'No nurturance for the poor detective?' I said.
'Don't want it. Too tough.' He winked.
'How're you doing?' I said, mostly to prevent him from focusing on my mood.
'The world's falling apart but I'm fine.'
'Freelancing's still fun?'
'I wouldn't call it that.'
'What would you call it?'
'Bureaucratically sanctioned isolation. I'm not allowed to have fun.' He bared his teeth in what I knew was a smile; someone else might have taken it for hostility. I watched him toss another appetizer down his gullet and drink more tea.
Last year, he'd run afoul of the police chief before the chief retired, managed to play some cards, and ended up with a lieutenant's title and salary but not the desk job that came with promotion.
Effectively banished from the robbery-homicide room, he was given his own windowless office down the hall - a converted interrogation space, figurative miles from the other detectives. His official title was 'clearance officer' for unsolved homicide cases. Basically, that meant deciding which cold files to pursue and which to ignore. The good news was relative independence. The bad news was no built-in backup or departmental support.
Now he was working a fresh case. I figured there was a back story, and he'd tell me when he was ready.
He looked in good trim, and the clarity in his eyes suggested he'd stuck to his resolution to cut down on the booze. He'd also resolved to start walking for exercise, but the last few times I'd seen him, he'd griped about his instep.
Today, he had on a coarse, brown, herringbone sport coat way too heavy for a California spring, a once-white wash-and-wear shirt and a green polyblend tie embroidered with blue dragons. His black hair was freshly cut in the usual style: long and shaggy on top, cropped tight at the temples. Sideburns, now snow-white, reached the bottoms of his fleshy ears. He called them his skunk stripes. The restaurant's lighting was kind to his complexion, rendering some of the acne pits as craggy contours.
He said, 'The artist's name was Juliet Kipper, known as Julie. Thirty-two, divorced, a painter in oils. As they say.'
'Who says?'
'Arty types. That's the way they talk. A painter in oils, a sculptor in bronze, an etcher in drypoint. Paintings are "pictures" or "images," one "makes" art, blah blah blah. Anyway, Julie Kipper: apparently she was gifted, won a bunch of awards in college, went on for an MFA at the Rhode Island School of Design and attracted New York gallery attention soon after graduation. She sold a few canvases, seemed to be moving forward, then things tightened up, and she ran into financial problems. She
moved out here seven years ago, did commercial illustration for ad agencies to earn a living. A year ago, she got serious again about fine art, found herself gallery representation, took part in a couple of group shows, did okay. Last Saturday was her first solo show since she left New York.'
'Which gallery?'
'Place called light and Space. It's a co-operative run by a bunch of artists who use it mostly to showcase their own stuff. But they also support what they call distinctive talent, and Julie Kipper was deemed as such by their review committee. I get the feeling these people don't earn a living by their art. Most of them have day jobs. Julie had to pay for her own party - cheese and crackers and cheap wine, a jazz trio. About fifty people drifted in and out during the evening and six of the fifteen paintings were red-dotted - that means "sold" in art lingo. They actually put little red dots on the title tag.'
'Any of the co-op members twang your antenna?'
'They come across as a peace-loving bunch, nothing but good words about Julie, but who knows?'
Julie. Calling the victim by her first name early in the game. He'd bonded with this one. I said, 'What happened?'
'Someone ambushed her in the ladies' room of the gallery. After hours. Close confines - just a sink and a toilet and a mirror. There was a bump on the back of her head - coroner says not serious enough to knock her out, but the skin was broken and traces of her blood were found on the rim of the sink. Coroner's guess is she was thrashing and her head knocked against it.'
'Anyone else's blood?'
'I should be so lucky.'
'A struggle,' I said. 'How big a woman was she?'
'Small,' he said. 'Five-four, hundred and ten.'
'Any skin under her fingernails?'
'Not a molecule, but we did find some talcum powder. As in the stuff they use inside rubber gloves.'
'If that's what it means,' I said, 'it implies careful preparation. How long after hours did it happen?'
"The show closed at ten, and Julie stayed behind to clean up. One of the co-op artists helped her, a woman named CoCo Barnes. Who I don't see as a suspect because A, she's in her seventies and B, she's the size of a garden troll. Just after eleven, Barnes went back to check and found Julie.'
'Is she hard of hearing, as well?' I said. 'All that thrashing around?'
'No mystery there, Alex. The gallery's one big front room, but the bathrooms are out back, separated by a solid-core door that leads to a small vestibule and a storage area that feeds to a rear alley door. Plus the bathroom door's also solid. Top of that, there was music playing. Not the jazz combo, they'd already packed out. But Julie had brought a stereo system and backup tapes for when the band took breaks. She switched it on while they straightened. Barnes not hearing a thing makes total sense.'
The smiling woman brought shallow, round stainless-steel trays crowded with small saucerlike dishes. Basmati rice, lentils, green salad, okra, nan bread, tandoori chicken. A ramekin of mango chutney.
'Nice variety, huh?' said Milo, picking up a chicken wing.
'You're assuming the killer got in through the alley. Was the rear door forced?'
'Nope.'
'How soon after ten did Julie go back to the bathroom?'
'CoCo can't recall. She remembers realizing Julie'd been gone for a while just before she checked. But the two of them had been busy cleaning. Finally, she had to go herself, made her way back there and knocked on the bathroom door and when Julie didn't answer, she opened it.'
'Self-locking bathroom?'
