The Murder Book

Schwi

"Melinda'll come back," said Waters. "Sometimes she does that. Stays away. She always comes back."

"Sometimes," said Schwi

"No, nothing like that- just once in a while."

"And how long does she stay away?"

"A night," said Waters, sagging and trying to calm herself with a twenty-second pull on her cigarette. Her hand shook. Confronting the fact that this was Melinda's longest absence.

Then she perked up. "One time she stayed away two days. Went up to see her father. He's in the Navy, used to live in Oxnard."

"Where's he live now?"

"Turkey. He's at a naval base, there. Shipped out two months ago."

"How'd Melinda get to Oxnard?"

Eileen Waters chewed her lip. "Hitched. I'm not going to tell him. Even if I could reach him in Turkey, he'd just start in with the accusations… and that bitch of his."

"Second wife?" said Schwi

"His whore," spat Waters. "Melinda hated her. Melinda will come home."

Further questioning was futile. The woman knew nothing more about the "fancy Westside party," kept harping on the downtown murder site as clear proof Melinda hadn't been with Janie. They pried a photo of Melinda out of her. Unlike Bowie Ingalls, she'd maintained an album, and though Melinda's teen years were given short shrift, the detectives had a page of snaps from which to choose.

Bowie Ingalls hadn't been fair to Melinda Waters. Nothing chubby about the girl's figure, she was beautifully curvy with high, round breasts and a tiny waist. Straight blond hair hung to her rear. Kiss-me lips formed a heartbreaking smile.

"Looks like Marilyn, doesn't she?" said her mother. "Maybe one day, she'll be a movie star."

Driving back to the station, Milo said, "How long before her body shows up?"

"Who the fuck knows?" said Schwi

He pocketed the photo.

Milo envisioned a torture chamber. The blond girl nude, shackled… "So what do we do about finding her?"

"Nothing," said Schwi

"What about that Westside party?"

"What about it?"

"We could put the word out with West L.A., the sheriffs, Beverly Hills PD. Sometimes parties get wild, the blues go out on a nuisance call."

"So what?" said Schwi

"Why wouldn't there be?"

"Because kids lie to their parents." Schwi

Milo held his tongue, and the rest of the ride was their usual joy-fest. A block from the station, Schwi

"Your source mentioned a Westside party."

"Street talk's like watermelon, you got to pick around the seeds. The main thing is Janie was found downtown. And chances are Melinda's somewhere around there, too, if a scrote got her and finished with her. For all we know, he kept her in the trunk while he was setting up Janie on Beaudry. Got back on the freeway, he could be in Nevada by now."

He shook his head. "Stupid kids. Two of them thought they had the world in their sweet little hands, and the world upped and bit 'em."

Back at the station, Schwi

An outcast, Milo realized. Did they stick me with him by coincidence?

Pushing all that aside, he played phone poker until well after dark. Contacting every police entity west of Hollywood Division in search of 415 party calls. Throwing in rent-a-cop outfits, too: The Bel Air Patrol, and other private firms that covered Beverlywood, Cheviot Hills, Pacific Palisades. The privates turned out to be the worst to deal with- no one was willing to talk without supervisory clearance and Milo had to leave his name and badge number, wait for callbacks that probably wouldn't happen.

He kept going, casting his net to Santa Monica and beyond, even including the southern edge of Ventura County, because Melinda Waters had once hitched PCH to Oxnard to see her father. And kids flocked to the beach for parties- he'd spent many a sleepless night driving up and down the coast highway, spotting bonfires that sparked the tide, the faint silhouettes of couples. Wondering what it would be like to have someone.

Four hours of work resulted in two measly hits- either L.A. had turned sleepy, or no one was complaining about noise anymore.

Two big zeros: An eye surgeon's fiftieth birthday party on Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills had evoked a Friday midnight complaint from a cranky neighbor.

"Kids? No, don't think so," laughed the BH desk officer. "We're talking black tie, all that good stuff. Lester Lanin's orchestra playing swing and still someone bitched. There's always some killjoy, right?"

The second call was a Santa Monica item: A bar mitzvah on Fifth Street north of Montana had been closed down just after 2 A.M., after rambunctious thirteen-year-olds began setting off firecrackers.

Milo put the phone down and stretched. His ears burned and his neck felt like dry ice. Schwi

Told you so, asshole. Told you so, asshole.

He drove to a bar- a straight one on Eighth Street, not far from the Ambassador Hotel. He'd passed it several times, a shabby-looking place on the ground floor of an old brick apartment building that had seen better days. The few patrons drinking this late were past their prime, too, and his entrance lowered the median age by a few decades. Mel Torme on tape loop, scary-looking toothpicked shrimp and bowls full of cracker medley decorated the cloudy bar top. Milo downed a few shots and beers, kept his head down, left, and drove north to Santa Monica Boulevard, cruising Boystown for a while but didn't even wrestle with temptation: Tonight the male hookers looked predatory, and he realized he wanted to be with no one, not even himself. When he reached his apartment, images of Melinda Waters's torment had returned to plague him, and he pulled down a bottle of Jim Beam from a kitchenette cupboard. Tired but wired. Removing his clothes was an ordeal, and the sight of his pitiful, white body made him close his eyes.

He lay in bed, wishing the darkness was more complete. Wishing for a brain valve that would choke off the pictures. Alcohol lullabies finally eased him, stumbling, to bed.

The next morning, he drove to a newsstand and picked up the morning's Times and Herald-Examiner. No reporter had called him or Schwi