While Zoe and Walter talk, Carrie looks through the newspapers for any information about the barn, Echavarria's house, or Echavarria more generally. At first she can't find anything, but then she peruses the obituaries more carefully, and finds a small item in the obituary section.

Ramon Echavarria, Producer and Philanthropist

LOS ANGELES (received yesterday)-- Mr. Ramon Echavarria, a film producer, passed away on the evening of August 13th in an incident of regrettable violence. His best known films include Sherlock Holmes, Robin Hood, and Babbit. Mr. Echavarria was a long-time resident of southern California and most recently of the Highland Park neighborhood. Although survived by no direct kin, Mr. Echavarria will be mourned by all lovers of film and the many communities that his acts of charity and outreach have affected for so many years. The proceeds from the sale of his estate will be donated to a variety of charities. 

Okay, great. Almost certainly nobody from his cult owns the estate, but the neighborhood is probably at least enough information to narrow its location down and at least see from the outside whether it looks like the photos, and see if any of the neighbors remember anything of note.

Walter is in his late thirties, still athletic even though he's gained weight as he aged. "Zoe! It's great to see you. How has the suicide club been doing?"

"Doing great! We've got a few new members out in Philadelphia who have pulled some incredible stuff--" She tells him about some escapade she went on with some new initiates out in Philly. "How have things been around here?"

"Not bad, not bad at all. Work has been very slow. All the bums are avoiding LA for some reason-- can't figure out why, we have great weather-- but there's not exactly very many burglaries to solve. So there's a lot of time for ill-advised swimming adventures."

"Oh, man. Underwater stunts were never my thing. Glad you're having fun, though. Wonder what's the deal with the bums. I saw plenty in Long Beach, you'd think they'd be keen to get out of that rubble."

"I have no idea," he says. "Makes my job easier."

"Convenient! Speaking of, I've got a bit of something I'm looking into, lately. A wealthy heiress out in New York hired me and a few others to look into her late daddy's old affairs, and boy did he get up to some crazy stuff. Do you recognize this place?" Zoe pulls out one of the party photos that best displays the house.

"No, I don't. Sure is a nice house though." He looks more closely at the photos. "Is that... Ramon Echavarria?"

"Probably? From what we've found out, he was a central figure in the whole mess. Which one are you looking at?"

He taps the attractive-looking Latin American man, whom Zoe recognizes as having been in all the pictures. "That's him." Kriss shakes his head. "I was involved in... awful business with him. My first case."

"Oh yeah? What happened?"

Kriss shudders. "If you ask the brass, a group of deviants got high, had perverted sex, and killed each other."

"That sounds like it might actually be, if not the same event I'm looking into, pretty closely related. One of the late Mr. Winston's associates gave us these photos. They had apparently been looking into some sort of cult-like going on around here activity a decade ago. Ended up with a lot of people dead. There's a whole set of photos of that part, too." She makes a face.

"The bodies were gnawed," Kriss says. "Medical examiner says a wild animal was responsible."

"There's been a weird theme about mouths in all this. I wouldn't be at all surprised if something gnawed 'em."

"Something is right," Kriss says. "Have you ever heard of a wild animal that could mutilate eighteen bodies in an hour?"

"Jesus. There's no way a single wild animal could do that, and if a whole pack went through you'd think that would be pretty hard to miss. So there's two different massacres I've heard of -- unless they're somehow the same one? One where that movoe star Richard Spend died, and another out in some barn somewhere. Not sure which one was yours. The photos of the... mutilatey part... don't make the location very clear."

"Richard Spend was one of the casualties at mine," Kriss says. "And it was at a barn."

"Damn. Probably it's all the same one, then. Where was that barn?"

"I can get you the police report," Kriss says. "It has all the information I know. Which is not a lot."

"That would be brilliant. We're kinda working on scraps here. The case is a decade old and every detail we look into just gets weirder."

He sighs. "I... have felt awful about it for years. The city thought it was the county's responsibility to investigate, the county thought it was the city's, and no one cared enough about a bunch of perverts to investigate what happened. I just... kept worrying about what would have happened if it had been the Suicide Club, and we were chewed, and someone just dismissed it as what people like us do-- Well. It would mean a lot to me if you brought the perpetrators to justice."
 
 
 
 

"God, that's infuriating. Thanks for helping out. I'll be doing the best I can."