He was hunched over some papers. The tip of his tongue protruded from the corner of his narrow mouth. The pen in his right hand tapped his blotter very fast. His nails were shiny.
When Milo cleared his throat, the tongue zipped in and an eager grin took hold of Paprock’s face. Despite the smile, his face was tired, the muscles loose and droopy. His eyes were small and amber. The suit gave them a khaki tint.
“Gentlemen. How can I help you?”
Milo said, “Mr. Paprock, I’m Detective Sturgis, Los Angeles police,” and handed him a card.
The look that took hold of the salesman next–What are you hitting me with this time?–made me feel lousy. We had nothing to offer him and plenty to take.
He put his pen down.
I caught a side view of a photo on his desk, propped up next to a mug printed with the Cadillac crest. Two round-faced, fairhaired children.
The younger one, a girl, was smiling, but the boy seemed to be on the verge of tears.
Behind them hovered a woman of around seventy with butterfly glasses and cold-waved white hair. She resembled Paprock, but she had a stronger jaw.
Milo said, “Sorry to bother you, Mr. Paprock, but we’ve come across another homicide that might be related to your wife’s and wondered if we could ask you a few questions.”
“Another–a new one?” said Paprock. “I didn’t see anything on the news.”
“Not exactly, sir. This crime occurred three years ago–” “Three years ago? Three years and you’ve just come across it? Did you finally get him?”
“No, sir.”
“Jesus.” Paprock’s hands were flat on the desk and his forehead had erupted in sweat. He wiped it with the back of one hand. “Just what I need to start off the week.”
There were two chairs facing his desk. He stared at them but didn’t say anything else.
Milo motioned me into the office and closed the door behind us. There was very little standing room. Paprock held a hand out to the chairs and we sat. A certificate behind the desk said he’d been a prizewinning salesman. The date was three summers ago.
“Who’s the other victim?” he said.
“A man named Rodney Shipler.”
“A man?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A man–I don’t understand.”
“You don’t recognize the name?”
“No. And if it was a man, what makes you think it has anything to do with my Myra?”
“The words bad love’ were written at the crime scene.”
“‘Bad love,'” said Paprock. “I used to dream about that. Make up different meanings for it. But still. ..”
He closed his eyes, opened them, took a bottle out of his desk drawer.
Enteric aspirin. Popping a couple of tablets, he dropped the bottle into his breast pocket, behind the colored handkerchief.
“What kind of meanings?” said Milo.
Paprock looked at him. “Crazy stuff–trying to figure out what the hell it meant. I don’t remember. What’s the difference?”
He began moving his hands around, stirring the air very quickly, as if searching for something to grab. “Was there any– some sign of—was this Shipler. .. what I’m getting at is, was there something sexual?”
“No, sir.”
Paprock said, “‘Cause that’s what they told me they thought it might mean. The first cops. Some psychotic thing–using–sex in a bad way, some sort of sex nut. A pervert bragging about what he did–bad love.”
Nothing like that had been in Myra Paprock’s file.
Milo nodded.
“A man,” said Paprock. “So what are you telling me? The first cops had it all wrong? They went and looked for the wrong thing?”
“We don’t really know much at all at this point, sir. Just that someone wrote bad love’ at the scene of Mr. Shipler’s homicide.”
“Shipler.” Paprock squinted. “You’re opening the whole thing up again, cause of him?”
“We’re taking a look at the facts, Mr. Paprock.”
Paprock closed his eyes, opened them, and took a deep breath. “My Myra was taken apart. I had to identify her. To you that kind of thing’s probably old hat, but. ..” Shake of the head.
“It’s never old hat, sir.”
Paprock gave him a doubtful look. “After I did it–identified hen-it took me a long time to be able to remember her the way she used to be.