The Murder Book Read online

  " 'NS,' " I said. "No Solve?"

  Milo said, "There was nothing else besides the book and wrapping? No note?"

  "Nope. Just this."

  He checked the blue wrapping again, did the same for the pink butcher paper, returned to the brutalized girl. Sat there for a long time until, finally, he freed one hand and rubbed his face as if washing without water. Old nervous habit. Sometimes it helps cue me in to his mood, sometimes I barely notice it.

  He repeated the gesture. Squeezed the bridge of his nose. Rubbed yet again. Twisted his mouth and didn't relax it and stared some more.

  "My, my," he said.

  Several moments later: "Yeah, that would be my guess. No Solve."

  " 'NS' wasn't appended to any of the other photos," I said.

  No answer.

  "Meaning this is what we're supposed to look at?" I said.

  No answer.

  "Who was she?" I said.

  His lips slackened and he looked up at me and showed me some teeth. Not a smile, not even close to a smile. This was the expression a bear might take on when it spots a free meal.

  He picked up the blue book. It vibrated. Shaking hands. I'd never seen that happen before. Emitting another terrible laugh, he repositioned the binder flat on the table. Squared the corners. Got up and walked into the living room. Facing the fireplace, he lifted a poker and tapped the granite hearth very softly.

  I took a closer look at the mutilated girl.

  His head shook violently. "What do you wanna fill your head with that for?"

  "What about your head?" I said.

  "Mine's already polluted."

  Mine, too. "Who was she, Milo?"

  He put the poker back. Paced the room.

  "Who was she?" he said. "Someone turned into nothing."

  CHAPTER 5

  The first seven killings weren't as bad as he'd thought.

  Not bad at all, compared to what he'd seen in Vietnam.

  The department had assigned him to Central Division, not far— geographically or culturally— from Rampart, where he'd paid a year of uniform dues, followed by eight months with Newton Bunco.

  Managing to talk his way out of the initial Newton assignment: Vice. Wouldn't that have been a yuk-fest. Ha ha ha. The sound of one voice laughing.

  He was twenty-seven years old, already fighting the battle of the bulge, brand-new to Homicide and not sure if he had the stomach for it. For any kind of police work. But, at this point— after Southeast Asia, what else was there?

  A freshly minted Detective One, managing to hold on to his secret, though he knew there'd been talk.

  No one confronting him directly, but he had ears.

  Something different about him— like he thinks he's better than anyone.

  Drinks, but doesn't talk.

  Doesn't shoot the shit.

  Came to Hank Swangle's bachelor party but when they brought the groupie in and the gang bang started, where the fuck was he?

  Free blow job and he splits.

  Doesn't chase pussy, period.

  Weird.

  His test scores and solve-rates and persistence got him to Central Homicide, where they paired him with a rail-thin forty-eight-year-old DII named Pierce Schwinn, who looked sixty and fancied himself a philosopher. Mostly, he and Schwinn worked nights, because Schwinn thrived in the dark: Bright lights gave the guy migraines, and he complained of chronic insomnia. No big mystery there, the guy popped decongestants like candy for a perpetually stuffed nose and downed a dozen cups of coffee per shift.

  Schwinn loved driving around, spent very little time at his desk, which was a pleasant switch from the butt-numbing routine Milo had experienced at Bunco. But the downside was Schwinn had no attention span for white-collar work, couldn't wait to shove all the paperwork at his new junior partner.

  Milo spent hours being a goddamned secretary, figured the best thing was to keep his mouth shut and listen, Schwinn had been around, must have something to offer. In the car, Schwinn alternated between taciturn and gabby. When he did talk, his tone got hyper and preachy— always making a point. Guy reminded him of one of his grad school professors at Indiana U. Herbert Milrad, inherited wealth, specialist on Byron. Lockjaw elocution, obese pear of a physique, violent mood swings. Milrad had figured Milo out by the middle of the first semester and tried to take advantage of it. Milo, still far from clear about his sexuality, had declined with tact. Also, he found Milrad physically repugnant.

