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No matter how full her caseload was, Detective Lydia Adams made a point to stop by and see Mrs. Miller once a month. She usually didn't have anything to report--there'd been a couple call-ins after the newspaper article in May, but nothing had come from them. The case might officially be re-opened, but everyone, even Lydia, knew it would take a miracle to find Princess' killer. And Lydia didn't believe in miracles.
The Princess Miller murder was a new case to her, even though it was seventeen years cold. She felt an obligation to check in, especially once she realized how vulnerable Princess' mother was. Mrs. Miller probably would have been happy to open her door once a week, to offer Lydia the same cookies and coffee she always had waiting, but once a month was often enough to make sure she was doing okay. She figured Mrs. Miller was as aware of the real reason for Lydia's visits as Lydia was, at least most of the time.
She pulled her car up to #682 on the second Tuesday in October, same as every month. Mrs. Miller opened the door just as she was preparing to knock on the iron bars, smiling and inviting her inside. As always, the apartment was neat and tidy, a hamper full of folded laundry next to the washing machine, a pot of coffee and a plate of cookies waiting on the counter.
"How are you today, Detective Adams?" Mrs. Miller asked. "Are you enjoying this fine weather we're having?"
"I'm fine, Mrs. Miller, thank you," Lydia replied, following her into the living room.
"Is there any news on my Princess?"
"No, I'm afraid there aren't any new leads," Lydia said. "I'm still working the case, but the truth is, Mrs. Miller, I don't have very much time for Princess' murder--there are new cases every week, and those take priority."
"I understand, dear," Mrs. Miller said. "I know you're busy, but would you like some coffee? I found one of Princess' old yearbooks, and I thought you might like to see it."
"Sure, Mrs. Miller--coffee would be great," Lydia said, settling down on the couch, feeling the same vague discomfort she always did. At least this seemed like one of Mrs. Miller's good days. "Is this the yearbook, here?"
"Yes, that's it," Mrs. Miller said, sitting down next to her and opening the book to Princess' picture, in the section with the other sophomores, then turning to the seniors to show Lydia a picture of a boy Princess had briefly dated. Lydia knew Princess had dropped out of high school like many of her classmates, but it was still depressing to see just how few pictures there were of graduating seniors.
She dutifully wrote down the name of the boy, even though she already had checked him out after Mrs. Miller had mentioned him in July.
"You back from Miller Time?" Russell asked when she returned to her desk that afternoon.
"You know I don't like it when people call it that, Russ," she said, frowning at an open case file.
"We're cops. Black humor's what we do," he said, perching on the corner of her desk.
"I thought we were supposed to catch criminals," she retorted, wishing he'd leave her alone.
"Geez, Lyd, what's up with you? You have another bad brunch date?"
Now she was really pissed. "I take my job seriously, and you want to blame it on me being single?" she said, closing the file a bit more loudly than she'd intended. "Just shut up, Russell."
"All right, all right, I'm shutting up," he said, holding up his hands. "But remember, I'm here if you want to talk."
Lydia glared at him, and for once it worked--he turned back to his desk.
"You got those witness statements on the Sanchez case?" he asked a few minutes later, and she handed them over without a word.
The rest of their interactions for the day were professional, efficient, and, Lydia had to admit, kind of boring. Russell was far from perfect, but he'd been her partner for three years. She was used to putting up with his puppy dog looks and his tendency to get a little too involved with women's personal lives, whether they were victims, witnesses, or his own partner.
"I'm sorry I bit your head off," she said at the end of their shift.
"No, I'm sorry--that brunch comment was out of line," he answered, and she knew they'd be fine.
Life continued. There was a new run of armed robbery in the Silverlake district that brought her and Russell a couple bodies around Halloween, and then they got detailed to work a couple murders with Nate and Sammy over in gangs. She put in a quick visit to Mrs. Miller the first week in November--she was using all her saved vacation time for a trip to Paris for Thanksgiving, and she wanted to check in on Mrs. Miller before she left.
