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Twelve years!”
    “Please.”
    “The way Borland tells it, the guy's running around in his BVDs screaming stepkid's name in the streets. Local cops hauled the kid in, worked him through the drill—he's fourteen—but he sails with flying colors. Sleeping over at a friend's house, he tells 'em. The friend checks out, parents back it up. Meanwhile, the fire guys rule the house accidental. Said the stepdad fell asleep smoking a cigarette. Whoomp!”
    “And Borland's just laying this all out.”
    “Like he's driving the tram at Universal Studios. Says the stepfather got canned at the insurance company before the week was out. Left the mother, moved to the Meadowlands to sell Jacuzzis.”
    Timms shook his head again.
    “Some story, huh?”
    “Some story.”
    “That's about where Borland leaves it. Says everybodyin the neighborhood knew the Kindler kid did it, but nobody was crying over the stepdad leaving town, and the cops and the marshals had no reason not to be satisfied with the cigarette theory. Guy was a known boozer. He gets plowed, passes out watching television in the chair, drops his Camel on a pile of newspapers, should be counting his blessings he's alive. Next case.”
    She leaned forward, still acting out her meeting with Lane Borland. Though he hadn't known Drea Munoz a great deal of time, Timms had come to enjoy his partner's demonstrative narrative style. She was the original Type A personality. The A stood for Attitude.
    “Then he gets all hush-hush, right? I mean he actually looks this way, looks that way.” She looked to her left and to her right as she spoke. “Walks over and shuts his office door. I mean, he's playing this for all it's worth, trying to show me how serious he is. Says he really can't tell me much more. For personal safety reasons, he says. It could be that Kindler ended up getting recruited by some pros later on, he tells me. But he really wouldn't know.”
    “Interesting, ” Timms said.
    “I thought you'd like it.” Drea settled back to her side of the booth again. “So what do you think?”
    Timms didn't need to think about it. “I think the whole thing stinks. That letter sticks in my craw.”
    Monday morning, after putting in his own court appearance for a previous case, Timms had gone home to lose the suit and the tie and found an unmarked, dun-colored business envelope with his personal mail. The envelope contained a plain white sheet of paper with a typed note. Not printed from a computer: actually typed on a typewriter. The note read:
    Detective Timms,

The man you need to speak with is named Andrew Kindler. He's staying at the enclosed address. He will not be expecting you.

Yours,

David Lomax
    If not for the signature at the bottom, Timms would have tossed the letter on the pile along with the thousand other bogus tips and cheap pranks they'd received so far. But at a glance, compared to documents they'd collected from Lomax's office files, the sig looked close enough to earn a flag and a follow-up.
    “I swung by the lab on my way here, ” Drea said. “No prints. They're still looking at it.”
    Timms nodded. “I already checked in.”
    “Say we're taking this guy Kindler seriously. Theoretically, what? An OC angle, maybe?”
    Timms shrugged. Nothing about the case had pointed to an organized-crime connection before now. “Possibility.”
    “Possible enough to haul him in?”
    “Don't see what good it would do us at this point, ” Timms said. “Theoretically, he'd just play dumb and go home. Or take off.”
    “We could put Reese and Carvajal on the Baltimore thing. See if they can dig up any ties with Lomax or Tavlin there.”
    “Somebody besides us is already looking into Kindler, ” he said. “Guy was snapping photos of the house while I was there.”
    “No shit.”
    “Nope. Kindler came up with a story. Said the house is on celebrity maps.”
    “And?”
    “Not on any I could find.”
    “He's quick on his feet, though, ” Drea said. “How'd