The Murder Book by Jonathan Kellerman Page B

shoveling since I let you ride with me — niggers and pachucos offing each other and waiting around for us to pick ’em up and if we don’t, no one gives a shit — you think that’s what the 187 universe is all about?”
    Milo’s face was hot from jawline to scalp. He kept his mouth shut.
    “This…” said Schwinn, pulling a letter-sized, baby blue envelope from an inside suit pocket and removing a stack of color photos. Twenty-four-hour photo lab logo. The Instamatic shots he’d snapped at Beaudry.
    He fanned them out on his skinny lap, faceup, like fortune-teller’s cards. Close-ups of the dead girl’s bloody, scalped head. Intimate portraits of the lifeless face, splayed legs…
    “This,”
he said, “is why we get paid. The other stuff
clerks
could handle.”
    The first seven murders had gotten Milo to think of himself as a clerk with a badge. He didn’t dare agree. Agreement seemed to infuriate the sonofa—
    “You thought you were gonna get some fun for yourself when you signed up to be a Big Bad Homicide Hero,” said Schwinn. “Right?” Talking even faster, but managing to snap off each word. “Or maybe you heard that bullshit about Homicide being for intellectuals and you’ve got that master’s degree and you thought hey, that’s me! So tell me, this look
intellectual
to you?” Tapping a photo. “You think this can be figured out using brains?”
    Shaking his head and looking as if he’d tasted something putrid, Schwinn hooked a fingernail under a corner of a photo and flicked.
    Plink, plink.
    Milo said, “Look, I’m just—”
    “Do you have any idea how often something like this actually gets closed? Those clowns in the Academy probably told you Homicide has a seventy, eighty percent solve rate, right? Well, that’s
horseshit
. That’s the stupid stuff — which should be a hundred percent it’s so stupid, so big fucking deal, eighty percent.
Shit.
” He turned and spit out the window. Shifted back to Milo. “With
this
” —
plink plink
— “you’re lucky to close four outta ten. Meaning most of the time you lose and the guy gets to do it again and he’s saying ‘Fuck you’ to
you
just like he is to
her
.”
    Schwinn freed his fingernail and began tapping the snapshot, blunt-edged index finger landing repetitively on the dead girl’s crotch.
    Milo realized he was holding his breath, had been doing it since Schwinn launched the tirade. His skin remained saturated with heat, and he wiped his face with one hand.
    Schwinn smiled. “I’m pissing you off. Or maybe I’m scaring you. You do that — with the hand — when you’re pissed off or scared.”
    “What’s the point, Pierce?”
    “The point is you said I learned a lot, and I didn’t learn dick.”
    “I was just—”
    “Don’t
just
anything,” said Schwinn. “There’s no room for just, there’s no room for bullshit. I don’t need the brass sending me some… fly-by-night master’s deg—”
    “Fuck that,” said Milo, letting out breath and rage. “I’ve been—”
    “You’ve been watching me, checking me out, from the minute you started—”
    “I’ve been hoping to learn something.”
    “For what?” said Schwinn. “So you can add up the brownie points, then move on to an ass-warming job with the brass. Boy-o, I know what you’re about—”
    Milo felt himself using his bulk. Moving closer to Schwinn, looming over the skinny man, his index finger pointing like a gun. “You don’t know shi—”
    Schwinn didn’t yield. “I know assholes with master’s degrees don’t stick with
this
.”
Tap tap.
“I
know
I don’t wanna waste my time working a whodunit with a suck-up intellectual who all he wants to do is climb the ladder. You got ambition, find yourself some suck-up job like Daryl Gates did, driving Chief Parker’s car, one day that clown’ll probably end up chief.”
Taptaptap.
“
This
ain’t career-building, muchacho. This is a
whodunit
. Get it?
This
likes to munch on your insides,