The Murder Book

vaguely reminiscent of a wilting rose- some D's greasy lunch. Milo affixed a stickummed label to the cover.

Wrote nothing. Nothing to write.

He sat there thinking about the mutilated girl. Wondered what her name was and couldn't bring himself to substitute Jane Doe.

First thing tomorrow, he'd check out those seven girls, maybe get lucky and end up with a name.

A title for a brand-new murder book.

Bad dreams kept him up all night, and he was back at his desk by 6:45 A.M., the only detective in the room, which was just fine; he didn't even mind getting the coffee going.

By 7:20, he was calling families. MP number one was Sarah Jane Causlett, female cauc, eighteen, five-six, 121, last seen in Hollywood, buying dinner at the Oki-burger at Hollywood and Selma.

Ring, ring ring. 'Mrs. Causlett? Good morning, hope I'm not calling too early…'

By 9 A.M., he was finished. Three of the seven girls had returned home, and two others weren't missing at all, just players in divorce dramas who'd escaped to be with noncustodial parents. That left two sets of distraught parents, Mr. and Mrs. Estes in Mar Vista, Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs in Mid-City. Lots of anxiety, Milo withheld facts, steeled himself for the face-to-face.

By 9:30 a few detectives had arrived, but not Schwinn, so Milo placed a scrawled note on Schwinn's desk, left the station.

By 1 P.M., he was back where he started. A recent picture of Misty Estes showed her to be substantially obese with short curly hair. West L.A. Missing Persons had misrecorded her stats: 107 pounds instead of 187. Oops, sorry. Milo left the tearful mother and hypertensive father standing in the doorway of their GI Bill bungalow.

Jessica Jacobs was approximately the right size, but definitely not the girl on Beaudry: She had the lightest of blue eyes, and the victim's had been deep brown. Another clerical screwup, no one bothering to note eye color in the Wilshire Division MP file.

He left the Jacobs house sweating and tired, found a pay phone outside a liquor store at Third and Wilton, got Schwinn on the line, and gave a lack-of-progress report.

'Morning boy-o,' said Schwinn. 'Haul yourself over here, there might be something.'

'What?'

'Come on back.'

When he got to the Homicide room, half the desks were full, and Schwinn was balancing on two legs of his chair, wearing a nice-looking navy suit, shiny white-on-white shirt, gold tie, gold tie tack shaped like a tiny fist. Leaning back precariously as he chomped a burrito the size of a newborn baby.

'Welcome home, prodigious son.'

'Yeah.'

'You look like shit.'

'Thanks.'

'Don't mention it.' Schwinn gave one of his corkscrew smiles. 'So you learned about our excellent record- keeping. Cops are the worst, boy-o. Hate to write and always make a mess out of it. We're talking barely literate.'

Milo wondered about the extent of Schwinn's own education. The topic had never come up. The whole time they'd worked together, Schwinn had parceled out very few personal details.

'Clerical screwups are the fucking rule, boy-o. MP files are the worst, because MP knows it's a penny ante outfit, most of the time the kid comes home, no one bothers to let them know.'

'File it, forget it,' said Milo, hoping agreement would shut him up.

'File it, fuck it. That's why I was in no big hurry to chase MP.'

'You know best,' said Milo.

Schwinn's eyes got hard. Milo said, 'So what's interesting?'

'Maybe interesting,' Schwinn corrected. 'A source of mine picked up some rumors. Party on the Westside two days before the murder. Friday night, upper Stone Canyon- Bel Air.'

'Rich kids.'

'Filthy rich kids, probably using Daddy and Mommy's house. My source says there were kids from all over showing up, getting stoned, making noise. The source also knows a guy, has a daughter, went out with her friends, spent some time at the party, and never came home.'

Maybe interesting.

Schwinn grinned and bit off a wad of burrito. Milo had figured the guy for a late-sleeping pension-sniffing goldbrick and turned out the sonofabitch had been working overtime, doing a solo act, and producing. The two of them were partners in name, only.

He said, 'The father didn't report it to MP?'

Schwinn shrugged. 'The father's a little bit… marginal.'

'Lowlife?'

'Marginal,' Schwinn repeated. Irritated, as if Milo was a poor student, kept getting it wrong. 'Also, the girl's done this before- goes out partying, doesn't come home for a few days.'

'If the girl's done it before, why would this be different?'

'Maybe it's not. But the girl fits stat-wise: sixteen, around five-seven, skinny, with dark hair, brown eyes, nice tight little body.'

An appreciative tone had crept into Schwinn's voice. Milo pictured him with the source- some street letch, the source laying it on lasciviously. Hookers, pimps, perverts, Schwinn probably had a whole stable of lowlifes he could count on for info. And Milo had a master's degree…

'She's supposed to be cute,' Schwinn went on. 'No virgin, a wild kid. Also, at least one time before, she got herself in trouble. Hitchhiking on Sunset, got picked up by some scrote who raped her, tied her up, left her in an alley downtown. A juicehead found her, lucky for her he was just a bum, not a perve fixing to get himself some sloppy seconds. The girl never reported it officially, just told a friend, and the story made the rounds on the street.'

'Sixteen years old, tied and raped and she doesn't report it?'

'Like I said, no virgin.' Schwinn's hatchet jaw pulsed, and his Okie squint aimed at the ceiling. Milo knew he was holding back something.

'Is the source reliable?'

'Usually.'

'Who?'

Schwinn's headshake was peevish. 'Let's concentrate on the main thing: We got a girl who fits our vic's stats.'

'Sixteen,' said Milo, bothered.

Schwinn shrugged. 'From what I've read- psychology articles- the human rope gets kinked up pretty early.' He leaned back and took another big bite of burrito, wiped salsa verde from his mouth with the back of his hand, then gave the hand a lick. 'You think that's true, boy-o? Think maybe she didn't report it cause she liked it?'

Milo covered his anger with a shrug of his own. 'So what's next? Talk to the father?'

Schwinn righted his chair, swabbed his chin, this time with a paper napkin, stood abruptly, and walked out of the room, leaving Milo to follow.

Partners.

Outside, near the unmarked, Schwinn turned to him, smiling. 'So tell me, how'd you sleep last night?'

Schwinn recited the address on Edgemont, and Milo started up the car.

'Hollywood, boy-o. A real-life Hollywood girl.'

Over the course of the twenty-minute ride, he laid out a few more details for Milo: The girl's name was Janie Ingalls. A sophomore at Hollywood High, living with her father in a third-floor walk-up in a long-faded neighborhood, just north of Santa Monica Boulevard. Bowie Ingalls was a drunk who might or might not be home. Society was going to hell in a handbasket; even white folk were living like pigs.

The building was a clumsy pink thing with undersized windows and lumpy stucco. Twelve units was Milo's guess: four flats to a floor, probably divided by a narrow central corridor.

He parked, but Schwinn made no attempt to get out, so the two of them just sat there, the engine running.