Asiette kissed me and then moved on along the inside stream. The touch, kiss, and the fact she did all this while I was on a call meant that she was emphasizing the break between us. We might never see each other as lovers again.

“One time me and Craig had to move out of my house for a week because of rodents,” Lola was saying.

I let her talk because it seemed to make her feel better.

As Lola jabbered Asiette made her way to the door and let herself out.

“It was just a shadow,” I said. “Nothing real.”

I didn’t sleep that night. Asiette’s overly dramatic breakup made me feel alone. And because I had serious problems before me, I found that I was able to concentrate on how to pursue a case where the client was dead. I still hadn’t accomplished the tasks Craig and his mother had set before me. The man Craig had stabbed and the woman that man had savaged were yet to be accurately identified. And there was a third man, that’s what Christmas Black said.

“How old is Uncle Milo?” Feather asked at the breakfast table later that morning.

“Twenty-five or six,” I said. “Why did you want him to swim with you?”

“He needed a bath,” she said, crinkling her nose. “Can I call him sometime?”

I wanted to say no. I wanted to protect her from anything that might bring her pain.

“There’s a number in my phone book for a guy named Terry Aldrich. Call there and ask for Milo.”

She grinned and nodded.

“But, Feather,” I said in a stern tone.

She looked up at me, sans smile.

“I don’t want him up here unless I’m with you.”

“Okay.”

After that we ate our shirred eggs and bacon, strawberry jam on pumpernickel, and figs cooked in their own juices.

When the house phone rang I was wondering about the Stephanopoulos Talent Agency.

“Hello?”

“I need to see you,” Melvin Suggs rumbled.

“It’s Sunday,” I complained.

“And you think murder’s gonna take the day off and go to church to confess?”

“Talk about what?”

“Face-to-face,” he said. “The usual place.”

When Melvin was gruff like that he most often hung up without another word. But the phone made some airy noises and a woman’s voice came over the line.

“Hey, Easy,” Mary Donovan said. “How are you?”

“Okay. How about you, Mary?”

“Still in the same skin and liking it just fine, thank you very much.”

Our chatter seemed to be about nothing on the surface of things, but Mary and I communicated on subterranean levels. Just the fact she got on the line told me that this meeting with Mel was going to be something serious.

Mary liked me because she loved Mel and believed that I was his best friend in the business of being a cop.

She might have been right.

26

26