He turned to the SID team, which was moving outward from the body. “You guys find those panties for me yet?”

“Not yet, Tom.”

“We’re looking, Tom.”

I said, “What panties?”

Graham lifted the girl’s skirt. “Your friend John couldn’t be bothered to finish his examination, but I’d say there’s something significant here. I’d say that’s seminal fluid oozing out of the vagina, she’s not wearing panties, and there’s a red line at the groin where they were ripped off. External genitals are red and raw. It’s pretty clear she had forcible intercourse before she was killed. So I’m asking the boys to find the panties.”

One of the SID team said, “Maybe she wasn’t wearing any.”

Graham said, “She was wearing them, all right.”

I turned back to Kelly. “What about drugs?”

He shrugged. “We’ll get lab values on all fluids. But to the eye, she looks clean. Very clean.” I noticed that Kelly was distinctly uneasy, now.

Graham saw it, too. “For Christ’s sake, what are you hangdog about, Kelly? We keeping you from a late-night date, or what?”

“No,” Kelly said, “but to tell you the truth, not only is there no evidence of a struggle, or of drugs—I don’t see any evidence that she was murdered at all.”

Graham said, “No evidence she was murdered? Are you kidding?”

Kelly said, “The girl has throat injuries that suggest she may have been into one of the sexual bondage syndromes. She has signs beneath the makeup that she’s been tied up before, repeatedly.”

“So?”

“So, technically speaking, maybe she wasn’t murdered. Maybe she experienced sudden death from natural causes.”

“Aw, Christ. Come on.”

“It’s quite possible this is a case of what we call death from inhibition. Instantaneous physiological death.”

“Meaning what?”

He shrugged. “The person just dies.”

“For no reason at all?”

“Well, not exactly. There’s usually minor trauma involving the heart or nerves. But the trauma isn’t sufficient to cause death. I had one case where a ten-year-old kid got hit in the chest with a baseball—not very hard—and fell down dead in the school yard. Nobody within twenty meters of him. Another case, a woman had a minor car accident, banged into the steering wheel with her chest, not very hard, and while she was opening the car door to get out, she dropped dead. It seems to happen where there is neck or chest injury, which may irritate the nerves running to the heart. So, yeah, Tom. Technically, sudden death is a distinct possibility. And since having sex is not a felony, it wouldn’t be murder.”

Graham squinted. “So you’re saying maybe nobody killed her’?”

Kelly shrugged. He picked up his clipboard. “I’m not putting any of this down. I’m listing the cause of death as asphyxiation secondary to manual strangulation. Because the odds are, she was strangled. But you should file it away in the back of your mind that maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she just popped off.”

“Fine,” Graham said. “We’ll file it. Under medical examiner’s fantasies. Meanwhile, any of you guys got an ID on her?”

The SID team, still searching the room, murmured no.

Kelly said, “I think I got a time of death.” He checked his temperature probes and read off a chart. “I register a core of ninety-six point nine. In this ambient room temperature, that’s consistent with up to three hours postmortem.”

“Up to three hours? That’s great. Listen Kelly, we already knew she died sometime tonight.”

“It’s the best I can do.” Kelly shook his head. “Unfortunately, the cooling curves don’t discriminate well for under three hours. All I can say is death occurred sometime within three hours. But my impression is that this girl has been dead a while. Frankly, I would say it’s close to three hours.” Graham turned to the SID team. “Anybody find the panties yet?”

“Not so far, Lieutenant.”

Graham looked around the room and said, “No purse, no panties.”

I said, “You think somebody cleaned up here?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But doesn’t a girl who’s coming to a party in a thirty-thousand-dollar dress usually carry a purse?” Then Graham looked past my shoulder and smiled: “Well, what do you know, Petey-san? One of your admirers to see you.”

Striding toward me was Ellen Farley, the mayor’s press secretary. Farley was thirty-five, dark blond hair cropped close to her head, perfectly groomed as always. She had been a newscaster when she was younger, but had worked for the mayor’s office for many years. Ellen Farley was smart, fast on her feet, and she had one of the great bodies, which as far as anyone knew she retained for her own exclusive use.

I liked her enough to have done a couple of favors for her when I was in the L.A.P.D. press office. Since the mayor and the chief of police hated each other, requests from the mayor’s office sometimes passed from Ellen to me, and I handled them. Mostly small things: delaying the release of a report until the weekend, so it’d run on Saturday. Or announcing that charges in a case hadn’t been brought yet, even though they had. I did it because Farley was a straight shooter, who always spoke her mind. And it looked like she was going to speak her mind now.

“Listen, Pete,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but the mayor’s been hearing some pretty strong complaints from a Mr. Ishiguro—“

“I can imagine—“

“And the mayor asked me to remind you that there is no excuse for officials of this city to be rude to foreign nationals.”

Graham said loudly, “Especially when they make such large campaign contributions.”

“Foreign nationals can’t contribute to American political campaigns,” Farley said. “You know that.” She lowered her voice. “This is a sensitive case, Pete. I want you to be careful. You know the Japanese have a special concern about how they are treated in America.”

“Okay, fine.”

She looked through the glass walls of the conference room, toward the atrium. “Is that John Connor?”

“Yes.”

“I thought he was retired. What’s he doing here?”

“Helping me on the case.”

Farley frowned. “You know the Japanese have mixed feelings about him. They have a term for it. For somebody who is a Japan lover and goes to the other extreme, and turns into a basher.”

“Connor isn’t a basher.”

“Ishiguro felt roughly treated.”

“Ishiguro was telling us what to do,” I said. “And we have a murdered girl here, which everybody seems to be forgetting—“

“Come on, Pete,” she said, “nobody’s trying to tell you how to do your job. All I’m saying is you have to take into account the special—“

She stopped.

She was looking at the body.

“Ellen?” I said. “Do you know her?”

“No.” She turned away.

“You sure?”

I could see she was rattled.

Graham said, “You saw her downstairs earlier?”

“I don’t—maybe. I think so. Listen, fellas, I’ve got to get back.”

“Ellen. Come on.”

“I don’t know who she is, Pete. You know I’d tell you if I did. Just keep it cordial with the Japanese. That’s all the mayor wanted me to say. I’ve got to go now.”

She hurried back toward the elevators. I watched her leave, feeling uneasy.

Graham came over and stood beside me. “She’s got a great ass,” he said. “But she ain’t leveling, buddy, even with you.”

I said, “What do you mean, even with me?”

“Everybody knows you and Farley were an item.”

“What are you talking about?”

Graham punched me on the shoulder. “Come on. You’re divorced now. Nobody gives a shit.”

I said, “It’s not true, Tom.”

“You can do what you want. Handsome guy like you.”

“I’m telling you, it’s not true.”

“Okay, fine.” He held up his hands. “My mistake.”

I watched Farley at the other end of the atrium, ducking under the tape. She pressed the elevator button, and waited for it to come, tapping her foot impatiently.