He thought. 'Yeah, one of those push-button dealies.'
'So the killer chose not to lock up.'
'Or forgot.'
'Someone who brings gloves and ambushes his victim would remember.'
He rubbed his face. 'Okay, so what's the insight?'
'Showing off,' I said. 'Aiming for display. You said there was sexual positioning.'
'Panties down to the ankles, legs spread, knees propped. No bruising or entry. Lying on her back between the toilet and sink. She had to be squeezed in there - it's not how you'd fall naturally.' He brushed hair off his brow, resumed eating.
'What was her mood that night?'
'CoCo Barnes says she was flying high because of how well she'd done.'
'Six out of fifteen paintings sold.'
'Apparently that's great.'
'Flying high,' I said. 'With or without aid?'
He put down his fork. 'Why do you ask?'
'You said Julie's career flagged after her initial success. I'm wondering if personal habits got in the way.'
He picked up what remained of the chicken wing, studied it, began crunching bones. He must've ground them fine enough to swallow, because nothing emerged. 'Yeah, she had problems. As long as we're at it, Dr Clairvoyant, got any stock tips?'
'Stash your money in the mattress.'
'Thanks... yeah, back in her New York days, she messed around with cocaine and alcohol. Talked openly about it, all the other co-op artists knew. But everyone I've talked to so far says she'd straightened up. I tossed her apartment myself and the most addictive thing in her medicine chest was Midol. Strongest thing in her system the night she was killed, according to the coroner, was aspirin. So it looks like she was flying on self-esteem.'
'Until someone brought her down,' I said. 'And planned the fall carefully. Someone familiar enough with the gallery to know the bathroom would be a relatively safe place to get the job done. Is there any indication Julie arranged to meet someone after the party?'
'She didn't mention any appointment to anyone, and her book was clear except for the party.'
'Posing but no assault. That could be someone wanted to make it look sexual.'
'That's the vibe I get. The whole thing is too damned contrived for a rape-murder.'
'Almost like an art piece,' I said. 'Performance art.'
His jaws bunched.
I said, 'Why'd you take this one?'
'Personal favor. Her family knew my family back in Indiana. Her dad worked steel with my dad. Actually, he
was one of the guys my dad supervised on the line. He's dead, and so is Julie's mother, but the dad's brother -Julie's uncle - flew out to ID the body, got hold of me, and asked me to take it. Last thing I wanted was something with a personal connection, but what choice did I have? The guy was coming on like I was some goddamn Sherlock.'
'You're famous in Indiana.'
'Oh, joy,' he said, forking a wad of okra, then changing his mind and flipping the gooey mess back on the plate.
'Was the wire ligament left behind?'
'No, that was the coroner's surmise from the marks on her neck. It sliced through the skin, but the killer took the time to remove it. We canvassed the area, found nothing.'
'More careful planning,' I said. "This is a smart one.'
'Ain't we got fun.'
We finished up and got into my car and Milo directed me to Light and Space's address on Carmelina, just north of Pico. I knew the neighborhood: storage facilities, auto body shops and small factories, just a stroll from L.A.'s western border with the city of Santa Monica. If Julie Kipper had been strangled a couple of blocks away, her uncle's appeal to Milo would've been futile.
As I drove, Milo balanced a toothpick between the tips of his index fingers and radar-scanned the passing world with cop's eyes. 'Been a while since we did this, huh?'
Over the past few months we'd seen each other less and less. I'd put it down to his backlog of cold files and my workload. That was denial. There was mutual isolation going on. 'Guess you didn't have enough weird ones.'
'Matter of fact, that's true,' he said. 'Just the usual, and I don't trouble you with the usual.' A second later: 'You doing all right? In general?'
'Everything's fine.'
'Good.' A block later: 'So... everything with Allison's... things are working out?'
'Allison's wonderful,' I said.
'Well, that's good.' He picked his teeth, kept surveill-ing the city.
His first contacts with Allison had been professional: wrapping up the Ingalls file. She told me he'd been deft and compassionate.
His first reaction upon hearing that we were seeing each other had been silence. Then: She's gorgeous, I'll grant you that.
I'd thought: What won't you grant me? Then I figured I was being touchy and kept my mouth shut. A few weeks later, I cooked dinner for four at my place: a mild March evening, steaks and baked potatoes and red wine out on the terrace. Milo and Rick Silverman, Allison and me.
The surprise was Allison and Rick knew each other. One of her patients had been brought into the Cedars-Sinai ER after a car wreck and Rick had been the surgeon on duty.
They talked shop, I played host, Milo ate and fidgeted. Toward the end of the evening, he drew me aside. 'Nice girl, Alex. Not that you need my approval.' Sounding as if someone had prodded him to make the speech.
Since then, he'd seldom mentioned her.
'A few more blocks,' he said. 'How's the pooch?'
'I hear he's fine.'
A moment later: 'Robin and I got together a couple of times for coffee.'
Surprise, surprise.
'Nothing wrong with that,' I said.
'You're pissed.'
"Why would I be pissed?'
'You sound pissed.'
'I'm not pissed. Where do I turn?'
'Two more blocks, then a right,' he said. 'Okay, I keep my trap Crazy-Glued shut. Even though all these years you've been telling me I should express my feelings.'
'Express away,' I said.
'That guy she's with-'
'He has a name. Tim.'
'Tim's a wimp.'
'Give it up, Milo.'
'Give what up?'
'Reconciliation fantasies.'
