CHAPTER 4

The funeral service for Dr. George Siler was well-populated. The widow, Margaret Siler, was surrounded by her three children – two daughters and a son. Matt found out that the two oldest were in college and the youngest was in high school. He also noticed that there were quite a few other doctors in attendance. All in all, it was a normal service in every way.

Matt took CJ back to the office and then headed over to UCLA to see if he could find out more about the two doctors. He spent three hours being told pretty much the same information about both doctors – they were great humanitarians, did lots of charitable surgeries both in the states and abroad, and they were very well thought of by their peers. He also found out that they were fraternity brothers in the Mu Delta Sigma fraternity and had spent their last three years of school living in the frat house.

Fighting his way through the late afternoon traffic, Matt called CJ. "Hey, whatcha got planned for tonight?"

"Absolutely nothing, why?" CJ was in her office working on some legal matters for the agency.

"What do you want for dinner?" Matt was in the mood for Italian, but didn't think CJ would want to fly to Hawaii to visit the Novelli's for dinner.

"I don't know. What have you got in mind?" He's probably wants some of Mama's lasagna CJ thought to herself.

"Well, truthfully, Mama's lasagna but I don't see a trip to the islands in our future tonight. How about Chinese?"

"That would work. Surprise me. Are we going to be at home or here?" She was afraid he would want to meet at the office, which meant he would be spending half the night looking for whatever it was he and Uncle Roy looked for in his office all the time.

"Home. It's been a long day and I'm ready to kick back for a while. Maybe watch a movie or something."

She was pleasantly surprised. "Okay by me. I'm leaving now, meet you there. Love you, cowboy."

"Love you, too, babe. 'Bye." Matt hung up and head for Fu Chow's on Wilshire.

When he made it home, he walked into the kitchen loaded down with sweet and sour chicken, egg rolls, wonton soup, and of course, fortune cookies. "I'm home." He started unloading the bags. Maybe she hadn't heard him. He walked on into the den and there she was, snuggled up in his recliner, snoozing away. Matt walked over and began tickling her nose and received a swat on his hand.

"Hi, I didn't hear you come in." She yawned and stretched.

"Yeah, it's kind of hard to do that when you're snoring like a hippo, huh?" He loved to tease her.

"Was not." She got up and gave him a big hug, then the pair walked into the kitchen and had dinner while they discussed the Siler – Belieu case.

"You know, I was thinking…" Matt was talking around a mouthful of sweet and sour chicken. "When we have kids around here, our dinner conversations are gonna have to change. We won't be able to talk shop at the table anymore." He grinned at her.

"That's true. Talking about head wounds and dead bodies isn't exactly what a kid needs to hear, is it?" She laughed and they both reached for a fortune cookie at the same time. "Okay, let's see here. Mine says, "A new addition is in your future." What about yours?"

Matt chuckled. "I got the same exact thing. They must have forgotten to mix 'em up at the factory. At least I didn't get one that said, "Help! I'm being held prisoner in a fortune cookie factory!"" They both laughed as they walked into the den and settled in to watch an old western curled up together in the recliner.

Three hours later Matt woke up. CJ was snuggled in with her head on his chest asleep. He sat and watched her for a minute, not really wanting to wake her up, but figuring that she would be more comfortable in bed. Nah, we'll be fine here Matt thought to himself. He reached up, grabbed the afghan and covered both of them up and went back to sleep after setting the alarm on his cell phone.