“A week, ten days, a month, a parsec. Basically, whenever he feels like it. He doesn’t work. Lives off Grandfather’s investments. Which I find a bit Edith Wharton. Even if you don’t need to work, why not do something useful? The plan was for me to get a token brokerage job, marry a rich, dull girl, sire the requisite dull child or two, retire early to a life of calculated indolence. The physics thing really makes Mom irate. ‘That’s work for hire, good for Jews and Chinese.’ She’s convinced I’m going to sire two-headed progeny.”

“Scholarship as rebellion,” I said.

“I could’ve been a dangerous felon or a drug-addled loser or joined the Green Party, but developing a work ethic seemed more subversive…so what else do I remember about Patty Bigelow…attentive to Grandfather, moved fast-as in ambulation. That definitely sticks in my memory. Always rushing around, making sure he had everything he needed. Maybe that was just for Dad’s benefit. If so, it failed. He believes any undue expenditure of energy is a vice. And he didn’t give a shit about Grandfather. They loathed each other.”

“Father-son issues?”

“Oh, boy,” he said. “Compared to them, Dad and I are drinking buds. As to why, no one clued me in on all the dirty little family secrets. Grandfather did appreciate the value of work. He made it on his own, joined the army in ’39-not a West Point deal, he started off as a technical noncom in Texas, ended up a lieutenant colonel designing communications systems in the ETO. After discharge, he got a job in television, switched to optics, then electronic components. He invented resistors and power cells and measurement equipment-oscillators, that kind of thing. Earned himself a slew of patents and made enough money for Mom and Dad to convince themselves we were Mayflower aristocracy.”

His toe nudged the KFC box. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. Maybe it’s what you guys call a demand characteristic-you want me to talk, so I do.”

“That’s a pretty esoteric term.”

“I took some psych as an undergrad. Found it interesting but I needed something less nebulous. Anyway, that’s all I remember about Ms. Bigelow.”

“How’d she come to work here.”

“I was a kid. Why would I know?”

“Sounds as if you were a pretty attentive kid.”

“Not really,” he said. “Actually, I was mostly in my own world. Just like Patty’s daughter, sitting in the bushes. I really need to get back to my calculations. World oil consumption depends on it. If you leave me your number, next time I talk to Dad I’ll tell him to call you.”

“Thanks.” I placed Blanche on the floor and stood.

She trotted straight to him. He chuckled and rubbed her neck. She smiled up at him.

“Cool dog. She can definitely stay here.”

“People keep making that offer.”

“Charisma,” he said. “From what I know of Grandfather he had it in spades.”

“Self-made man.”

“It’s a nice ideal,” he said. “I’ll settle for accomplishing anything.”

Isaac Gomez had sent me an e-mail.

Dear Dr. D,

These are the open homicides with male victims that I was able to find for the time periods you specified, listed in chronological order. I used a geographical criterion of a quarter-mile radius. No cases were found on your exact streets. There’d obviously be a much higher frequency of closed cases.

1. Cherokee Avenue Locus:

A. Rigoberto Alfredo Martinez, 19, gunshot wound to the head

B. Leland William Armbruster, 43, gunshot wound to the chest

C. Gerardo Escobedo, 22, multiple stab wounds to the chest

D. Christopher Blanding Stimple, 20, shotgun wounds to head and torso

2. Hudson Avenue Locus:

A. Wilfred Charles Hong, 43, multiple gunshot wounds to head and torso

3. Fourth Street Locus: no open homicides

4. Culver Boulevard Locus:

A. D’Meetri Antoine Stover, 34, gunshot wound to the torso

B. Thomas Anthony Beltran, 20, gunshot wounds to head and torso

C. Cesar Octavio Cruz, 21, gunshot wound to the head (Beltran and Cruz were murdered during the same incident)

Best wishes and good luck,

Isaac

I forwarded the text to Milo, busied myself with paperwork for a couple of hours, got no callback.

Maybe he’d really gotten into a vacation mode.

Maybe I should, too. No more work over the weekend.

But Sunday morning I was up early, scanning cyberspace for the killings Isaac had found. Wilfred Hong’s unsolved murder was noted on a diamond dealer’s Web site. Gory details and warnings for his colleagues, but no new facts. None of the Hollywood cases were listed but the dual murder of Cesar Cruz and Thomas Beltran received notice in the Times archive. Cruz and Beltran were members of Westside Venice Boyzz with long police records, and their murders were termed “a possible gang retaliation slaying.” I crossed them off, along with Hong.

I clicked away until noon, trying different approaches to the remaining cases, starting with those in the Cherokee Avenue zone. Nothing on three of them, but I unearthed notice of Christopher Blanding Stimple’s death in a newspaper morgue at The Philadelphia Inquirer. Stimple, a Philly native and high school athlete, had been eulogized in a brief, paid-for obituary. His demise was listed as “accidental while Chris was visiting California.”

The family sanitizing the details of a shotgun homicide? No reason to do that in a case of murder, but suicide could inspire shame. Maybe the coroner had closed the case as self-inflicted but that conclusion hadn’t found its way into LAPD records. In any event, I couldn’t see Patty Bigelow blasting a twenty-year-old man with two barrels and crossed off Stimple.

At four p.m., I took a punishing run, showered, made coffee, straightened the house. At six thirty, Robin’s truck pulled up in front of the house.

She jumped out and hugged me hard. “Why do we ever stay apart?”

Moist cheek. Tears weren’t often part of Robin’s repertoire. I tried to draw her face away for a kiss. She hugged me tighter.

I’d made dinner reservations at the Hotel Bel-Air. She said, “I love that place but would you be disappointed if we just stayed in?”

“Shattered and ground to dust.” I canceled and called out for Chinese from a place in Westwood Village.

As she unpacked, she said, “Where’s Blondie?”

“Sleeping.”

“Smart girl.”

She bathed, towel-dried her hair, put on some makeup, and emerged wearing a white sleeveless shift and nothing else. We were kissing in the kitchen when the food arrived. I overpaid the delivery boy, let the food go cold.

By nine, we were sitting near the pond, tossing random bits of egg roll and noodles to the koi.

“They’re Japanese,” she said. “But they sure go for Mandarin.”

“Diversity has made its mark everywhere.”

“Ha…this is so wonderful.” She winced, rubbed the side of her neck.

“Sore?”

“Stiff from all the driving.” Crooked smile. “Also, that last position.”

“New one on me, too,” I said. “Creative.”

“Nothing ventured.”

I got up and massaged her upper shoulders.

“That feels good…a little lower-lower-perfect…I learned one thing over the weekend. The whole convention thing is getting old.”

“Too much like school.”

“Not just the lectures,” she said. “The social scene, too-who’s making money, who’s sleeping with who.”

“You made serious money on the F5,” I said.

“Nice big check for a working girl but petty cash for Mr. Dot-Com.” She rolled her head. “A little lower, still-yes…maybe he’ll even learn to play.”