It went on like that. Nothing too big seemed to be going down at the moment.

Since it was relatively late, I was using the freeways, taking the long way home in miles, which at this hour should turn out to be the short way in minutes.

I was tooling along, glad to be out of that party, when Alexa said, "I saw you talking to Sally. What a shame about her little girl."

"Yeah, she thinks if they start working with specialists right now, they can minimize the effect of the autism. Tara's so young, it s hard to test her, so the doctors don't really know how severe it is yet."

Because Alexa ran the Detective Bureau I couldn't help but wonder if she'd seen Captain Jeb Calloway's new Homicide Special partners list, so I casually floated the question.

"I'd sure like to know who Jeb s gonna put with me. You heard anything?"

We were about five miles from the transition to the San Diego Freeway, which would take us to Venice Beach, where our little canal house was located on one of the waterways there. When Alexa didn't answer I glanced over.

I knew that expression. She was trying to make up her mind. It was always a problem for us when she knew something that affected me but that she wasn't supposed to confide.

"I'm hoping it's not going to be Sumner Hitchens," I gently prodded.

Then she said, "I think Detective Hitchens is going to be transfered to CAPS in the Valley. But please don't say anything because I don't think he's been told yet."

CAPS was Crimes Against Persons, and if that was true, it was a big demotion for him to go from the elite Homicide Special squad where he was currently assigned to some Valley purse-snatch detail.

Hitchens, or "Hitch" as he preferred to be called, had somehow gonzo'd his way into our unit, then had burned through three partners in less than a year. All of them eventually became so frustrated with him they demanded reassignment.