  Not a pretty scene, the Grand Rejection, and Milo knew Milrad would torment him. He was finished with academia, any idea of a Ph.D. He finished the goddamned M.A. thesis by flogging the life out of poor Walt Whitman's words, escaped with a bare pass. Bored to tears, anyway, by the bullshit that passed for literary analysis, he left IU, lost his student deferment, answered a want ad at the campus student employment center, and took a job as a groundsman at the Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge, waiting for Selective Service to call. Five weeks later, the letter arrived.

  By year's end, he was a medic wading through rice paddies, cradling young boys' heads and watching the departure of the barely formed souls, cupping steaming viscera in his hands— intestines were the big challenge, the way they slipped through his fingers like raw sausage. Blood browning and swirling as it hit the muddy water.

  He made it home alive, found civilian life and his parents and brothers unbearable, struck out on a road trip, spent a while in San Francisco, learned a few things about his sexuality. Found SF claustrophobic and self-consciously hip, bought an old Fiat, and drove down the coast to L.A., where he stayed because the smog and the ugliness were reassuring. He knocked around for a while on temp jobs, before deciding police work might be interesting and why the hell not?

  Then there he was, three years later. Seven P.M. call, as he and Schwinn sat in the unmarked in the parking lot of a Taco Tio on Temple Street, eating green chile burritos, Schwinn in one of his quiet moods, eyes jumpy as he gorged himself with no apparent pleasure.

  When the radio squawked, Milo talked to the dispatcher, took down the details, said, "Guess we'd better shove off."

  Schwinn said, "Let's eat first. No one's coming back to life."

  Homicide number eight.

  The first seven had been no big deal, gross-out-wise. Nothing whodunit about them, either. Like nearly every Central case, the victims were all black or Mexican and the same for the victimizers. When he and Pierce showed, the only other white faces at the scene would be uniforms and techs.

  Black/brown cases meant tragedy that never hit the papers, charges that mostly got filed and plea-bargained, or, if the bad guy ended up with a really stupid public defender, a long stay in county lockup, then a quick trial and sentencing to the max allowable.

  The first two calls had been your basic bar shootings, juicehead perpetrators drunk enough to stick around when the uniforms arrived— literally holding the smoking guns, putting up no resistance.

  Milo watched Schwinn deal with fools, caught on to what would turn out to be Schwinn's routine: First, he'd mumbled an unintelligible Miranda to an uncomprehending perp. Then he'd pressured the idiot for a confession right there at the scene. Making sure Milo had his pen and his pad out, was getting everything down.

  "Good boy," he'd say afterward to the suspect, as if the asshole had passed a test. Over-the-shoulder aside to Milo: "How's your typing?"

  Then back to the station, where Milo would pound the keys and Schwinn would disappear.

  Cases Three, Four, and Five had been domestics. Dangerous for the responding blues, but laid out neatly for the D's. Three low-impulse husbands, two shootings, one stabbing. Talk to the family and the neighbors, find out where the bad guys were "hiding"— usually within walking distance— call for backup, pick 'em up, Schwinn mumbles Miranda. . . .

  Killing Six was a two-man holdup at one of the discount jewelry outlets on Broadway— cheap silver chains and dirty diamond chips in cheesy ten-karat settings. The robbery had been premeditated, b
ut the 187 was a fluke that went down when one of the stickup morons' guns went off by accident, the bullet zipping straight into the forehead of the store clerk's eighteen-year-old son. Big, handsome kid named Kyle Rodriguez, star football player at El Monte High, just happened to be visiting Dad, bringing the good news of an athletic scholarship to Arizona State.