Lydia had been careful to avoid any discussion of her own life when she visited Mrs. Miller, but this time she let it slip that she was going out of town to see her mother. Before she knew it, they were talking about her mom's move to Paris, her struggles to make it as a chef, and Lydia's worries about what she would do when her mother followed through on her promise to put the house up for sale.
"At least you'll be with her for Thanksgiving," Mrs. Miller said. "That's a blessing. What about Christmas?"
"She's coming back to visit then," Lydia answered as she stood to go, although her mother's flight wouldn't get in until December 26th.
"Well, you have a wonderful time in Paris, Detective Adams," Mrs. Miller said, patting her arm.
"Thank you, Mrs. Miller. I'll stop by when I get back, all right?"
It wasn't until Lydia was in Paris with her mother, eating croissants and jam for breakfast, the turkey already in the oven, that she wondered what Mrs. Miller was doing for Thanksgiving. She had two sons, both older than Princess, but one had joined the army and been killed in the first Gulf War, and the other, Duke, had been the one to introduce Princess to drugs. Lydia did a cursory check on him when she first picked up the case, but he'd been in prison when Princess had been killed; she thought he was in prison again now. Mrs. Miller never mentioned him.
"What's wrong, honey?" her mother asked, looking at her closely.
"Nothing, Mom," she answered.
"The way your brow is furrowed, it doesn't look like nothing."
"Just a case I've been working." Lydia said. Then she shook her head. "No, it's more than that. This case, it's cold, more than cold--this young woman was killed seventeen years ago, but no one gave a damn about it. And the woman's mother, her daughter's death really affected her. It's like she's still stuck where she was the day her daughter went missing."
"Losing a child--I can't imagine anything more terrible," her mom said, patting Lydia's hand. "I'm glad she has you in her corner."
"I'll probably never solve the case," Lydia admitted. "I'm already getting pressure from my boss to stop working on it."
"It matters that you're trying. I'm sure it matters to that poor girl's mother."
"I guess," Lydia said, then changed the subject. Her mother didn't bring it up again the rest of her visit, for which Lydia was grateful. She didn't want to think about Mrs. Miller on her vacation.
Her flight home was delayed, leaving her barely nine hours at home before she had to be back at work. She went to bed right away. She'd never been able to sleep on planes, so she should be exhausted, but the drive home through traffic had gotten her adrenaline going. She was lying in bed with her eyes closed when her phone rang with a text about some triple homicide. It was almost a relief to go meet Russell at a crime scene over on the west side.
"You realize if this murder had happened in South Central, we'd both still be home," she groused when she got there. "But some rich family got killed, so it's all hands on deck. What are we supposed to be doing, anyway?"
Russell gave her a sympathetic smile and handed her a cup of coffee. "You get any sleep at all?"
"Nope," she said, shaking her head before sipping the coffee. Strong, two sugars, just how she liked it. "Thanks, Russ."
"I think we're supposed to be interviewing the neighbors," he said, nodding his head up the street.
"Neighbors? You mean the mansion half a mile up the hill, behind the stone wall?" she asked, rolling her eyes.
"Hey, I'm just telling you what they told me," Russell said, shrugging.
"Okay, okay, fine, let's go talk to the neighbors," she said, succumbing to the inevitable.
Unfortunately, the triple turned into a string of homicides, and that wasn't the first night's sleep she lost. It took almost three weeks before they brought the case down; Lydia spent the next two days catching up on sleep and eating some decent food. By the time she thought to visit Mrs. Miller again, it was nearly Christmas, and she not only hadn't done any of her shopping, she hadn't even gotten a tree yet.
If Lydia had been living alone in an apartment, she wouldn't have bothered to decorate, but she was living in her mother's house, the home where she'd grown up. Her mother had always decorated for Christmas, gotten the biggest tree she could afford or that could fit in the living room, baked dozens of cookies in dozens of varieties, and still found time to volunteer at church. The least Lydia could do was make sure there was a Christmas tree up, with all the old ornaments, when her mother arrived from France.
She had to go back to work after her two days off, but the lieutenant let her leave early. She went to see Mrs. Miller, but no one answered the door. The neighbor in #678 said she was at the market, so Lydia left a note on the door saying she'd stopped by.
