Chapter 3
Chapter
We were still near the deep-freeze when the coroner’s investigators showed up. Not the usual solo or pair. A team of four, paper-suited and gloved and looking purposeful.
Alicia said, “I told them the situation, said they might want backup.”
Two of the C.I.’s were familiar. Gloria Mendez, a former nurse, and Tom Blessingame, a former Torrance cop who’d despised retirement. The other two were tense young men who seemed surprised to be there.
Alicia explained the situation.
Gloria said, “See what you meant. Okay, we’ll figure out how best to do it and let you know once we’re done.”
Nice way of saying scram.
—
Milo, Alicia, and I returned to the front of the house. Fewer neighbors were in sight. Uniforms continued to push buttons, breaking for occasional conversation with one another. The sun was egg-yolk yellow, the air crisp and too pleasant for this situation.
Milo said, “Have you been through the house yet?”
“Not extensively without a warrant, just took a quick look-through with a couple uniforms in order to clear it. It’s like the garage.”
“Hoarder’s palace.”
Alicia nodded. “Except for the kitchen, I guess she needed the space to prepare food. Rest of the house, it’s up to the ceiling with just a couple of skinny aisles for walking through. It’s amazing nothing fell and crushed her. When you knew her, was there any indication she was like that, L.T.?”
“Didn’t know her enough to check out her housekeeping,” he said. “But she always seemed put together.”
“So maybe she changed in old age. Not that uncommon, right, Doc?”
I said, “It happens.” Thinking about dementia, deterioration of the brain’s frontal and prefrontal lobes, the variety of changes that could cause. I’ve seen severe cognitive decline but also humorless people suddenly enjoying jokes because their inhibitions have been stripped away.
Brand-new obsessions, as well, which could explain the hoarding.
Milo said, “Someone managed to get in there and make sure her death wasn’t accidental. Any blood in the kitchen?”
“Not that I saw,” said Alicia. “The whole place smells stale. You know, musty. But none of that smell that I could tell. Still, we’re going to need time to plow through all of it. Any chance I can have Moe and Sean?”
“Captain okays it, sure. She doesn’t, I’ll help.”
“Teamwork leads to dream-work? Thanks, L.T. So she was one of us, huh?”
“Literally,” he said. “Westside station, Homicide. One of the first women to do it. When I started out she was already a veteran. Then—ten or so years ago she transferred to something small-time at another station. Theft, Fraud, not sure.”
“That’s a come-down,” said Alicia. “She ever say why?”
“Nope, just there one day, gone the next.”
I said, “Ten years ago she was in her sixties. Maybe the hours got too tough for her.”
Or she’d sensed her own decline and wanted lower stakes. No sense bringing that up at this point and complicating matters.
Milo said, “It’s probably too ancient of a history to be relevant.”
He tapped a foot, looked around and frowned. “Martha and I didn’t hang out much but she treated me well.”
Alicia nodded but I wasn’t sure she got it.
I did.
The unspoken words: As opposed to.
Remembering the bad old days when gay cops didn’t “exist” in LAPD.
Given that state of affairs, Milo had never advertised his sexuality but neither had he hidden it.
Police departments have supersonic grapevines and he’d suffered through a whole lot of whispered innuendo and not-so-covert comments, homosexual porn stuffed into his locker, the occasional spit-gob of vile graffiti, and social isolation that intensified when a partner dropped him, egged on by a wife’s religious views.
Either that destroys you or you push through it. Milo’s solution had been to cast aside comradeship and learn to go it alone as he overachieved his way to a solve rate better than anyone else’s. Finally accomplishing an uneasy stability that carried him into changing times.
Alicia said, “Did you work cases together?”
“Nope. She had her own load and was only there for a year or so before moving on.”
“Anything you can tell me about her family?” Her tone had changed. Bye-bye deference to a superior, hello investigative probing.
Milo said, “Widowed, husband had also been on the job. Wilshire patrol, I think. By the time I met her, he was gone. Heart attack or stroke, something along those lines.”
“Any kids?”
“Not that she ever mentioned.”
Alicia smiled. “This is different, no? Interviewing you.”
Milo smiled back. “Live long enough, everything happens.” He turned to me: “Same question as before: Why cut off the arms?”
I said, “If you’re looking for something psychologically profound I don’t have it.”
“Yet,” he said.
Alicia said, “Second the motion on yet.”
I said, “Appreciate the optimism.”
Milo said, “Caught it from you.”
Alicia said, “Doc, could disabling the arms be a symbolic way of weakening her?”
“Sure.”
“But maybe not?”
I shrugged.
She laughed. “Okay, I’ll hold off bugging you until we know more.” She turned to Milo. “Want to start with the neighbor who called in the welfare check or Meade and Santos?”
“Let’s start with Meade and Santos. Gonna be a shorter conversation, then they can join the canvass.”
Alicia looked over at the idling uniforms and grimaced. “I know, it hasn’t started. Sorry, got caught up back there.”
“Understandable. Which ones are Meade and Santos?”
“They’re inside their car, the first one, closest to mine. Last time I checked just sitting there looking stunned.”
“No phone games?” said Milo. “Guess Grand Theft Auto can’t compete with reality.”