  Schwinn seemed bored with that one, too, but he did show his stuff. In a manner of speaking. Telling Milo to check out former employees, ten to one that's the way it would shake out. Dropping Milo off at the station and heading off for a doctor appointment, then calling in sick for the rest of the week. Milo did three days of legwork, assembled a list, zeroed in on a janitor who'd been fired from the jewelry store a month ago for suspected pilferage. Turned the guy up in an SRO hotel on Central, still rooming with the brother-in-law who'd been his partner in crime. Both bad guys were incarcerated and Pierce Schwinn showed up looking pink and healthy, and saying, "Yeah, there was no other possibility— did you finish the report?"

  That one stuck in Milo's head for a while: Kyle Rodriguez's beefy bronze corpse slumped over the jewelry case. The image kept him up for more than a few nights. Nothing philosophical or theological, just general edginess. He'd seen plenty of young, healthy guys die a lot more painfully than Kyle, had long ago given up on making sense out of things.

  He spent his insomnia driving around in the old Fiat. Up and down Sunset from Western to La Cienega, then back again. Finally veering south onto Santa Monica Boulevard.

  As if that hadn't been his intention all along.

  Playing a game with himself, like a dieter circling a piece of cake.

  He'd never been much for willpower.

  For three consecutive nights, he cruised Boystown. Showered and shaved and cologned, wearing a clean white T-shirt and military-pressed jeans and white tennies. Wishing he was cuter and thinner, but figuring he wasn't that bad if he squinted and kept his gut sucked in and kept his nerves under control by rubbing his face. The first night, a sheriff's patrol car nosed into the traffic at Fairfax and stayed two car lengths behind his Fiat, setting off paranoia alarms. He obeyed all the traffic rules, drove back to his crappy little apartment on Alexandria, drank beer until he felt ready to burst, watched bad TV, and made do with imagination. The second night, no sheriffs, but he just lacked the energy to bond and ended up driving all the way to the beach and back, nearly falling asleep at the wheel.

  Night three, he found himself a stool in a bar near Larabee, sweating too damn much, knowing he was even tenser than he felt because his neck hurt like hell and his teeth throbbed like they were going to crumble. Finally, just before 4 A.M., before sunlight would be cruel to his complexion, he picked up a guy, a young black guy, around his own age. Well-dressed, well-spoken, education grad student at UCLA. Just about the same place as Milo, sexual-honesty wise.

  The two of them were jumpy and awkward in the guy's own crappy little grad student studio apartment on Selma south of Hollywood. The guy attending UCLA but living with junkies and hippies east of Vine because he couldn't afford the Westside. Polite chitchat, then . . . it was over in seconds. Both of them knowing there would be no repeat performance. The guy telling Milo his name was Steve Jackson but when he went into the bathroom, Milo spotted a date book embossed WES, found an address sticker inside the front cover. Wesley E. Smith, the Selma address.

  Intimacy.

  A sad case, Kyle Rodriguez, but he got over it by the time Case Seven rolled around.

  A street slashing, good old Central Avenue, again. Knife fight, lots of blood all over the sidewalk, but only one db, a thirtyish Mexican guy in work clothes, with the homemade haircut and cheap shoes of a recently arrived illegal. Two dozen witnesses in a nearby cantina spoke no English and claimed blindness. This one wasn't even detective work. Solved courtesy of the blues— patrol car spotted a lurching perp ten blocks away, bleeding profusely from his own wounds. The uniforms cuffed him as he howled in agony, sat him down on the curb, called Schwinn and Milo, then phoned for the ambulance that transported the wretch to the jail ward at County Hospital.

  By the time the detectives got there, the idiot was being loaded onto a gurney, had lost so much blood it was touch-and-go. He ended up surviving but gave up most of his colon and a bedside statement, pled guilty from a wheelchair, got sent back to the jail ward till someone figured out what to do with him.

  Now, Number Eight. Schwinn just kept munching the burrito.

  Finally, he wiped his mouth. "Beaudry, top of the freeway, huh? Wanna drive?" Getting out and heading for the passenger side before Milo could answer.

  Milo said, "Either way," just to hear the sound of his own voice.

