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uniforms tape the conversations and feverishly take notes. She must be helping the police get witness statements from the non-English speaking people there.
    My main purpose in coming here is because I’m concerned about the little girl. She was crying when I heard about the murder and I want to make sure she’s holding up… but with fifty police officers to look after her I guess she’ll be okay. This is one of the afternoons when Melvin has his regular appointment at the massage parlor that’s almost next door to the restaurant. I’d like to see the look on his face if he walked out and saw all those uniforms. He’d probably think they were there to raid the massage parlor, because of his insurance/therapy claim.
    After hanging around for a while I pick up the same gossip that will probably be on the evening news. I think that the local news stations have a universal witness or two tucked away that they bring out for occasions like this – a woman with her hair in curlers, or some old fart who needs a shave, and they all say the same things: “gee, he was a quiet guy, always kept to himself,” or “I never thought anything like that would happen in this neighborhood.” All the statements of witnesses and neighbors on local news shows are about the same quality of statements made by professional athletes during locker-room interviews. There must be someone somewhere who teaches these people how to talk without saying anything even remotely interesting… and it passes for local news.
    By the time I pick up the evening’s frozen dinner and newspaper it’s almost six P.M. and I’m not surprised to see who’s on her front porch waiting as I come down the gangway. No doubt she’s already heard about the shooting on the news and wants me to join her for a glass of wine to discuss it. Fortunately my TV dinner is sticking out of the grocery bag, so I have something to point to as I politely give her an apologetic ‘not tonight’ expression and keep on walking to my boat. It sure is a strange feeling to be the one using a ‘not tonight’ excuse, because I’ve been on the receiving end of it so many times.
    After a day or two the parking lot murder no longer gets any time on the local news shows, having been pushed out of the way by more important news events like car-chases, car-jackings, car accidents, drive-by shootings, auto thefts and the auto show - now appearing at the downtown convention center. One gets the impression that if there were no cars in Los Angeles, there would be no news at all.
    Fortunately another job has come in. I receive an e-mail assignment instructing me to look into a certain matter and that a police report is being faxed to me. I’m supposed to dig up whatever info is available on a Robert Palmer, who supposedly lives nearby in a sixteen stories tall group of crescent shaped towers called the Marina City Club that I can see from my boat. The assignment specifies digging up details on corporations he’s involved in. The Culver City police report that comes in by fax is the official crime report on the murdered Chinese restaurant owner. This is strange because those crime reports are supposed to be confidential and I don’t see any connection between it and my present assignment.
    Not being bi-lingual, I decide to do as much research as possible in the nearby Santa Monica Courthouse, instead of the downtown Los Angeles Civic Center. Most of the case files I need are there, as well as the main office of an attorney service my boss authorizes the use of… they can dig through the files downtown, if necessary. Another part of the assignment is rather good to hear... until my investigation is completed, the attorney service is to be given all the papers that needed to be served on people, including Summons & Complaints and subpoenas for depositions.
    When an attorney gets suspended, all of his active clients must be notified so they can seek other counsel to handle their cases. Because