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and everyone goes home except the flies.
    No flies, here, despite lingering blood on the dirt, dried to rust-colored dust. But for a slight depression where the body had rested and stake-holes for the tape, this was lovely California terrain.
    Under last night’s skimpy stars, it would’ve been ink-black.
    I recalled Princess’s face, the carefully crossed legs. The posturing, the blinding sunglasses. Smoking with aplomb.
    The spot where Princess had been found was a plateau just steps off the road, invisible to motorists. You’d have to walk the area to know about it. Maybe fifteen feet by ten, dotted with low scrub, pebbles, twigs.
    I said, “Not a scratch also means she wasn’t rolled or dumped, more like laid down gently. That also points to a prior relationship.”
    I paced the area. “It was a warm night, love under the stars might’ve sounded like a good idea. If she got out of the car ready to play, there’d be no need to restrain her.”
    “Instead of kissy-poo, she gets boom? Nasty.”
    “Nasty and up close and personal,” I said. “The darkness could’ve shrouded the gun, she might never have known what hit her. Can I see your phone again?”
    He loaded the pictures. I endured every terrible image. “The way she’s lying, she was definitely positioned. And except for that spillover on top, she’s pristine below the face. This was no robbery, Big Guy. Maybe the watch was taken because her hot date gave it to her in the first place.”
    “Bad breakup,” he said.
    “The worst.”
    Milo sniffed the air like a hound, jammed his hands into his pockets, and shut his eyes. A pair of raptors, too distant to identify, circled high above. One swooped, the other continued surveillance. The first bird shot up and nosed its mate with Look-what-I’ve-got exuberance and the couple glided out of sight.
    Something else had died; brunch was on.
    He said, “Robin also get a look at Black Suit?”
    I nodded.
    “And she’s an artistic girl. Think she could do me a drawing?”
    “I suppose.”
    “There’s a problem?”
    “She’s better than average but drawing’s not her thing.”
    “Ah.”
    “Also,” I said, “I haven’t told her anything.”
    “Oh.”
    Up on the road, I said, “I’ll have to tell her eventually, so sure, let’s ask her.”
    “If it’s gonna upset her, Alex, forget it. If you can describe him in enough detail, I can get Petra or one of our other sketch-demons. And if one of those rent-a-goon outfits gives me a lead, I might not need any talent at all. Let’s get outta here.”
    I walked him to the unmarked.
    “Thanks for the cogitation,” he said. “The whole intimacy thing, that’s feeling right.”
    “Ask Robin to draw.”
    “You’re sure.”
    “Go for it.”
    He shrugged. “Whatever you say. I know you like to protect her.”
    “She’s on a project with a deadline, I didn’t want to distract her.”
    “Sure,” he said. “That was it.”
    I followed him back to the station, where he called a few more security companies with no success. I used the time to check for messages.
    Despite the joys of mechanization, I keep an answering service because I like talking to actual people. Lucette, one of the more durable operators, said, “Hey, Dr. Delaware. Looks like I got … five for you.”
    A family court judge I’d never heard of wanted to confer about a custody case. His surname had lots of consonants and I had her spell it.
    The second call was from a Glendale pediatrician who’d interned at Western Pediatric back when I was a psych fellow. She wanted advice on a failure-to-thrive infant that might be Munchausen by proxy.
    Lucette said, “The other three are all from the same person, came in starting at nine, half an hour apart. And I’m talking thirty minutes precisely. Ms. Gretchen Stengel.” She read off the number. “The first two were just her name and number, the third was kind of a strange conversation. If you don’t mind my saying.”
    “Strange,