"Cold Case" - читать интересную книгу автора (White Stephen)

PART TWO. The Two Dead Girls

Monday morning came around just when it was supposed to. After some weekends that simple occurrence surprises me. This was one of those.

I drove across town to my Walnut Street office to see my 8:15 patient. Lauren took her own car into town, heading up Canyon Boulevard to the Justice Center for a meeting with the coroner's chief assistant. Their meeting was to discuss his testimony in a trial scheduled for that afternoon. She was doubtful that the case was going to plead out.

My patients all showed up at their appointed times. None of them threw me any curveballs that I couldn't hit and I was home in time for dinner.

Neither Erin's old Saab nor the cream-colored Lexus had reappeared in front of Adriennes house across the lane, and neither Lauren nor I had been brave enough to inquire about the current state of fluctuation of our neighbor's sexual orientation. Lauren and I were still sharing dinner chores, our bet unresolved.

For me Tuesday began like Monday. I had four patients to see before lunch, three afterward. I was hoping to get home early enough to indulge in a long bike ride on the country roads that crisscrossed the rapidly disappearing open prairie of eastern Boulder County. Lauren had given the opening statement in her child-abuseresultingin-death case on Monday afternoon and was due to call her first witness at 9:30 on Tuesday morning. She thought the trial would last through Wednesday at least but had grown more hopeful about settlement and half expected a plea conference during the lunch recess. She considered the first three witnesses in her case to be lethal to the defense and expected to get them all in before noon. She also suspected that her adversary at the defense table would blink.

I cooked Tuesday's dinner. Grilled halibut and steamed baby bok choy in garlic sauce. The menu was my wife's idea; Lauren was currently religious about omega-3 fish oils, garlic, and iron. On her way home from work she'd picked up a loaf of multigrain from the Breadworks on North Broadway.

She was just about done cleaning up the paltry mess I'd left in the kitchen when the phone rang. I took it in the big open room that ran the length of the west end of the house.

The house was one that I had called home for a long time. I'd lived through two periods of being single there and was now in my second period being married there. Two different wives, the second a much better match than the first. The house, once a shack, now felt new to me. The previous autumn Lauren and I had embarked on an ambitious addition and remodeling project, and the smells and feels of the place were those of a new home.

The views, fortunately, hadn't changed at all.

Our home sits near the top of a western-facing slope in Spanish Hills on the eastern side of the Boulder Valley. On a clear day-and in Colorado most of them are clear enough-our view of the Front Range extends from north of Pikes Peak to north of Longs Peak and from the greenbelt on the east side of the city of Boulder all the way to the Continental Divide. God might have a better view than we did but I wouldn't believe it unless He sent along a postcard to prove it.

As summer threatened, the days were getting longer and the sun was lingering so low in the evening sky that the sharp rays made it impossible to sit facing west without lowering the blinds, which I was loath to do. When the phone rang, I picked up the receiver and sat with my back to the mountains. I expected to hear my partner's voice. Diane Estevez had left me a message during our workday that she wanted to talk about a weekend away that Lauren and I were planning with Diane and her husband, Raoul. Diane was currently on a Taos kick. I was guessing that she wanted to lobby us to change our weekend plans from the Great Sand Dunes to Taos.

I said, "Hello."

"Alan? It's A. J."

My breath caught in my throat. I'd almost forgotten about the two dead girls.

"A.J. How are you?"

Almost forgotten.

"Fine," she said in a manner that precluded further inquiry about her health.

Lauren employed the same tone sometimes; I had radar for it.

"I think we're ready to get started on our little adventure. I have some information. You have something to write with?"

"No. Hold on." I ran to the new master bedroom and grabbed a pad of notepaper that I kept by the bed.

"Shoot."

"First, I've made contact with Representative Welle's office. With remarkably little fuss he's agreed to see you. That surprises me. His next visit home to Colorado is in about two weeks. He's flying into Denver a week from Friday for some meetings and fund-raising appearances before going up to his place in the mountains for a few days of R and R. I worked out a tentative time for you to see him on the Friday that he's in Denver. Can you make that work? I hope you can make that work."

"I try to keep Fridays pretty clear, A. J. Shouldn't be any problem. Where does he want to meet?"