She braved the mall first, hoping she'd find suitable gifts not only for her mother, but her partner as well. Shopping for Russell wasn't easy, but eventually she settled on a new journal and pen set, hoping the implied encouragement wouldn't piss his wife off too much.
It was never easy to find a good tree in southern California, but Lydia persevered, knowing her mother would be silently disapproving if she settled for a fake one. Mr. Gonzalez offered to help her get it into the house, but she waved him off and wrestled it into the living room on her own. She brought the boxes of ornaments down from the attic, but she wasn't ready to face untangling the lights, so she made herself a cup of coffee and turned on the television.
She put on some old movie, but she kept getting distracted. Something about it reminded her of the movie Janilla had been watching that night. Sammy and Nate said she'd wanted to become a cop--maybe she would do that, some day, but it wouldn't be in Los Angeles. Lydia hoped Janilla and her grandmother were okay, wherever they were. Then she reminded herself to check in on Brianna and Jimmy--maybe she could pick up a toy for the little guy. And she really needed to stop by Mrs. Miller's.
She had a lunch hour free a couple days later, so she headed out to Mrs. Miller's again. There was a wreath on the door, and the cookies were shaped like the tree in the corner.
"How was your trip to Paris, Detective Adams?" Mrs. Miller asked once they sat on the couch.
"It was great, Mrs. Miller," she said. Now that she was sitting down, she realized how tired she was. She took a sip of her coffee, which was much better than what they had at the station. The cookies were good, too.
"Your mother's doing all right over there in France?" Mrs. Miller said, handing her the sugar.
"She's doing great--busy, but great."
"You said she's coming back for Christmas, is that right?"
"Yes, she is," Lydia answered, taking another sip of coffee. "She won't be getting in until the 26th, though, so I'm working on Christmas."
"Oh, that's too bad. . . but I suppose it's good that we have detectives like you who are willing to work on holidays."
"Just doing my job," Lydia said, that same discomfort she always felt washing over her. Today they looked at one of Mrs. Miller's scrapbooks, full of pictures of all three of her kids. Lydia wanted to ask about Duke but decided not to.
Lydia traded shifts with a couple new detectives with young families for both Christmas Eve and Christmas day, getting a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates in exchange. She figured it was a decent bargain--it's not like she wanted to spend those shifts at home alone, and she didn't much feel like going over to a friend's house just to have somewhere to be with people.
Unlike most other holidays, Christmas tended to be slow--they might get a couple suicides, but usually no murders. She spent the first few hours catching up on paperwork and looking through old case files, including the Princess Miller file. About halfway through the shift, Cooper and Sherman showed up with a couple dozen pizzas.
"There's enough pizza here for an army," Kenny said, gesturing expansively.
"The extra's for night shift," Sherman answered.
"We may as well all benefit from the rich kid's fortune," Cooper said as he put a stack of pizzas on Russell's empty desk.
"Don't call me kid," Sherman said with a look that made it clear this wasn't the first time he'd said it. Then he wished Lydia a Merry Christmas.
"You too, Ben," she said, smiling.
"Yeah, yeah, happy holidays to all, and to all a quiet night," Cooper said.
"John, what the fuck?" Kenny said, his head in his hands. "You just wait--next time you have plans after your shift, I'm going to wish you a quiet day and see how you like getting slammed."
"Sorry, but I like it when it's busy," Cooper said, grinning. "Hey, let me see that file," he added to Lydia, picking it up. "I remember this case--a black girl, found naked in the alley; my partner and I were first on scene," he said to Sherman. "You working this one, Lydia? It's got to be fifteen years old."
"Seventeen--no, eighteen in a couple weeks," she said. "We reopened it this spring, after Sammy and Nate caught a similar case."
"They ran an article in the paper about it, didn't they?" Sherman asked.
"Yeah, but it didn't help--we're no closer to solving it than we were seventeen years ago," Lydia said, frowning.
"Why don't you forget about that case for one night, Lydia," Kenny said. "It's Christmas, which I understand you celebrate, and we've got pizza here courtesy of young Officer Sherman. Let's eat."
So Lydia got a plate and ate, and for a while she forgot about Princess Miller and her mother. At least until Mrs. Miller herself walked in.
