Chapter One

Elm-shaded, a softly curving stroll to the University, lined with generous haciendas and California colonials above lawns as unblemished as fresh billiard felt.

Giant elms. Hope Devane had bled to death under one of them, a block from her home, on the southwest corner.

I looked at the spot again, barely exposed by a reluctant moon. The night-quiet was broken only by crickets and the occasional late-model well-tuned car.

Locals returning home. Months past the curious-onlooker stage.

Milo lit up a cigarillo and blew smoke out the window.

Cranking my window down, I continued to stare at the elm.

A twisting trunk as thick as a freeway pylon supported sixty feet of opaque foliage. Stout, grasping branches appeared frosted in the moonlight, some so laden they brushed the ground.

Five years since the city had last pruned street trees. Property-tax shortfall. The theory was that the killer had hidden under the canopy, though no hint of presence other than bicycle tracks, a few feet away, was ever found.

Three months later, theory was all that remained and not much of that.

Milo's unmarked Ford shared the block with two other cars, both Mercedeses, both with parking permits on their windshields.

After the murder, the city had promised to trim the elms. No follow-through yet.

Milo had told me about it with some bitterness, cursing politicians but really damning the cold case.

"A couple of news stories, then nada."

"Current events as fast food," I'd said. "Quick, greasy, forgettable."

"Aren't we the cynic."