“Not a whodunit,” said Milo. “A did-it-even-happen?”

I said, “You think it’s a waste of time.”

“Don’t you?”

I shrugged. We both drank.

“We’re talking terminal illness, probably went to her brain,” he said. “That’s a mere layman’s theory.”

He pulled his glass closer, churned little viscous waves with his stirrer. We were at a steak house a couple miles west of downtown, facing up to massive T-bones, salads bigger than some people’s lawns, icy Martinis.

One thirty p.m., a cool Wednesday afternoon, celebrating the end of a monthlong lust-murder trial. The defendant, a woman whose artistic pretensions led her to a killing partnership, had surprised everyone by pleading guilty.

When Milo slogged out of the courtroom, I asked him why she’d given up.

“No reason given. Maybe she’s hoping for a shot at parole.”

“Could that ever happen?”

“You’d think not, but if the zeitgeist gets mushy, who the hell knows?”

“Big words this early?” I said.

“Ethos, social ambience, take your pick. What I’m saying is for the last few years everyone’s been big on wiping out crime. Then we do our job too well and John Q. gets complacent. The Times just ran one of their heartrending series about how a life sentence for murder actually means life and ain’t that tragic. More of that and we’re back to the sweet days of easy parole.”

“That assumes people read the paper.”

He huffed.

I’d been subpoenaed as prosecution witness, had spent four weeks on call, three days sitting on a wooden bench in a long, gray corridor of the Criminal Court Building on Temple.