"Representative Welle will be attending some fund-raiser at a place his aide called the Phipps Mansion. Said it's where the recent Summit of the Eight was held when it was in Denver. Do you know anything about it? Know where it is? I can get more details if you need me to."

"That's not necessary. I've been there once before. I'm sure I can find it again."

"Anyway, Welle wants to meet you there, at that mansion, just before or just after his fund-raising luncheon."

"Either is fine with me."

"Well, you won't get to choose. They'll call you the day before and tell you whether it's going to be before or whether it's going to be after. I think it's a petty little political control thing-keeping you waiting to be beckoned-but who am I to question the motives of the powerful? I was told you'd get a message from a man named Phillip Barrett. He'll-"

"I heard about Barrett from Percy Smith on the plane ride back to Colorado. He's an old friend of Welle's.

He was the sheriff in Routt

County when Gloria Welle was kidnapped and murdered. And when the two girls were killed."

"I didn't know that. Interesting. Now Barrett's one of Welle's congressional honchos, maybe even chief of staff. I don't know. I don't really care. These staffers are mostly just insulation as far as I can tell. They function like they're just rolls and rolls of that puffy pink stuff-ways to keep regular folks more than a few steps away from their elected representatives.

Regardless, Barrett'll call you with the time that Welle chooses for your audience. I gave Barrett both your office number and your beeper number, but not your home."

"Good. I'm grateful that I have a couple of weeks before I meet with Welle. I want to drive up to Steamboat and try to get to know Tami Franklin's family-you know, begin to flesh out a profile on her and learn what I can about her relationship with Mariko. And I need to get permission from Mariko's family to receive information about her psychotherapy with Dr. Welle. Do you by any chance have phone numbers and addresses for them-any way for me to reach the Hamamotos?"

"If I don't have them already, I can get them. I'll fax them to you as soon as I do. You want me to fax it to your home or to your office?"

"Please send everything here, to my house."

"Oh, and you'll get a package from me tomorrow. I overnighted it to your house.

It's copies of all the parts of the original investigation that might be pertinent to what you and I are doing. Statements, interviews, reports. You know. I've highlighted some things that I found interesting. Is there anything else I can do for you tonight?"

I looked west just as the sun was cresting the Divide. The long shadows of dusk were creeping in a relentless advance across the Boulder Valley toward our house.

"Just some advice. Do you think I should let Raymond Welle know that I'm married to his ex-sisterin-law?"

A. J. laughed.

"No. Absolutely, no. There may come a time when we want to throw that in his face. This isn't it. Hey," she asked, "how's the pregnancy going? Is Lauren feeling okay?"

"Great. No problems so far. She actually seems less tired now that she's pregnant."

"I've heard that happens. Don't think I'll try it, though. Has she gotten a call from Mary Wright yet?"

"Not that I know of. But she's been in a trial both days this week."

"I really envy Lauren's strength. I couldn't do what she does. It's much too draining."

"The disease you two have has many faces, A. J. Your illnesses have the same name, but never the same consequences. Still, sometimes I worry that its too draining for her, too."

She didn't really want to talk about her illness. She said, "I'm sure Mary will be in touch, soon."

Two seconds after I hung up the phone, it rang again. This time it was my longtime partner, Diane.

Her greeting was, "I've been trying to reach you for hours. Why don't you get call waiting?"

"I've only been on the phone for ten minutes. And I don't like those annoying little clicks in my ears."

"Well, I don't like busy signals."

I shrugged. This argument didn't appear to offer much hope of reward.

"What's up?"

She sighed.

"Would you guys consider going to Taos instead of the Sand Dunes?

There's this gallery I really, really want to go to. They're holding a piece for me. Please? Pretty please? We'll do the wilderness and buffalo thing some other time."

The fax with addresses and phone numbers for the Hamamotos slithered out of our machine a half an hour after I yielded to Diane about Taos.

Mr. Hamamoto was living in British Columbia. His wife was in Japan. His surviving daughter was a graduate student at Stanford, in California. I phoned the number in British Columbia and left Mr. Hamamoto a message, along with an abbreviated explanation of my involvement in Locard and my interest in his daughter. I asked him to please return my call.

