The Murder Book

Maybe interesting.

Schwi

He said, "The father didn't report it to MP?"

Schwi

"Lowlife?"

"Marginal," Schwi

"If the girl's done it before, why would this be different?"

"Maybe it's not. But the girl fits stat-wise: sixteen, around five-seven, ski

An appreciative tone had crept into Schwi

"She's supposed to be cute," Schwi

"Sixteen years old, tied and raped and she doesn't report it?"

"Like I said, no virgin." Schwi

"Is the source reliable?"

"Usually."

"Who?"

Schwi

"Sixteen," said Milo, bothered.

Schwi

Milo covered his anger with a shrug of his own. "So what's next? Talk to the father?"

Schwi

Partners.

Outside, near the unmarked, Schwi

Schwi

"Hollywood, boy-o. A real-life Hollywood girl."

Over the course of the twenty-minute ride, he laid out a few more details for Milo: The girl's name was Janie Ingalls. A sophomore at Hollywood High, living with her father in a third-floor walk-up in a long-faded neighborhood, just north of Santa Monica Boulevard. Bowie Ingalls was a drunk who might or might not be home. Society was going to hell in a handbasket; even white folk were living like pigs.

The building was a clumsy pink thing with undersized windows and lumpy stucco. Twelve units was Milo's guess: four flats to a floor, probably divided by a narrow central corridor.

He parked, but Schwi

"Turn it off," said Schwi

Milo twisted the key and listened to street sounds. Distant traffic from Santa Monica, a few bird trills, someone unseen playing a power mower. The street was poorly kept, litter sludging the gutters. He said, "Besides being a juicehead, how's the father marginal?"

"One of those walking-around guys," said Schwi

Details. Schwi

"Guy like that, and he's raising a kid," said Milo.

"Yeah, it's a cruel world, isn't it? Janie's mother was a stripper and a hype, ran off with some hippie musician when the kid was a baby, overdosed in Frisco."

"Sounds like you've learned a lot."

"That what you think?" Schwi

"I've got a lot to learn," he said. "Wasting my time with those MP clowns. Meanwhile you're getting all this-"

"Don't lick my ass, son," said Schwi

"Hey, sorry if-"

"Fuck sorry, pal. You think this is some game? Like getting a master's degree, hand in your homework, and lick the teacher's ass and get your little ass-licking grade? You think that's what this is about?"

Talking way too fast for normal. What the hell had set him off?

Milo kept silent. Schwi

Milo's face was hot from jawline to scalp. He kept his mouth shut.

"This…" said Schwi

He fa

"This," he said, "is why we get paid. The other stuff clerks could handle."

The first seven murders had gotten Milo to think of himself as a clerk with a badge. He didn't dare agree. Agreement seemed to infuriate the sonofa-

"You thought you were go

Shaking his head and looking as if he'd tasted something putrid, Schwi

Plink, plink.

Milo said, "Look, I'm just-"

"Do you have any idea how often something like this actually gets closed? Those clowns in the Academy probably told you Homicide has a seventy, eighty percent solve rate, right? Well, that's horseshit. That's the stupid stuff- which should be a hundred percent it's so stupid, so big fucking deal, eighty percent. Shit." He turned and spit out the window. Shifted back to Milo. "With this"- plink plink- "you're lucky to close four outta ten. Meaning most of the time you lose and the guy gets to do it again and he's saying 'Fuck you' to you just like he is to her."

Schwi