I said, “Fits the guy Moskow described.”

“Read the back.”

I flipped the photo.

Anthony and me, my birthday. I baked a chocolate cake. The writing was elegant cursive. The date was December, two years ago.

“Devoted son lets her bake her own birthday cake,” I said.

I studied Ella Mancusi’s smile some more and realized what was missing. Maternal pride.

Milo said, “I’m figuring he’s an only child because the few photos in the house were all of him, mostly when he was a kid, all the way back to grade school. She held on to his birth certificate and twelve years of report cards. C minus student when he applied himself. There’s one Anthony Mancusi in the county and the only thing on his record is a DUI six years ago, pled down to misdemeanor. If he’s got a drinking problem, doesn’t look to be genetic. The only booze Ella had was a bottle of sherry, unopened, dust all over it.”

He rubbed his face. “She didn’t own much, Alex. All her important papers were in three cigar boxes near her bed. Eighteen years ago she retired from L.A. Unified. Her last job was teaching social studies at Louis Pasteur Junior High, they wrote her a nice letter. She was widowed way before that — when Anthony was a teenager. Husband was Anthony Senior, supervisor at a dairy in Santa Fe Springs, died on the job of a heart attack. The house has been paid off for eleven years, between her pension and Senior’s she did okay. Your basic upstanding, middle-class lady living out her days in a low-crime neighborhood. Why the hell would she end up this way?”

I took another look at the photo. “It’s his mother’s birthday but he wants to be anywhere else. Toss in Moskow’s account of the irate conversation and there’s some kind of issue here. Was there a will in the box?”

He thought. “No. Junior bumps her off to inherit?”

“It’s been known to happen.”

“Sure, it has, but what kind of beast would have his mother carved like a holiday roast?” He motioned for the check. The smiling, bespectacled woman who always serves him hurried over and asked how the meal was.

“Everything was delicious,” he said, slipping her some bills. “Keep the change.”

“This is far too much, Lieutenant.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I give you credit,” she said. “For next time.”

“Don’t bother.”

“I bother.”

Outside the restaurant, he hitched up his trousers and looked at his watch. “Time to talk to Tony Mancusi Junior, our misdemeanor drunk.”

“The lack of a serious record says nothing about a gambling problem,” I said.

“Yeah, but why get involved with living, breathing sharks when you can boot up and use PayPal?”