Serpentine

Chapter 28

The war room was an interview space on the second floor, down the hall from Milo’s office. He’d set up two rolling whiteboards and a long folding table with five plug-in landlines. Four chairs along the length, one at the head. A smaller round table in the corner held a coffee urn, cups, and pink boxes from a bakery he passes driving from his house in West Hollywood to the station.

No crumbs. Everyone in work mode, reading and writing, the phones unused.

My friend’s relative independence from departmental routine comes with hitches. One of them is that unlike other lieutenants, he has no one under his direct command and when the need for support comes up he’s forced to petition his captain. What he calls “the bended knee routine.”

Coming from a semi-freelance not on the department’s books, any request on Swoboda would be deemed iffy. But helped along by Ellie’s call, he’d done okay, scoring a team of three. Two faces I knew well, one I’d never seen before.

At the left end of the long table, Detective Moses Reed, muscle-bound, crew-cut, ruddy, and baby-faced, sifted through paper and made notes. He looked up for a sec and finger-waved. So did Detective I Alicia Bogomil, ponytailed, raptor-eyed, and clean-featured, positioned next to him.

To Alicia’s right a uniformed officer kept squinting in concentration.

No sign of D II Sean Binchy, the usual third leg of the investigatory tripod.

Milo was on his feet, near one of the boards. He said, “Hey,” and that drew the uniform away from her pen and pencil.

Young — early twenties — with big, black, startled eyes and French-braided hair the same color. J. Arredondo.

Milo settled next to her, which stretched her eyes wider. He indicated the chair at the head. “Doctor.”

I said, “Position of honor?”

“Who better? Officer, this is Dr. Delaware, the psychologist I told you about.”

Whatever he’d told J. Arredondo made her gnaw her lower lip and look at me with uncertainty.

I smiled and held out my hand. “Alex.”

Her palm was moist. “Jen.”

Milo said, “Sean’s on vacation so patrol gave us this fine officer for a few days.”

Arredondo’s soft, rosy mouth allowed itself a tremulous smile.

I sat and read the boards. Both were filled with columns of hash marks labeled P, N, F, and V? Entire sections were slashed with diagonal lines.

I said, “Tips?”

Milo nodded and picked up a sheet. “Here’s where we are, so far. The department missing site pulled up sixteen. A couple looked promising but didn’t pan out.”

Jen Arredondo’s frown said she’d been assigned to that sift.

“The websites,” he went on, “were the usual mixed blessing. From five of them, we got two hundred ninety responses. Those we divided into prankster, nutcase, flaky psychic, and potentially valid. Finished that tally yesterday and got it down to... a hundred and two possibles. Those people we’ve begun emailing, asking for phone numbers and recording each contact for follow-up. Responses are trickling in so we’re repeating, sometimes three, four times. Of the people we actually spoke to, very little has turned out promising. Wrong time period, wrong age, physical stats not even close. Despite the dates I listed, some people were decades off.”

I said, “Desperation distracts.”

“Yeah, there’s a whole lot of wishful thinking out there.”

He put the paper down. “I pulled a few possibles for my own review. There are plenty of initials to go, and new tips may come in over time. If Officer Arredondo is still with us, she’ll be handling them.”

Arredondo said, “Yes, sir.”

Alicia said, “Wishful thinking and sad endings, Doc. With death records so accessible, whoever runs the sites could’ve pared down.”

Moe said, “The volume the sites deal with, they probably don’t deal with that.”

“Well, they should,” she said. “Searching for the truth and going public means responsibility.”

Milo said, “We must be talking about a different internet.”

Moe smiled. Alicia shrugged and returned to work.

Arredondo had followed the interchange with fascination.

Milo said, “The deaths do create an issue. We have no obligation to inform family members but morally I think we need to. But my feeling is don’t take the time now, wait and see what the final pile looks like.”

I said, “Make sense.”

He smiled at Arredondo: “I turn to him for occasional validation.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Whenever we do notify, Officer, you won’t have to be part of it.”

“I don’t mind, sir.”

