Desolation

Milo grunted, then gave one of his smiles to Brenda that the waitress clearly appreciated. “Hey there,” he said. “Could I have a coffee, if it’s not too much trouble? Black, no sugar.”

“Regular old coffee,” said Brenda, “you got it. Anything else?”

“Nothing I can think of right now, thank you.”

Brenda nodded, practically curtsied, and hurried away.

“Doesn’t that get annoying?” Amber asked.

“Doesn’t what get annoying?” Milo said.

“That,” said Amber. “Women falling over themselves whenever you smile at them.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, come on. You do that smiley thing and they go weak at the knees every time.”

“That ‘smiley thing’ is me smiling.”

“Yeah, but it’s not, though, is it? You give them the extra big grin to get them blushing.”

“Hate to disappoint you, Amber, but my smile is the same size regardless of who I’m talking to.”

“So you’re telling me that if Brenda was a dude, you’d give him the same smile?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because you’re flirting. Just admit it.”

“I admit no such thing because I’m not flirting. You’ll know when I’m flirting with someone because it’ll be really obvious and really bad.”

“You flirted with that lady back in Cascade Falls.”

“Veronica.”

“And did you or did you not get laid because of it?”

“What I did or did not do is none of your business, but that wasn’t flirting. That was talking. I’m okay at talking, when I’m in a talkative mood, and sometimes talking leads to other things.”

“Some people would call that flirting.”

“I call it being friendly.”

The woman at the next table got up to leave, but dropped her purse. Milo picked it up, handed it back to her. She smiled and he winked and she giggled.

As she walked away, Amber stared at Milo. “You winked at her.”

Milo frowned. “What? No, I didn’t.”

“You so did! You actually winked at her!”

“Did I?”

“I can’t believe you just did that.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Milo said. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“What’s your flirting technique like?”

“I don’t have one,” she said.

“Sure you do.”

Amber shook her head. “It is literally non-existent, and I use literally both in the literal and figurative senses.”

“You just need practice,” Milo said. “Find someone you’d like to flirt with and strike up a conversation.”

“Like who?” she said, laughing.

“I don’t know,” Milo answered, looking around. He nodded to a young guy across the cafe. “How about him?”

Amber smiled. “I don’t think so.”

“Coward.”

“He’s just not my type.”

“What is your type?”

She shrugged. “Not him.”

Brenda came over with Milo’s coffee.

“Thanks very much,” he said. Brenda smiled and blushed and hurried to another table before she melted.

Milo took a sip, and didn’t meet Amber’s gaze.

“Shut up,” he said.

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WHAT HE HAD, and let there be no mistaking this, was a bona-fide mystery on his hands.

A murder mystery, to be exact. How many of those fell into the lap of someone like him every day? A murder mystery with police collusion. He knew what they called that, of course. They called it conspiracy.

Were all the cops in on it? He had no way of knowing. Novak and Woodbury, certainly, and maybe that other one, Officer Duncan. The one that never smiled. He doubted Lucy Thornton was involved – she always struck him as an honest sort of cop. And if Thornton was honest maybe her pal Ortmann was, too. But again he couldn’t be sure. They could all be part of this.