  Even away from the wheel, Schwinn went through his jumpy predrive ritual. Ratcheting the seat back noisily, then returning it to where it had been. Checking the knot of his tie in the rearview, poking around at the corner of his lipless mouth. Making sure no cherry-colored residue of decongestant syrup remained.

  Forty-eight years old but his hair was dead white and skimpy, thinning to skin at the crown. Five-ten and Milo figured him for no more than 140, most of it gristle. He had a lantern jaw, that stingy little paper cut of a mouth, deep seams scoring his rawboned face, and heavy bags under intelligent, suspicious eyes. The package shouted dust bowl. Schwinn had been born in Tulsa, labeled himself Ultra-Okie to Milo minutes after they'd met.

  Then he'd paused and looked the young detective in the eye. Expecting Milo to say something about his own heritage.

  How about Black Irish Indiana Fag?

  Milo said, "Like the Steinbeck book."

  "Yeah," said Schwinn, disappointed. "Grapes of Wrath. Ever read it?"

  "Sure."

  "I didn't." Defiant tone. "Why the fuck should I? Everything in there I already learned from my daddy's stories." Schwinn's mouth formed a poor excuse for a smile. "I hate books. Hate TV and stupid-ass radio, too." Pausing, as if laying down a gauntlet.

  Milo kept quiet.

  Schwinn frowned. "Hate sports, too— what's the point of all that?"

  "Yeah, it can get excessive."

  "You've got the size. Play sports in college?"

  "High school football," said Milo.

  "Not good enough for college?"

  "Not nearly."

  "You read much?"

  "A bit," said Milo. Why did that sound confessional?

  "Me too." Schwinn put his palms together. Aimed those accusatory eyes at Milo. Leaving Milo no choice.

  "You hate books but you read."

  "Magazines," said Schwinn, triumphantly. "Magazines cut to the chase— take your Reader's Digest, collects all the bullshit and condenses it to where you don't need a shave by the time you finish. The other one I like is Smithsonian."

  Now there was a surprise.

  "Smithsonian," said Milo.

  "Never heard of it?" said Schwinn, as if relishing a secret. "The museum, in Washington, they put out a magazine. My wife went and subscribed to it and I was ready to kick her butt— just what we needed, more paper cluttering up the house. But it's not half-bad. They've got all sorts of stuff in there. I feel educated when I close the covers, know what I mean?"

  "Sure."

  "Now you," said Schwinn, "they tell me you are educated." Making it sound like a criminal charge. "Got yourself a master's degree, is that right?"

  Milo nodded.

  "From where?"

  "Indiana U. But school isn't necessarily education."

  "Yeah, but sometimes it is— what'd you study at Indiana Yooo?"

  "English."

  Schwinn laughed. "God loves me, sent me a partner who can spell. Anyway, give me magazines and burn all the books as far as I'm concerned. I like science. Sometimes when I'm at the morgue I look at medical books— forensic medicine, abnormal psychology, even anthropology 'cause they're learning to do stuff with bones." His own bony finger wagged. "Let me tell you something, boy-o: One day, science is gonna be a big damn deal in our business. One day, to
be doing our job a guy's gonna have to be a scientist— show up at a crime scene, scrape the db, carry a little microscope, learn the biochemical makeup of every damn scrote the vic hung out with for the last ten years."

  "Transfer evidence?" Milo said. "You think it'll get that good?"

  "Sure, yeah," Schwinn said, impatiently. "Right now transfer evidence is for the most part useless bullshit, but wait and see."

  They had been driving around Central on their first day as partners. Aimlessly, Milo thought. He kept waiting for Schwinn to point out known felons, hot spots, whatever, but the guy seemed unaware of his surroundings, all he wanted to do was talk. Later, Milo would learn that Schwinn had plenty to offer. Solid detective logic and basic advice. ("Carry your own camera, gloves, and fingerprint powder. Take care of your own self, don't depend on anyone.") But right now, this first day, riding around— everything— seemed pointless.