The Murder Book

"Alex, when I do get a minute to breathe, I think of you, wonder if I did the right thing. Then I plan all the things I'm going to tell you, but then when we finally talk… it doesn't seem to go the way I'd pla

"Absence makes the heart cranky?"

"Not my heart."

"Guess it's me, then," I said. "Guess I don't do well with separation. Never got used to it."

"Used to it?" she said. "Your parents?"

My parents were the last thing I'd thought of. Now bad old memories ignited: the wasting away of the two people who'd brought me into this world, bedside vigils, a pair of funerals in as many years.

"Alex?"

"No," I said. "I was just talking generally."

"You sound upset," she said. "I didn't mean to-"

"You didn't do anything."

"What did you mean by that? Never getting used to separation?"

"Random blather," I said.

"Are you saying that even when we were together you felt abandoned? That I neglected you? Because I-"

"No," I said. "You've always been there for me." Except for the other time you left.

Except for finding another man and- "It really was blather, Rob. Put it down to missing you."

"Alex, if this is really bad for you, I'll come home."

"No," I said. "I'm a big boy. It wouldn't be good for you. For either of us."

And I've got things on my plate. Little odd jobs, the kind you hate.

"That's true," she said. "But just say the word."

"The word is I love you."

"That's three words."

"Picky picky."

She laughed. Finally. I uttered a few pleasantries, and she did the same. When we hung up she sounded okay, and I figured I faked it pretty well.

Milo claimed to want "alone time," but I figured he'd be nosing around on the fringes of the LAPD bureaucracy.

If the call from Perso

Marlene Baldassar as the source didn't sit right with me, and I thought about the trail we might've left.

My solo activities had consisted of the call to Larry Daschoff, di

Together, Milo and I had interviewed Marge Schwi

Nemerov, on the other hand, had grown antsy when talking about his father's murder and Willie Burns's skip. Nemerov's bail bond business gave him close ties to the department. If John G. Broussard had been part of a fix, the department would care.

A third possibility was Milo's solo work on Janie Ingalls had attracted attention. As far as I knew that had been limited to phone work and unearthing old files. But he'd worked at the West L.A. station, sneaked around Parker Center.

Thinking he'd been discreet but he could've invited scrutiny- from clerks, other cops, anyone in a position to witness him nosing. John G. Broussard had sent a clear directive to tighten up discipline among the rank and file. The new chief had also waged war on the blue code of silence- talk about irony. Maybe cops informing on cops was the new LAPD zeitgeist.

The more I thought about that, the more it made sense: Milo was a pro, but he'd taken too much for granted.

Procedurally, he'd been outed.

That made me think about his continuing vulnerability. Twenty years in the department with one of the highest solve rates in Homicide, but that wasn't enough, would never be enough.

For two decades he'd functioned as a gay man in a paramilitary organization that would never be free of gut-level bias and still hadn't acknowledged the existence of homosexual cops. I knew- everyone knew- that scores of gay officers patrolled the streets, but not a single one had gone public. Neither had Milo, in a strict sense, but after those first brutal years of self-torment he had stopped hiding.

Department statisticians were happy to file his solves in the Assets column but the brass continued to retard his progress and made periodic attempts to get rid of him. Milo had collected secrets of his own along the way, finally managed to leverage his way to relative job security and seniority. He'd turned down the offer to take the lieutenant's exam twice because he knew the department's real intention was to shunt him to some desk job where they could pretend he didn't exist, while boring him to the point of voluntary retirement. Instead, he'd stayed on the detective track, had taken it as far as it would go: to Detective-III.

Maybe Pierce Schwi

Normally, nothing heated Milo's blood like a good cold case. But this was a rethaw from his own past, and perhaps he'd gotten careless and turned himself into prey.

I thought of how Paris Bartlett had targeted Milo, ignored me.

Meaning I had room to move.

The timing was perfect, the logic exquisite: What were friends for?

CHAPTER 21

Alone, at his crappy little piss-colored desk, the washer churning the clothes he'd just loaded for background noise, Milo felt better.

Free of Alex, he felt better.

Because Alex's mind could be a scary thing- cerebral flypaper; stuff flew in but never left. His friend was capable of sitting quietly for long stretches when you'd think he was listening- actively listening the way they'd taught him in shrink school- then he'd let loose a burst of associations and hypotheses and apparently unrelated trivialities that turned out too often to be right-on.

Houses of cards that, more often than not, withstood the wind. Milo on the receiving end of the nonstop volleys, felt like a wobbly sparring partner.

Not that Alex pushed. He just kept supposing. Suggesting. Another shrink tactic. Try ignoring any of it.

Milo had never met anyone smarter or more decent than Alex, but hanging with the guy could be draining. How many nights' sleep had he lost because one of his friend's suggestions had hooked a barb in his brain?

But for all his bloodhound instincts, Alex was a civilian and out of his element. And he'd failed to mature in one regard: had never developed a proper sense of threat.

In the begi

Robin understood that, and it scared her. Over the years she'd confided her fears to Milo- more nuance than complaint. And when the three of them were together and Alex and Milo lapsed into the wrong type of conversation and her face changed, Milo caught it quickly and changed the subject. Strangely enough, Alex, for all his perceptiveness, sometimes missed it.

Alex had to realize how Robin felt, yet he made no effort to change. And Robin put up with it. Love is blind and deaf and dumb… maybe she'd simply made a commitment and was smart enough to know it was damn near impossible to change anyone.

But now, she'd gone on that tour. And taken the dog. For some reason that felt wrong- the damn pooch. Alex was claiming to be okay, but that first day Milo'd dropped in, he'd looked really bad, and even now, he was different… distracted.

Something was off.

Or maybe not.

He'd poked a bit at Alex's resistance. Playing shrink to the shrink and why the hell shouldn't he? How could you have a real friendship when the therapy went only one way? But no luck. Alex talked the talk- ope