Guilt

“You could stop avoiding me.” She unclipped the badge, showed it to him. “Kelly LeMasters, L.A. Times.”

Milo didn’t oblige her with a response.

She said, “That’s the way it’s going to be? Fine, I’ll grovel for every crumb. Even though I shouldn’t have to ’cause I’m with the paper of record and I’ve been calling you all week on those skeletons and you’ve been shining me on like I’m your ex-wife filing for more spousal support.”

She smiled. “Or in your case, ex-husband.”

Milo said, “A comedian.”

“Anything that works,” said Kelly LeMasters. Her tone said she was used to rejection. But not inured to it.

A car pulled up behind us. Large black man at the wheel of a brand-new Chevy unmarked. Dark suit, white shirt, red tie. Scowl of impatience. Horn-beep.

Milo said, “That’s a captain behind me, so I’m going to pull into the lot. It has nothing to do with avoiding you.”

“You couldn’t avoid me if you wanted to, I’ll be right here when you come walking out.”

True to her word, she hadn’t budged a foot. Looking at me, she said, “This is the psychologist. He advise you to shine me on?”

“No one’s shining you on. Sorry if it came across that way.”

“Ma’am bam thank you not,” she said. “What, you’re allergic to cooperation?” She looked me over, top-to-bottom. “Good angle, grizzled homicide cop and dashing shrink.” Blue eyes shifted back to Milo. “Delete grizzled, insert rumpled.”

He reached for his tie, lying crookedly across his paunch. The reflexive move cracked up Kelly LeMasters. She slapped her knee with glee. Long time since I’d seen anyone do that. Not since my last drive through the Ozarks.

Milo said, “Glad to be amusing.”

Kelly LeMasters said, “See? You’re human. Have your vanities like everyone else. So why in the world would you refuse to cooperate with me? I could make you famous. At least temporary-famous and that’s pretty cool, no?”

“Thanks but no thanks.”

“Playing hard to get? Why run from stardom, Milo Sturgis? In addition to being a sexual-preference pioneer, for which you’ve never received just credit, you’re darn good at what you do. According to my sources, over the past twenty years you’ve closed proportionately more murders than any other detective. And yet no one really knows about the totality of your accomplishments because you refuse to maintain any sort of media presence. Sure, you pop up from time to time, giving pithy little quotes. But more often than not you let some boss-type get the credit for your work.”

“Aw shucks.”

“Fine, you’re the gay Jimmy Stewart but why shut me out on these baby cases? What is it? My breath?”

She leaned close, exhaled noisily. “See? Minty fresh?” I was favored with a second blast of herbal aroma. “Back me up on that, Doctor.”

Milo and I laughed.

“See,” she said, “I’m a funny girl. Reward me, Milo Sturgis.”

“It’s complicated.”

“So what isn’t?” Her hand shot out. A white-gold wedding band circled one of ten bony fingers. Her nails were short, unpolished. But for the ring, she wore no jewelry.

Milo said, “Now we shake?”

“We sure do,” said Kelly LeMasters. “Seeing as we’re going to be warm, nurturing, mutually advantageous buddies.”

A car approached from Santa Monica Boulevard. Shiny unmarked, new enough to lack plates.

Milo motioned LeMasters away from the lot entrance, turned his back to the oncoming vehicle.

“Who’s that?” she said.

“Doesn’t matter. Let’s not talk here.”

Kelly LeMasters said, “No prob. That Indian place you like?”

He glared at her. “Nowhere I like, I don’t want to be seen with you. Minty fresh notwithstanding.”

“Fine,” she said. “If it means you’re going to give me something juicy.”

“No obligations.”

“That’s what they all say.”

We headed up the block into the residential area south of the station. Milo and LeMasters walked abreast as I trailed two steps behind. A few turns later he stopped in front of a dingbat apartment building. White stucco instead of aqua but stylistically not dissimilar from Melvin J. Wedd’s part-time residence.

Milo’s idea of a private joke? Nothing about him suggested mirth as he drew himself up to max height, the way he does when he’s out to intimidate.

If that was the goal, it failed with Kelly LeMasters. She took a notepad and pen out of her bag and said, “Go for it.”

Milo said, “Put that away, we’re off the record. If you guys still respect that.”

“Milo, Milo,” she said. “If nothing’s on the record, what use are you to me?”

“This may come as a shock, Kelly: Being useful to you isn’t my priority.”

“Of course not, solving nasty old murders is, yadda yadda yadda. But you know as well as I do that those things go together. How many of your closed files would still be open if you didn’t get media exposure when you needed it?”

“I appreciate the value of a free press. But my hands are tied.”

“By?”

“Off the record?”

“Regarding that small point?” she said. “Sure.”

“Bureaucracy.”

She said, “You’ve got to be kidding. That’s the staggering secret? We all deal with red tape, you think my employer’s all Bill of Rights and no bullshit?”

“Glad you empathize.”

“I don’t need you to tell me why your stupid, venal bosses closed you up on the second skeleton: politics as usual, the whole Maxine Cleveland real estate thing. You ever meet her? Brain-dead and clueless, should be a perfect fit in D.C. That ploy was stupid, where did it get her?” She removed her glasses. “Your idiot bosses let me get scooped by a damn student paper.”

“You want to complain, I can give you some phone numbers.”

“How far would that get me?”

“Exactly my point, Kelly. It’s like talking to dust.”

She studied him. “You’re a crafty one, aren’t you? Okay, we go off the record, as long as at some point it goes on the record and I don’t mean months.”

“Nope, can’t give you a deadline.”

“I don’t want a deadline, I just want you to be reasonable.” She put her glasses back on. Wrote something in her pad, angling the page so he couldn’t see. I’ve seen him do the same thing with witnesses, trying to kick up the intrigue, establish dominance.

The two of them would make an interesting bridge twosome.

“Define reasonable, Kelly.”

“Use common sense, cut the crap, however you want to define it. I am not going to remain mute for eternity only to have every moron on TV and the Internet going with the story.”

Bony hands slapped onto bony hips. “Got it?”

“Got it.”