2:30 A. M. The phone jack-hammered me up out of a tangled dream.

"Detective Scully?" a woman's voice said. "This is Homicide Dispatch. You just caught a fresh one-eighty seven. The DB is on Forest Lawn Drive one block east of Barham Boulevard, under the bridge.

"In the L. A. River again?" I sat up and grabbed my pants.

"Yes sir. The patrol unit is there with the respondents The blues say it looks like another homeless man so the duty desk at Homicide Special told us to give you the roll out."

"Isn't that in Burbank? Have you notified BPD?"

"According to the site map, it's just inside L. A., sc there's no jurisdictional problem. I need to give patrol an ETA."

"It's gonna take me forty-five minutes." I started to hang up, but hesitated, and added, "Have you notified my partner, Detective Farrell?"

"We've been trying," she replied carefully, then paused and said, "He's not picking up."

There was doubt and concern in her tone. Damn, thought. Did even the civilian dispatchers in the Communications Division know Zack Farrell had become a lush?

"Keep trying," I said, and hung up.

I rolled out of bed, trying not to wake my wife, dressed quickly in fresh clothes, and went into the bathroom where I did my speed groom: head in the faucet, towel dry, hair comb with fingers, Lavoris rinse, no shave. I checked myself for flaws. There were plenty. I'm in my late-thirties and look like a club fighter who's stayed in the ring a few years too long.

I snapped off the bathroom light, crossed to the bed, and kissed Alexa. Aside from being my wife, she's also my boss and heads the Detective Services Group at LAPD.

"Wazzzzit?" she mumbled, rolling toward me and squinting up through tousled, black hair.

"We got another one."