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Milo withdrew and looked at me. “This is Alex Delaware.”
Doug March didn’t follow his gaze. “We can sit down.” As if he’d been debating it.
He led us back to the fireplace. Warm day but a fire raged. Curious. Then I noticed the oddities: silent, not a hint of crackle; no logs or gas jets or any other type of fuel. Pale licks of blue-tipped flames peaked uniformly.
Some kind of holographic gizmo.
March returned to a corpulent brocade armchair. He had the kind of bony body that seems to diminish when it settles, as if inadequately supported by musculature. Crossing his legs had the effect of compressing him further.
When we’d sat, he said, “Who killed my wife?”
Milo said, “You know about it.”
“A police detective supposedly calls me from L.A.? I check him out.”
“Supposedly.”
“I get all sorts of bogus calls. Obviously, yours wasn’t. I learned you handle homicides. Add to that Meagin not answering my calls and it wasn’t hard to figure out.”
“Ah,” said Milo. “Sorry about your loss.”
“Thanks,” said March. “Though I’m sure you say that to everyone. So what happened?”
“Your wife was shot to death either late Saturday night or early Sunday morning.”
“Where?”
“At a man’s house. He was killed, as well.”
Doug March blinked. Swept hair away from the hidden eye and looked at the faux fire. “A man. May I ask who?”
“His name was Giovanni Aggiunta.”
March shook his head. “Means nothing to me.” Studying the flames had swept his eyes past me. Now they swept back and focused on Milo. Someone used to dealing with bosses, no time for underlings.
Which was fine. More opportunity for me to study him.
His eyes were dry, his narrow, pale face, inert. The only trace of anxiety, rapid clenching and unclenching of pale, delicate hands.
“A man,” he said. “Were the circumstances what I assume they were?”
“What do you assume, sir?”
“A liaison,” said Doug March. “Where does this guy live?”
“Not far from here,” said Milo. “Maybe a mile and a half north.”
“Bel Air.”
“Yes, sir.”
“A mile and a half. Well within Meagin’s running ability. She’d started running at night. I didn’t suspect anything but looks like I should have. Why change her routine all of a sudden? Why run at night when she had all day to do it?”
“When did the routine change, sir?” said Milo.
Doug March said, “You don’t need to call me sir. No one in my company does that, it’s stuffy.”
“What would you prefer?”
