“Sounds complicated,” she said. “I know who Sturgis is. If I call him, he’ll verify you?”

“Absolutely.”

“Hold on … okay, here you are. He logged you in last year as an authorized recipient of data.”

“Great.”

“Doesn’t look as if you tried to access anything—oops, my bad, access was limited to a single case, unfortunately you’re expired, Doctor.”

Interesting way to put it, given her job. I said, “If you would call him—”

“Hey,” said Szcyszcyk, “he liked you once, he probably still does, and you’re not exactly asking for state secrets. Give me a name and some stats on this vic.”

I rattled off basics on Deirdre Brand. “She’s forty-nine but looks much older so she may be described as elderly.”

“Most of them do,” she said. “When do you figure she came in?”

“Within the past month or two.”

“That’s a big range but seeing as she’s Caucasian, it narrows it down.”

She put me on hold. One salsa version of “Hey Jude” later, she was back on. “No one by that name but I’ve got two possible Jane Does for you. One has no teeth at all, one has a few.”

“Where were they found?”

“City of Industry and Santa Monica.”

“Where in Santa Monica?”

“Questions, questions, questions … Douglas Park on Wilshire. Died at night, morning cleanup crew found her.”

The beach city bordered West L.A. Division but was outside of Milo’s jurisdiction. I said, “Cause of death?”

“Blunt force trauma to the head, manner is listed as undetermined.”

“Blunt force but not a homicide?”

“Undetermined,” she repeated. “Can’t tell you why.”

“Was there food at the scene?”

“Pardon?”

“Any sign she was eating a meal?”

“That wouldn’t be in here, Doctor. Do you have a last known address for your Ms. Brand? I could plug it in and try to cross-reference.”

“None, longtime homeless,” I said. “She does have a record so when you ran AFIS, I’d expect—”

“She’s on AFIS? So why are we even bothering?” said Szcyszcyk.

“I’ve heard sometimes it takes a while for I.D.’s to be logged.”

“Have you? Yeah, well, I wish that wasn’t true but … uh-oh, hold the hearse. Says here we tried to print the body but couldn’t ’cause her fingertips were eroded.”

“From what?”