“Oh.” Unimpressed.
“Anybody live with him?”
She shrugged. The baby bounced. “Never saw anyone.”
“How long have you been living here?”
“A month,” she said. “It’s notfair.Theparkingthing.”
“Big problem for you,” said Milo.
“I mean, is that legal?”
“Don’t see why not.”
The woman’s mouth dropped open. Milo headed for the car, muttering: “Milk of human kindness.”
When she thought we weren’t looking, she flipped us off. Or maybe she didn’t care.
—
No answer at Leon Creech’s house, either.
Milo pulled out his cell. “Happen to remember the street?”
I said, “Wooster.”
He stared at me. “I was kidding. You remember everything that goes into that brain of yours?”
“I try to filter.”
“Not even gonna ask. Let’s cruise by.”
—
Creech’s mint-grin stucco traditional was one of the few single dwellings on a block of duplexes and apartment buildings. He owned the property, a traditionalist holding out.
We spotted him from a hundred yards away, dusting off his navy-blue Town Car. Tall, stooped, a human crane, filmy white hair flying away as he worked. Dressed for something important in an olive-green cardigan over a pink golf shirt, immaculate seersucker pants, white New Balance running shoes.
Concentrating on the car, stepping back to check his reflection in the paint.
We parked and crossed the street. Milo said, “Mr. Creech.”
“Lieutenant! Long time.”
“How’s everything been going?”
“Passed my driving test with flying colors.” Creech gave a thumbs-up. “When I see you it reminds me I served, too. Brings back my MP days in Seoul.”
Same thing he’d mentioned the first time we interviewed him.
“And, Doctor, how are you?”
“Fine.”
“That’s good. So what’s up? Another idjit doing something criminal? Not at that dump, the Aventura, they closed it down, got cranes digging up everything.”
“Nope, somewhere else, sir. Do you know a livery driver named Solomon Roget?”
