The detective who headed the original murder investigation was a stickler for detail and incredibly organized. The file Quinn gave me before he stomped out of my apartment (OK, he didn’t exactly stomp, but it wasn’t exactly pretty, either) contained not only his original notes about the case, but interviews with witnesses and suspects, crime scene photos, the autopsy report, and what must have been every newspaper article ever written about Jefferson Lamar and Vera Blaine. I took the file marked BLAINE, VERA—CLOSED to the cemetery with me the next day. Surprise, surprise . . . I don’t know how he managed, but Absalom had somehow a) intimidated, b) coerced, c) outright threatened, or d) all of the above, everyone on the team to actually work. By the time I got there, they were busy trimming overgrown hedges and pulling a ton of weeds. With that out of the way, and no other pressing responsibilities for the moment, I pretended I had TV show business to take care of and ducked into the mausoleum.
