The Murder Book by Jonathan Kellerman

lightest of blue eyes, and the victim’s had been deep brown. Another clerical screwup, no one bothering to note eye color in the Wilshire Division MP file.
    He left the Jacobs house sweating and tired, found a pay phone outside a liquor store at Third and Wilton, got Schwinn on the line, and gave a lack-of-progress report.
    “Morning boy-o,” said Schwinn. “Haul yourself over here, there might be something.”
    “What?”
    “Come on back.”
     
     
    When he got to the Homicide room, half the desks were full, and Schwinn was balancing on two legs of his chair, wearing a nice-looking navy suit, shiny white-on-white shirt, gold tie, gold tie tack shaped like a tiny fist. Leaning back precariously as he chomped a burrito the size of a newborn baby.
    “Welcome home, prodigious son.”
    “Yeah.”
    “You look like shit.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Don’t mention it.” Schwinn gave one of his corkscrew smiles. “So you learned about our excellent record-keeping. Cops are the worst, boy-o. Hate to write and always make a mess out of it. We’re talking barely literate.”
    Milo wondered about the extent of Schwinn’s own education. The topic had never come up. The whole time they’d worked together, Schwinn had parceled out very few personal details.
    “Clerical screwups are the fucking rule, boy-o. MP files are the worst, because MP knows it’s a penny ante outfit, most of the time the kid comes home, no one bothers to let them know.”
    “File it, forget it,” said Milo, hoping agreement would shut him up.
    “File it,
fuck
it. That’s why I was in no big hurry to chase MP.”
    “You know best,” said Milo.
    Schwinn’s eyes got hard. Milo said, “So what’s interesting?”
    “
Maybe
interesting,” Schwinn corrected. “A source of mine picked up some rumors. Party on the Westside two days before the murder. Friday night, upper Stone Canyon — Bel Air.”
    “Rich kids.”
    “Filthy rich kids, probably using Daddy and Mommy’s house. My source says there were kids from all over showing up, getting stoned, making noise. The source also knows a guy, has a daughter, went out with her friends, spent some time at the party, and never came home.”
    Maybe interesting.
    Schwinn grinned and bit off a wad of burrito. Milo had figured the guy for a late-sleeping pension-sniffing goldbrick and turned out the sonofabitch had been working overtime, doing a solo act, and
producing
. The two of them were partners in name, only.
    He said, “The father didn’t report it to MP?”
    Schwinn shrugged. “The father’s a little bit… marginal.”
    “Lowlife?”
    “Marginal,” Schwinn repeated. Irritated, as if Milo was a poor student, kept getting it wrong. “Also, the girl’s done this before — goes out partying, doesn’t come home for a few days.”
    “If the girl’s done it before, why would this be different?”
    “Maybe it’s not. But the girl fits stat-wise: sixteen, around five-seven, skinny, with dark hair, brown eyes, nice tight little body.”
    An appreciative tone had crept into Schwinn’s voice. Milo pictured him with the source — some street letch, the source laying it on lasciviously. Hookers, pimps, perverts, Schwinn probably had a whole stable of lowlifes he could count on for info. And Milo had a master’s degree…
    “She’s supposed to be cute,” Schwinn went on. “No virgin, a wild kid. Also, at least one time before, she got herself in trouble. Hitchhiking on Sunset, got picked up by some scrote who raped her, tied her up, left her in an alley downtown. A juicehead found her, lucky for her he was just a bum, not a perve fixing to get himself some sloppy seconds. The girl never reported it officially, just told a friend, and the story made the rounds on the street.”
    “Sixteen years old, tied and raped and she doesn’t report it?”
    “Like I said, no virgin.” Schwinn’s hatchet jaw pulsed, and his Okie squint aimed at the ceiling. Milo knew he was holding back