swore he’d stopped. But there had been at least three affairs. Probably more.” There was a kind of satisfaction in her voice. She was grieving her friend, but she was also glad to be nailing Brad to the wall.
    “Do you know with whom?” I asked.
    “Two were women he worked with. I don’t know their names. But the third time was with one of their former nannies. The first one they’d hired after Bailey was born. She worked for them for two years. And she worked him for almost that long.”
    I said, “Do you remember her name?”
    “Michelle something. I don’t think I ever knew the last name.”
    Jen and I both made notes, and I knew she was wondering the same thing I was—had Bradley ever tried to put the moves on Joely?
    “But he stopped cheating?” I asked.
    “He said he did,” Catherine said. “And Sara believed him.”
    “Did you?” Jen asked.
    “No. But I never believed much of anything that Brad had to say. I made him for a politician the first time I met him, and he hasn’t ever done anything to change that opinion.”
    Jen asked, “What did Sara see in him?”
    “He can be charming when he cares to. It took her a long time to see through that.”
    “But she did,” I said, “see through it.”
    “Not until after Bailey was born.”
    “She stayed with him for the kids,” Jen said.
    “Yes. She thought it would be better for them. That she and Brad could work things out. As romantic as she was, she had a pragmatic side, too. She saw a better future for the kids with him than without him. She was willing to sacrifice.”
    “Sounds noble,” I said. “Did she ever cheat on him?”
    I thought I noticed a slight hesitation before she spoke, but I might have been mistaken. If it was there, it was subtle.
    “No. And she was noble. That’s not a word I use very often, but she’s probably the noblest person I know.”
    “That’s high praise.” Jen made a quick note in her book.
    “Then again,” Catherine said, “I suppose it didn’t hurt that he’s good-looking and rich.” She finally managed that smile, but it was so sardonic and bitter it almost made me wince.

    “See,” I said on our way back to the car, “told you he was a douchebag.”
    “It’s a long way from douchebag to murderer.” She thought about that for a dozen or so steps. “You really like him for this?”
    “I don’t know. We might get an idea if they ever let us talk to him. Maybe we should front Campos again.”
    “Couldn’t hurt.”
    In the passenger seat of the Crown Vic, I hit
R EDIAL
on my cell. “Detective Danny Beckett for Julian Campos.” His assistant told me he was in a meeting, and I asked her to have him call me. “At least his secretary’s getting sick of me.”
    “Well,” Jen said, “we take what we can get.”
    We took Seventh Street back toward downtown. As we got close to the public golf course at Recreation Park, I saw a few
F OR S ALE
signs on the residential side streets.
    “Got some houses for sale. Want to take a look?”
    “Alamitos Heights is a bit out of my price range,” she said.
    “Let’s just drive around the block and check it out.”
    She turned left on Terraine Avenue, and the first sign we saw was in front of a huge colonial-style house that seemed both too big and too grandiose for the neighborhood. The real estate agent’s sign in the front lawn had flyers in a plastic flip-top box mounted on the post.
    I told Jen to pull over.
    “No way.”
    “Come on.”
    “There’s