“Appreciate the can-do attitude but it’s the part of the job we hate and you don’t need to put yourself through it.”

“Okay, sir.”

He turned to me. “Let’s take a walk.”

Out in the hallway, I said, “A real walk or just away from there?”

He crooked a thumb toward his office. When we got there, I squeezed into a corner and sat on an inhospitable plastic chair as he worked his bulk between me and his desk.

“Impressive phone bank,” I said. “What disease are we combating?”

“How about chronic deceptivitis?”

“Good cause. I hear it’s an epidemic.”

“Goddamn pandemic. So why after that dog-and-pony no-show you just heard did I call you over? I want to show you a couple of possibles that slightly vibrate my antenna. One of mine, one Alicia pulled up.”

“You didn’t want the troops to know because...”

“Both will likely dud out and I don’t want them to lose momentum.”

He opened a desk drawer and drew out a sheet of yellow legal paper. In the center, his back-slanted cursive:

Below that, two emails.

bjowen@mindbody.net had written:

A 310 prefix.

ncstrat@petalsworth.com had written:

I said, “Both sound pretty reasoned.”

“That’s what impressed me. Cautious, no hyped-up, mouth-breathing crusade, and the timing’s right.”

“You’ve been getting a lot of over-exuberance.”

“Oh, Lord. The Web is catnip for the loosely wired. I searched our files for both of them, came up empty and checked out the sources. Bella Owen’s forty-three, single, works at a day spa in Brentwood. Bodywork, reflexology, yoga, skin care. Ergo the mind — body dominion in her address, which did make me wonder. But it belongs to her employer and there’s nothing spacey on her social network. Friends, dogs, cats, outdoor sports, wine. Strattine’s forty-five, married, kids, works as a sales rep for a big rose grower in Tyler, Texas. Apparently it’s the place for bounteous blossoms. So you agree, worth looking into.”

“I do.”

“Owen’s local so maybe I can get over to her today or tomorrow. Or, if Strattine’s heading back soon, she’ll be the priority. Want me to call you when I connect?”

“Definitely.”

“Good. How about some grub?”

“Robin’s planning on dinner around seven. I’ll tell her for three.”

“No, no, no, don’t wanna wear out the welcome mat.”

“You haven’t seen what our new mat says.”

“What’s that?”

“Seekers of truth welcome, others tolerated.”

He laughed hard enough to wheeze, loosened his tie, stretched arms and legs and neck, pulled out a panatela and passed it from hand to hand.

We stepped out into the corridor.

He said, “If I talk to Owen and Strattine and lose enthusiasm, I won’t bother calling you. Now go home and get all romantic. The kids get piqued, I call out for pizza. Maybe calzones.”

“Moe will want salad and lean protein.”

“Whatever. Meanwhile, I will chase any damn truth I can find.”

I got home by six fifteen, peered out the back door and saw lights on in Robin’s studio. Pulling a couple of steelhead fillets from the freezer, I set them out to thaw. Leftover coleslaw that had somehow eluded Milo got tossed with carrot shreds, sesame oil, and glass noodles. I found some mushrooms and sautéed them, made a dry rub of chili powder, cumin, turmeric, coriander, salt, and pepper for the fish, fetched a tablecloth and set the table.

Two tall, beeswax tapers, long forgotten at the back of the linen closet, caught my eye, and I placed them in the center in glass stands. The fish had warmed minimally so I finished thawing with forty-five seconds in the microwave and began the rubdown.

That done, I called over to the studio. “Hi, baby. ETA?”

Robin said, “Another twenty, twenty-five, plus ten for me to clean up and we can go.”

“Sure. Where?”

“You pick.”

“Deal.”

Eighteen minutes later, she and Blanche entered the kitchen. Lights off but for the candles, slaw in the fridge, steelhead crispy-skinned and sizzling.

Robin said, “Whoa. Milo had good news?”

“Not particularly.”

“So what are we celebrating?”

“Who needs a reason?”

“So romantic.” She kissed me.

No point telling her he’d given me the idea.