Guilt

“An administrative decision has been made.”

“Why?”

“Can’t get into that, nor can I advise you how long it’ll be operative.”

“On the first bones you couldn’t wait to play Meet the Press. In fact, you did it without letting me-”

“Flexibility,” said Thomas, “is the hallmark of good management.”

“What the hell changed?”

“Nothing changed. The cases aren’t the least bit similar.”

“Exactly, Maria. The first one was ancient history. With these new ones I might actually get a lead by going public.”

“Or not,” said Thomas.

“What’s the risk?”

“As I said, the cases are structurally different. The first bones were perceived as a human-interest story. Historical, quaint, however you want to put it.”

“A dead baby is quaint?”

“No one likes a dead baby, Milo, but the consensus is that we probably don’t have a murdered baby, are most likely dealing with natural causes, some sort of extreme grief reaction. The consensus is also that lacking media input you’d never close it, but that with media exposure you had a minimal chance. Obviously, that hasn’t panned out, so much for good press for the department.”

“This is about P.R.?”

“Have you seen the latest city council budget proposals?”

“I avoid smut.”

“Some of us don’t have that luxury and trust me, it’s bad, we’re talking across-the-board slash-and-burn like I’ve never seen before. Given that, some touchy-feely closure on a poor little baby would’ve been nice.”

“That doesn’t answer my first question, Maria. Why a blackout on the new ones? Closing real murders is gonna make us look even better.”

“Whatever,” she said. “Meanwhile, do not talk to the Times, or anyone else in the media.”

“How do I I.D. my adult victim, let alone a sack of bones?”

“Did your adult victim appear homeless or otherwise a lowlife?” said Thomas.

“No, and that’s exactly why I figured-”

“If she’s not a throwaway, someone will report her missing.”

“So I wait.”

“You do your job and obey directives.”

“Whose secret are we keeping, Maria?”

“Stop whining. Some things are better left unsaid.”

“Not in my business.”

“We’re in the same business.”

“Are we?” he said.

She snickered. “It didn’t take long, did it? The outrage, the self-righteousness, the lonely warrior tilting against windmills.”

“Who’s tilting? I just want to-”

“Listen and listen well because I’m only going to explain it one more time: There’s a strong desire among those responsible for the decisions that govern your professional life to avoid getting lurid with this particular case at this particular juncture.”

“Lurid as in …”

“Yuck-stuff,” she said. “As in more baby bones start popping up all over the place because psychotics get stimulated by coverage. Go ask your shrink friend, he’ll tell you about that kind of thing.”

“Yuck-stuff,” he said, “that just happens to take place in a high-end neighborhood. A dead woman and baby bones in Nickerson Gardens would be a whole different story.”

“Discussion over,” said Thomas.

Click.

Milo swiveled and faced me. “You’re an ear-witness. That actually happened.”

I said, “Your point about which neighborhood got to her. May I?”

As I pulled my chair up to his computer, he rolled his back to give me room.

A check of viprealestate.net subheaded cheviot hills pulled it up in nanoseconds.

Last year, Maxine Cleveland, a recently retired county supervisor, had purchased a “thirteen room Mediterranean manse” on an oversized lot on Forrester Drive in the “leafy upscale district of Cheviot Hills.”

A onetime public defender long considered hostile to cops, Cleveland had morphed into a law-and-order stalwart following the chief’s endorsement of her reelection and some well-placed fund-raisers arranged by the chief’s retired-anchorwoman wife.

Cleveland and her labor-lawyer husband had only lived in the Cheviot house for seven months before putting it up for sale. Both had accepted jobs in D.C., she as an assistant attorney general, he as chief counsel for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Cleveland’s first assignment would be heading a task force on financial shenanigans in the banking arena and the real estate website wondered if she could be objective, given a drop in the value of her investment due to the recession. An economic slump brought on, in part, by Wall Street’s addiction to junk mortgages.

I said, “Toss in two DBs a short hop away and it won’t be much of a broker’s carousel.”

“Idiots,” he growled. “Okay, go home, no sense sitting and watching me type.”

I moved out of the way and he bellied up to his keyboard. Entering his password, he logged onto NCIC. The screen froze. He cursed.

I said, “What about the jogger-Heather Goldfeder?”

“What about her? My resident geniuses said she didn’t know the victim.”

“She didn’t know the victim but the way the bones and the body were dumped suggests a bad guy familiar with the park. She runs there regularly so it’s possible she’s seen something or someone she doesn’t realize is relevant. A man casing the area or loitering near the jogging path.”

He loosened his tie, yanked it off. “I was going to get to her once I finished with missing persons.”

His phone rang again. Kelly LeMasters sounding excited about “touching base.”

Instead of picking up, he sat there and listened as LeMasters emphasized her interest in the old bones, offered an additional cell number, and hung up.

“Okay,” he said, “let’s do it.”

“Do what?”

“Check out little Heather.”

“You changed your mind.”

“I hate typing.”

He phoned the Goldfeder home. Heather’s father picked up, Milo introduced himself then listened for a while.

“Yes, I know that had to be difficult, Mr. Goldfeder … Doctor Goldfeder, sorry … yes, I’m sure it was. Which is one reason I’m calling you. We happen to have an expert psychologist and he’s available to offer some crisis …”

He hung up shaking his head.

I said, “No-go?”

“Quite the contrary, definite yes-go. ‘About time you people considered the human factor.’ ”

“Thanks for calling me an expert.”

“Onward.”