"Mrs. Miller, is everything okay?" Lydia asked. Then she noticed that Mrs. Miller had someone with her. "Who's this?"
"Detective Adams, this is my son, Duke," she said, her hand on his arm.
"Detective Adams, it's a pleasure to meet you," he said, holding out his hand. She shook it, glancing from him to his mother, who was beaming with pride.
"It's nice to meet you, too," she said, taking a closer look. He was middle-aged and neatly dressed in slacks, a white shirt, and a tie, with a cooler hanging from a strap on his shoulder. The tie was patterned with tiny crosses. Seems Mrs. Miller's drug-addicted son had found Jesus. "When did you get into town?"
"Just yesterday," he replied, returning the scrutiny. "My mother didn't tell you I was coming, did she?"
"Didn't I?" Mrs. Miller asked. "I thought I did."
"Mama gets a little confused sometimes," Duke said. "But I guess you probably already know that--she says you've been stopping by once a month or so to give her updates on my sister's case."
"It's okay," Lydia said to Mrs. Miller. "You didn't need to tell me."
"Thank you, dear. We brought you some Christmas dinner," Mrs. Miller said. "Duke, where'd you put that cooler?"
"It's right here, Mama," he said, putting the cooler on the desk. "You like ham, Detective?"
"I do," she answered, figuring it ham on top of pizza on Christmas was okay. She was already going to have to spend most of January in the gym--one extra meal wouldn't hurt. Besides, it would give her more time to figure out what was going on with Duke. "Come on, I'll show you where the microwave is."
The ham turned out to be ham, sweet potatoes, green beans, biscuits, and pumpkin pie.
"This is delicious, Mrs. Miller," Lydia said. "You do the yams just like my mom does."
"That's a real compliment," Mrs. Miller replied, smiling. "Duke, Detective Adams' mother is a chef over in Paris, can you believe that?"
"Is that so?" he said. "A cop whose mother is a French chef--who would have imagined."
"What is it that you do, Mr. Miller?" Lydia asked.
"Duke just got a job assisting my pastor," Mrs. Miller said. "He's moving back here permanently after the new year."
"That's wonderful," Lydia said, although she wasn't so sure.
"You've been careful not to ask, detective, but I'll tell you what you want to know," Duke said, meeting her eyes. "I've been out of prison for three months, and I've been clean for two years. I was living in a halfway house for a while, but now I'm ready to come home and take care of Mama."
"You must be very happy," Lydia said to Mrs. Miller.
"Oh, I am, Detective, I really am," she replied.
"Please feel free to still drop by, any time," Duke said. "Especially if you have any news about my sister's case."
"I'll do that," Lydia said. "Would you mind passing the butter? Those biscuits look delicious."
The Millers left for church after the pumpkin pie. Lydia looked up Duke in the system after that. Everything he said seemed to check out--apparently he'd even done peer counseling on addiction the last few months he'd been in prison--but she still found herself staring at the files on her desk and frowning.
"Mrs. Miller's son came home," she told her mother the next night. "He's out of prison, off drugs, and onto Jesus--even got himself a job at the church where his mother goes."
"That's wonderful news, honey," her mother said. They were sitting on the couch next to the tree, and Lydia was even more stuffed than she had been the night before. It was good to have her mother home.
"It's wonderful if it works out," she said, and her mother shook her head.
"It's Christmas, Lydia--why not have a little faith?" her mother said.
"It's the day after, Mom," she said, but her mother just shook her head. "And he's a junkie. Most of them can't stay clean, even the ones who've gotten religion like he has."
"Most is not all," her mother reminded her. "Sometimes I think you let your job get to you--don't be such a cynic. Whatever you think about his religion, it's got to help, having that support."
"Maybe you're right," Lydia said, but they both knew she was just saying it to keep the peace. "Come on, let's take a walk. You need to see how the Petersons decorated their house--they've got even more going on than last year."
"All right, honey. A walk sounds good."
Her mother didn't bring up the Millers again, and neither did Lydia, but she figured she'd stop by the second Tuesday in January, just to see how Mrs. Miller was doing.
END