"Not a West L.A. case but you're on it."

"Not an official homicide but I'm on it."

The difference between an experienced psychologist and a novice is knowing when not to speak.

I sat back and drank coffee.

Milo said, "Maybe there'll be a microwave and I can heat up the burrito."

Elise Freeman had resided in a green-sided, tar-roofed bungalow on a spidery, tree-shaded lane east of Laurel Canyon and north of Ventura Boulevard. Close enough to the thoroughfare to hear Valley traffic, but mature vegetation and larger houses blocked any urban visuals.

The little green box sat at the terminus of a long dirt driveway split by a strip of concrete. A gray sedan was parked near the front door. Full-sized car but not big enough to hide the bungalow's blemishes as we drew close: worn and ragged siding eroded to raw wood in patches, curling shingles, a noticeable listing to the right due to a sinking foundation.

No crime scene tape that I could see, no uniforms on watch.

I said, "When was she found?"

"Last night by her boyfriend. He says he talked to her on the phone three days ago but after that, she stopped returning his calls. A forty-eight-hour time frame fits the coroner's TOD guesstimate. Probably at the tail end--early morning. Apparently, dry ice doesn't melt, it sublimates--goes straight into the atmosphere--so there's no water residue for estimating degradation. In an ice chest, the rate of sublimation is five to ten pounds every twenty-four hours, but it's faster under normal room temperature."

"Any empty ice bags left behind?"

"Nope. Exactly."

Someone had cleaned up.

"The scene's still intact?"

He scowled. "I never got a chance to see the scene because my involvement began at five thirty a.m. today when Deputy Chief Weinberg woke me from a rare good dream. The DVD, the key to the house, and what's passing for a file were messengered to my house ten minutes later."

"High intrigue and an egregious break in procedure," I said. "Sounds like orders from on high."

He continued slowly up the drive, checking out the surroundings. Layers of greenery to the left, a two-story Colonial mansion to the right. The big house was wood-sided like the bungalow, but what I could see of it was painted white and adorned with black shutters. It sat on a generous lot partitioned from Freeman's skimpy ribbon of real estate by a ten-foot stucco fence topped with used brick. Bougainvillea topped areas of brick, amping up the privacy quotient on both sides.

The smaller structure might've begun life as an outbuilding of the manse, back when multi-acre estates spread across Valley hillsides. A guesthouse, servant's quarters, maybe tack storage for one of the cowboy actors wanting proximity to the Burbank film-lots that passed for Wild West badlands.

Milo rolled to a stop inches from the Crown Vic. No one at the wheel, but a man in a cream-colored suit emerged from behind the bungalow.