—
He relinquished his desk chair so I could manipulate the tape’s stop-and-freeze. His office on the second floor of the Westside station is closet-sized and windowless and once he’s on his feet he displays all the serenity of a bear in a trap.
Stomping out to the corridor armed with his cellphone, he turned right. Diminishing heavy footsteps said he’d walked a ways.
Then they stopped; none of the usual pacing. Probably calling the Coroner’s. For the third time since I’d been there.
After my fifth viewing of the tape, I went out to the hallway.
Milo was thirty feet away, just standing there. A black eyebrow tented. He walked toward me. “Spot anything?”
I said, “Maybe the techies can get a more precise height estimate but he’s good-sized—probably tall as you—and solidly built. The way he lifts and carries says he’s strong and practiced, so he could work a job requiring muscle. Or he spends a lot of time in the gym.”
His nod said he’d reached the same conclusions.
Twisted lips said he’d hoped for more.
I looked at his phone. “Any progress at the crypt?”
He smiled. “Good guess—scratch that, excellent intellectual reasoning.” He pocketed the phone. “Nah, it was a busy night, she hasn’teven been moved to storage. One promising development. Basia just came on shift, and she promised to facilitate.”
Dr. Basia Lopatinski is his favorite forensic pathologist. Smart, hardworking, inevitably cheerful, she’d been a tenured professor in Poland, had finally gotten board certification in the U.S.
I said, “Go, Basia.”
He said, “If I was oriented that way, I’d try to marry her. Let’s get some coffee.”
—
We took the stairs down to the ground floor, exited onto Butler, continued north to Santa Monica Boulevard then west along the weekend-quiet thoroughfare.
Warm, sunny Saturday. Beautiful weather always seems cruel when you’re dealing with the loss of a human being. But that’s L.A., seductive and perverse.
Milo’s grimly set mouth set the tone: time to walk in silence.
He’d arrived at the death scene at three thirty and it was now just over seven hours later. His green eyes were sharp but the rest of him looked shopworn, pockmarked pallor clashing harshly with coarse black hair, dirt-gray windbreaker rumpled irretrievably, brown khaki cargo pants worn low and freed from the swell of his gut, sagging sadly.
New desert boots, though. Tan with pink soles. Likely a gift from Rick, who’d long given up trying to spiff up his partner’s wardrobe. The exception: replacing boots defeated every few months by their wearer’s bulk.
Only an hour had passed since Milo’s call at nine forty-five but it felt like much longer. When my phone vibrated on the kitchen counter, Robin and I were finishing a late breakfast and sharing bits of omelet with our little French bulldog, Blanche.
Robin reached over, retrieved the phone, read my screen and grinned. “We squeaked through.”
“Big Guy?”
“Who else.”
I put the phone on speaker. “Morning. What’s up?”
“Hope you’re not busy.”
Robin smiled, kissed me, and got up.
Before following, Blanche cocked her head curiously.
I said, “Promise you a walk when I get back.”
As they left, they both had that knowing look.
