“About what happened to Arlo, you mean?” “Roger that.”

“Jesus, Logan, the broad dumps you like a hot rock and now you’re holding her fuckin’ hand? Is that what happens? You move out there to the People’s Republic of California, next thing you know, you’re joining some masochist cult.”

“I needed the cash.”

“I guess you gotta do what you gotta do, eh?” Buzz said. “Look, I’m not saying what happened to Echevarria made my day, but I can’t say I wasn’t all that broke up when I heard about it, either. The guy was a dirtbag, going after that gal of yours. Last time I had anything halfway good to say about him, you and her were still together. I always thought that was a pretty shitty thing he did.”

I thanked Buzz for his loyalty and asked him to keep me posted on anything else he might pick up through the grapevine on Echevarria’s death. He assured me he’d call, but only if I agreed to buy him a six-pack the next time we crossed paths. I promised him a case.

That Echevarria was contracting for the CIA—“folks across the river,” as Buzz put it — wasn’t surprising. A lot of pensioners double dip as independent contractors after retiring from any number of federal intelligence organizations. What was surprising was that the CIA was actively investigating the murder. Typically, the agency let sleeping dogs lie. Probing the suspicious death of a covert operative can make it easier for foreign intelligence agents to confirm that the operative did, in fact, have ties to Langley. Other operators could be compromised as a result, along with the methods they used to carry out their clandestine missions. Whole spy networks have been unraveled virtually overnight in such fashion, their members rounded up and summarily shot.

Buzz had indicated that Echevarria was doing routine work for the CIA when he died, performing non-classified background checks on job applicants. Hardly cloak and dagger stuff. Why, then, would the agency continue probing his death when the LAPD’s investigation remained ongoing? There had to be something else to it.

I considered calling some of my other former colleagues from Alpha to see what they might know. But even if they knew anything, I knew they wouldn’t tell me. I’d jumped ship, left them in my wake. As far as they were all concerned, I was just another civilian puke.

“What’s the deal with place mats?”

“They keep food off the table. Plus, they look nice.”

“Why do they always have to match the napkins?”

“Because they just do,” Savannah said. “Now eat.”

She set a steaming plate of macaroni and cheese down on the plum-colored place mat in front of me, which matched the plumcolored linen napkin on my lap. Along with the mac ’n’ cheese came tomato wedges on the side, artfully arranged, topped with fresh-ground pepper.

I was sitting in a corner nook of Savannah’s kitchen. The table and benches were made of wormwood. There was a bay window. The view was of the black-bottom pool and the green Hollywood hills beyond.

“Nice crib.”

“Remember that little condo near Golden Gate Park, right after we got married? I always did like that place,” Savannah said.

I remembered. Best time of my life. “Macaroni needs salt,” I said.

She grabbed a salt mill from the cooktop and a plate for herself. On the table were two crystal wine stems and an uncorked bottle of eight-year-old Petite Sirah from some vineyard in the Napa Valley that I probably would’ve been impressed by had I known the first thing about vino. She took a seat and poured me a glass without asking.

“Forgot the salad.”

She slid out from the bench and crossed the twenty feet to the refrigerator, a massive, industrial-looking monster with stainless-steel doors that seemed out of place with the plank floors and antiquewhite cabinets. She got out a large blue ceramic bowl and brought it back to the table along with a set of silver tongs. The salad was spinach leaves topped with crescent moons of fresh avocado slices and finished with a raspberry vinaigrette. A salad for girls.

“Why would Arlo willingly move out of a palace like this?”

“Give me your plate.”

“The question still stands, Savannah. Why did he leave you?”

She paused, my plate in one hand, the salad tongs in the other. I waited.

“Arlo, he, um, he found out that I had…” She cleared her throat and avoided my eyes. “That I had slept with someone else.”

“You cheated on him?”

“It was a mistake.”

I felt a sudden surge of moral righteousness, even if I had no right to.

“Was he a flight attendant?”

“Go to hell, Logan.”

She dumped the tongs in the salad bowl and strode to the sink, her back turned to me, leaning on the polished granite countertop with both hands. Her shoulders shuddered almost imperceptibly. I could tell she was crying.

“Did you tell the police about this mistake of yours?”

“It had nothing to do with what happened to Arlo.”

“How do you know that?”

She turned back toward me, her cheeks wet with tears. “It was a stupid thing to do. It meant nothing, OK? — nothing.”

“Obviously, it meant something to Arlo.”

Savannah sighed and swiped at her eyes with both hands. “I suppose I deserved that,” she said.

She seemed almost eager to tell me about how the “mistake” happened, as if by describing the spontaneous nature of it, she could explain away the guilt she obviously still carried as a result of it. Her father, she said, had invited Arlo and her out for the weekend to Palm Springs where he was attending a meeting with some potential investors. She and Arlo had been arguing.

“What were you arguing about?”

“He wanted to stay home and watch a baseball game or something. I don’t really remember.”

“So you went to Palm Springs alone.”

Savannah shrugged. “There was this guy at dinner. I had a little too much to drink. We ended up in his room. I told him the next day never to call me and he never did. That was all it was. One night. End of story.”

“Who was the guy?”

“It doesn’t matter. Some guy, that’s all.”

“You had a fling. You ended it. Maybe the guy gets jealous. Decides he wants you all to himself. Next thing you know, Arlo’s in an urn on your mantle.”

“It wasn’t like that, Logan. It wasn’t anything other than what it was. Which was nothing.”

“Who was he, Savannah?”

“I told you! Some guy. It had nothing to do with what happened to Arlo.”

“Since when did you become a homicide detective?”

Savannah’s mouth parted as she looked at me, like she’d finally figured something out.

“You want to know who I slept with because deep down, it bothers you, knowing the train left the station and you weren’t the last stop. Admit it, Logan. You’re getting some sort of perverse pleasure out of this.”

Perverse pleasure? More like masochistic torture. I dabbed my mouth with my napkin that matched my place mat.

“Thanks for the chow,” I said. “I’m going for a swim.”

I hadn’t thought to bring trunks, so I swam in my boxers. The water in Savannah’s lagoon was wet, warm sunshine. I could see her watching me through the kitchen window.

Some people swim because they like the exercise. Me? I swim, on those rare occasions when I do swim, because it makes me feel like Flipper. Granted, nobody really knows how a dolphin genuinely feels except, perhaps, another dolphin. But I never saw Flipper when he wasn’t smiling. Jumping through flaming hoops, head-butting SCUBA-diving criminals. Saving Ranger Ricks from peril. Always with a smile. We should all be so perpetually cheery. At some point, as I worked on my porpoise kick, Savannah left a couple of plush white bath towels on a chaise lounge poolside.

I was taking a hot shower an hour later when she came storming into the guest bathroom.