“No one likes a dead baby, Milo, but the consensus is that we probably don’t have a murdered baby, are most likely dealing with natural causes, some sort of extreme grief reaction. The consensus is also that lacking media input you’d never close it, but that with media exposure you had a minimal chance. Obviously, that hasn’t panned out, so much for good press for the department.”

“This is about P.R.?”

“Have you seen the latest city council budget proposals?”

“I avoid smut.”

“Some of us don’t have that luxury and trust me, it’s bad, we’re talking across-the-board slash-and-burn like I’ve never seen before. Given that, some touchy-feely closure on a poor little baby would’ve been nice.”

“That doesn’t answer my first question, Maria. Why a blackout on the new ones? Closing real murders is gonna make us look even better.”

“Whatever,” she said. “Meanwhile, do not talk to the Times, or anyone else in the media.”

“How do I I.D. my adult victim, let alone a sack of bones?”

“Did your adult victim appear homeless or otherwise a lowlife?” said Thomas.

“No, and that’s exactly why I figured—”

“If she’s not a throwaway, someone will report her missing.”

“So I wait.”

“You do your job and obey directives.”

“Whose secret are we keeping, Maria?”

“Stop whining. Some things are better left unsaid.”

“Not in my business.”

“We’re in the same business.”

“Are we?” he said.

She snickered. “It didn’t take long, did it? The outrage, the self-righteousness, the lonely warrior tilting against windmills.”

“Who’s tilting? I just want to—”

“Listen and listen well because I’m only going to explain it one more time: There’s a strong desire among those responsible for the decisions that govern your professional life to avoid getting lurid with this particular case at this particular juncture.”

“Lurid as in …”

“Yuck-stuff,” she said. “As in more baby bones start popping up all over the place because psychotics get stimulated by coverage. Go ask your shrink friend, he’ll tell you about that kind of thing.”

“Yuck-stuff,” he said, “that just happens to take place in a high-end neighborhood. A dead woman and baby bones in Nickerson Gardens would be a whole different story.”

“Discussion over,” said Thomas.

Click.

Milo swiveled and faced me. “You’re an ear-witness. That actually happened.”

I said, “Your point about which neighborhood got to her. May I?”

As I pulled my chair up to his computer, he rolled his back to give me room.

A check of viprealestate.net subheaded cheviot hills pulled it up in nanoseconds.

Last year, Maxine Cleveland, a recently retired county supervisor, had purchased a “thirteen room Mediterranean manse” on an oversized lot on Forrester Drive in the “leafy upscale district of Cheviot Hills.”