I poured myself another stiff drink. It seems to be my normal - my breakfast, my lunch, my dinner - every since that night that haunts me. The night that had begun like any other; my partner and I met up at the detective division of the Hollenbeck precinct of the Los Angeles Police Department for another night of murder and mayhem. But that's Los Angeles: investigating one murder a night means it is a slow day. That night it was one murder, but it was the murder that changed my life. And had put me on desk duty until my little habit laid me in internal affairs' sights and on probation.

But that's neither here nor there. Right now, I'm staring down my drink ready to throw it back in honor of the good man we lost that night. The night that landed me on North Mission Road looking down on the hollow body of my late partner.

My drink taunts me. I have no place now. Not because of the drink in my hand, but because of Zabini and his death.

Zabini. The guy and I went through the academy together. We started out in different precincts, both raising through the ranks in no time, and by some happenchance we both ended up in Hollenbeck. Then we were partnered together and it was like we were 20 in the academy again.

Except everything is different. In those seven years he got married and had a baby. Now he has a widow and a fatherless son. I try with the kid, but I just can't anymore. The kid is a baby. I don't know what to do with a baby.

Zabini always said I would be an eternal bachelor. He knew I would never find someone who could deal with me and my steamer trunk full of issues. He knew that I was a hopeless case, someone no one could love. He just knew.

"Cheers Blaise, wherever you are." I raise my glass to him in the dim light of the rundown office that I rented so that I had some justification to get out of bed in the morning. It's nothing but a couple of chairs, an old desk that I found on the side of the road, and a place to hang my hat. My desk isn't much, just a beat up wooden thing to hold my extensive liquor collection that keeps me going most days and nights and a framed photo of Blaise and I after graduation from the academy, both of us young and smiling, hopeful. His wife - Tracey - gave it to me at the end of the funeral as a thank you for the eulogy that I gave. I had nothing to give back to the woman who gave the most for our city. She gave the love of her life. What had I given?

I down my glass in one swig, glaring at the picture. "Blaise, mate, what the hell were you thinking? You had Tracey. You had Ian. You had it all. And then you jumped in front of me. Why? I have nothing. I will always have nothing. Now all I have is what crap you left me with. I don't even have a reason for your death. I don't even have a bloody way you died. What am I supposed to do for Tracey? How can I give her answers when all I have are more questions? How can I be a dad to Ian when the dad he needs was ripped from him? How? How could you do that to me?"

I hurl the picture at the door. Nothing new. I have gone through as many frames as I have bottles of whiskey since he died.

Behind the glass of the door is a shadow.

A curvy little thing.

Must be a dame.

Most wouldn't be able to recognize these things through the fog of alcohol and frosted glass, but after being a hardened LAPD detective for the last couple of years, and one of the youngest on the department, I have learned to pay attention to the little details. Most wouldn't notice the small of her waist through the lead glass that held back the daily haze that has descended on the Valley since the night the department lost one of their own.

Most wouldn't recognize that she doesn't wear the traditional hat that dons the heads of the dames of this town. No, rather she pulls down what looks to be a scarf or shawl of some type before hesitating.

"Come on dame," I mutter only semi coherently to myself. "I dare ya to knock or even open the door."

Like she heard the dare, the brass of the door handle turns. I can't pull my eyes away as the door slowly opens, as if on its own accord. I see her foot first. She is in sensible black and white pumps. I follow that foot up a gam, my what a gam it is, to the hem of her skirt which sits just below her knees. What little bit of leg I can gander at shows me that this dame's curves are not fake - not thanks to those damned corsets that are all the rage and messing with men's minds. No she is all real.

And as my eyes continue to travel upward, I wish this blasted sweltering heat and humidity that June brings would give way to some more moderate temperatures. The heat of the city is doing nothing for the heat that is radiating off this dame. This dame with her sensual hips that tighten into a petite waist and upward to a full bosom.

What she wears is not anything that you would see in the streets of Hollywood or even in the lesser parts of the city. You wouldn't be seen in anything like this even in Burbank. No, it is like she stepped out of another place, another time. There is a ruby red flared skirt, something soft I imagine the way it moves - probably silk. She has a cinched gold belt with a queer lightning bolt clasp. A black and gold embroidered deep V top accompanies the outfit that has billowing sleeves that end at her elbows in gold cuffs.

I was right, she doesn't wear the typical gloves and hat but rather a red and gold shawl that must have covered her bobbed curly hair but now hangs low off her arms.

"Mister Malfoy?" I nod at her address. "I have information on the death of Blaise Zabini." My glass falls with a reverberating crash, spilling the few last drops of golden life.

Because with those simple words my world turned upside down.