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with continuation as a detective and none of the desk work that went with the rank.
    The new chief, brutal and statistics-driven, learned that Milo’s close rate was the highest in the department and chose not to fix the unbroken.
    When he closes the door to the office, it starts to feel like a coffin but I’m getting used to that. I’ve been slightly claustrophobic since childhood, a souvenir of hiding from an enraged, alcoholic father in coal bins, crawl spaces, and such. Working with Milo has been therapeutic on many levels.
    I wedged into a corner as he wheeled his desk chair inches from my face, swung long legs onto the desk, loosened his tie and suppressed a belch. A sudden reach for a pen knocked a pile of papers to the floor. On top was a memo from Parker Center marked Urgent . When I moved to pick up the sheaf, he said, “Don’t bother, it’s all trash.”
    He pulled a panatela out of a desk drawer, unwrapped, bit off the end and spit it into the wastebasket. “Any additional wisdom?”
    I said, “Mr. Walkie-Talkie intrigues me. Not a friendly sort. And his being gone doesn’t mean much, he could’ve ducked somewhere.”
    “Bodyguard turns on his charge?”
    “Or his charge was the person she was waiting for and he’d slipped away to attend to the boss. Someone she was eager to be with from the way she kept looking at her watch. Someone she was intimate with.”
    “Girl in designer duds and a diamond watch wouldn’t hang with Joe Sixpack. Some rich guy confident enough to keep her waiting.”
    “And Black Suit could’ve chauffeured the two of them—his clothes would fit a driver, too. Or he followed them in a separate vehicle. At some point, the date went really bad and the two of them shot her. Or the plan all along was to kill her. Either way, finding him might help and I got a good look at him.”
    “Lots of private muscle in town, but sure, why not.”
    Booting up, he searched, printed a list of L.A. security firms, made a few calls, got nowhere. Plenty of companies left to contact, but he swung his feet back to the floor. “Wanna see the crime scene?”
    On the way out, he picked up the fallen papers, checked the urgent message, tossed everything.
    “Chief’s office keeps bugging me to attend ComStat meetings. I’ve dodged most of them, including the one today, but just in case they bust me, let’s take separate cars.”
    He drove me home, where I picked up the Seville and followed him back to Sunset. We sped west and after a brief ride north on PCH, he hooked east and climbed toward the northwestern edge of the Palisades.
    He turned onto a street lined with stilt-houses defying geology. The residences thinned, vanished as the road narrowed to chasm-hugging ribbon furling the green mountainside. The sky was clear. The world was as bright and pretty as a child’s drawing.
    It took a while for him to stop. I parked behind him and we crossed the road.
    He stretched, loosened his tie. “Nothing like country air.”
    I said, “The ride from your office was thirty-eight minutes, allowing for the stop at my place. Beverly Hills is farther east, so even with less traffic at night, we’re talking about that much time. If Mutter was accurate about her leaving the Fauborg around ten and the time of death was closer to midnight than two, she was done quickly. That could indicate a premeditated abduction and execution. If, on the other hand, the TOD’s closer to two, the killer had plenty of time to be with her and we could be looking at something drawn-out and sadistic. Any ligature marks or evidence she was restrained?”
    “Not a scratch, Alex. If there was any disabling it wasn’t hard-core. Wanna get closer?”
    Like movie sets, crime scenes are elaborate but short-lived creations. Scrapings are taken, plaster casts harden, shells are searched for, bagging and tagging and photography ensue at a steady pace. Then the vans drive off and the yellow tape is snipped and the blood’s hosed away