The Answer Man by Roy Johansen Page A

she couldn’t risk his being seen waiting in her car.
    She rounded a corner and saw, two blocks in the distance, the bright work lights and squad cars that indicated a crime scene. She took a deep breath and pushed onward.
    It was always so easy to distance herself from the unpleasantness of the criminal world when she practiced law in luxurious offices and impersonal courtrooms. They were a far cry from the grit and depressing reality of criminal life on the streets. She liked the distance, the detachment. It was the only way she could defend her clients.
    She wanted to be anyplace but there.
    She stepped closer to the yellow police tape, behind which were the silhouetted figures of several men. Blue flashers from the squad cars bathed the area in a bizarre strobe-light effect, giving those on the outskirts of the scene the appearance of jerky movement, as if in an old silent movie. A familiar form walked toward her.
    “Can I show a girl a good time, or what?”
    It was Rogers. The assistant D.A. smiled and pulled the tape up.
    Myth leaned under and joined him on the other side. “What happened here?”
    “Cop thought he was a bum sleeping in the doorway. Poked him with a nightstick a couple of times, but he wouldn’t wake up.”
    She followed him toward the nucleus of all the activity, where the wattage and attention were most concentrated.
    He smirked. “I hope you got a big retainer up front.”
    She tried to prepare herself for the sight, but her breath still left her when she saw it.
    Burton Sabini’s corpse.
    He was lying in the doorway of an abandoned youth hostel. His eyes were open, and he almost seemed…
alive,
she thought. He was wearing the same expression he wore in countless meetings with her, sitting quietly in his ever-polite, always-patient manner. But now his chest was covered by a large, sopping stain of blood.
    “Multiple stab wounds,” Rogers said.
    A forensic specialist, leaning over the body, shook her head. “Just one. It was enough.”
    Myth couldn’t take her eyes off Sabini. “Does anybody know what happened?”
    Rogers glanced back at the uniformed cops huddled in front of their cars. “Looks like a robbery. His wallet’s missing. They identified him from a tag on his keys.”
    A plainclothes police detective walked past. “Rogers, go home. We’re working.”
    Rogers didn’t budge. He was still looking back at the police line, where the first of the scanner geeks had arrived. A young woman’s long lens was aimed in Myth’s direction.
    Rogers nudged Myth and pointed to the scanner geek. “The kid’s taken a liking to you. If you’re not careful, you might find your photo blown up to poster size in college dorms all over the city. Hmm…I wonder if she’d sell one to
me
?”
    Myth wasn’t in the mood to humor Rogers. She turned from the body.
    Rogers put what was supposed to be a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I think the D.A. might be willing to drop the charges now.” He shrugged. “Just a hunch.”
    —
    Hound Dog adjusted the zoom lens on her camera and snapped four quick pictures. Myth Daniels was here. How strange that mere days after being haunted by that face, sheshould see it in the flesh, Hound Dog thought. And in these grim circumstances, no less. Only after seeing Myth Daniels did Hound Dog realize that the corpse was the man pictured with her in the newspaper.
    Hound Dog lowered her camera. Had she seen Myth Daniels at another crime scene? She didn’t think so. But if not, then where?
    —
    Ken waited impatiently in the car, parked in the shadows of a dark side street. Myth was finally returning after what seemed like hours. He checked his watch. She had been gone only twenty-five minutes. She opened the door and slid behind the wheel.
    “Say it’s not true,” he said.
    She just looked at him. It was true.
    He sat there, stunned, as she started the car and pulled onto the street.
    After a couple of minutes of silence, Myth spoke quietly. “This