Lauren's case pleaded out on Wednesday morning before court commenced for the day. Since she was only working half-time, she decided that she was free to take the rest of the week off. I would be done with my last patient of the week Thursday afternoon at 3:45. The five-day forecast called for sunny days and cool nights. Afternoon thunderstorms were always a possibility.

Adrienne and Jonas were eager to watch Emily.

It was a perfect time to visit Steamboat Springs. By the time we left for the mountains late on Thursday afternoon I still hadn't heard back from Mr. Hamamoto.

I was tempted to take Highway 40 north through Granby-it was the more scenic route to Steamboat-but it was a longer drive and I didn't really want to be forced to do Rabbit Ears Pass in the darkest of darks, so we opted to stay on Interstate 70 all the way to Silverthorne, and headed north from there. Less than ten minutes after departing the interstate I pulled over to the side of the two-lane road and stopped the car in the dust. I pointed up the hill to the east and said to Lauren, "That's Dead Eds ranchette." The sign above the gate in front of us read the not so lazy seven ranch.

The previous year, one of my patients, a teenage girl a little younger than Tami Franklin, had had her life turned upside down in a barn up that dirt road.

Although I'd been to the ranchette once before with my friend, Boulder detective Sam Purdy, this was the first time I'd had the opportunity to point it out to Lauren.

She didn't know the psychological details of the tragedy, only the more public, legal ones. Both of her hands were resting on her abdomen as she said, "That's where it happened? Whatever it was with the RV and… Merritt? And the shooting? This is where that was, too?"

She knew the answers to her questions. But I responded anyway.

"You can't see the barn from here, but yes. On the other side of that stand of aspen is where it is. You can see a little bit of the house from here. The sun is still reflecting off the windows. See? There? To the left?"

"Yes, I think I see it." She had already stopped looking up the hill. Her gaze was focused straight down the highway, as straight as the parallel lines of yellow paint down the center of the road. Her voice was soft, but adamant as she said, "We won't ever let things like that happen to our baby, will we?"

I checked my mirrors for traffic and touched her on the cheek.

"No way, sweets.

No way." Neither of us was naive enough to believe we actually had the power to protect our baby from life's hurts-big or little-but to embark on this journey as parents we knew we needed whatever talismans bravado could provide.

So I conspired with her to parental assurance. Although it was relatively new behavior to me, I found it to be a totally natural act.

I eased the big car from the shoulder back onto the asphalt and pressed hard on the accelerator. The car lurched. Behind us a pair of headlamps was gaining ground too quickly for my comfort.

The sun had already disappeared behind the Gore Range and the narrow valley that hugged the Blue River was quickly losing its luster. The daylight that remained was bruised black and blue. We stopped in Kremmling and ate at a bakery that sold pizza. The Colorado River flowed nearby. We'd cross it in the final light of dusk. I was thinking that it would be swollen with snowmelt.

Over bitter coffee, I became conscious of the images that this journey along Highway 9 was foisting into my awareness. Bruising, swelling, tragedy, tumult.

Snowmelt.

The reason, I knew, was simple. The next morning Lauren and I were scheduled to meet with Catherine and Wendell Franklin to talk with them about their dead daughter, Tamara.

The drive up County Road 129 into the Elk River Valley outside Steamboat Springs had taken a little more than a half hour. The road hugged the river as it climbed gently through a gorgeous high-country valley that was blessed with wide expanses of pasture and rolling hillsides that were covered with spruce, fir, and aspen. It was difficult to believe that we were high in the Rockies.

This didn't even feel like the same mountain system that spawned the Gore Range, the Maroon Bells, or the Sanjuans.

I didn't get lost on my way to the ranch.

"Go until you almost get to Clark.

You'll see the ranch on your left. If you get to Clark, you missed us. The barn has a new roof," Dell Franklin had explained on the phone. Lauren spotted the new roof and I pulled off the road. The Elk River was at least a half mile to the west of us at that point. The deep meadow between the river and us rippled as gentle breezes brushed the silky tops of the alfalfa crop.

I'd been expecting to greet a couple on the verge of retirement. But the Franklins weren't too many years older than Lauren and me. I guessed that Cathy must have been only eighteen or nineteen when she had given birth to her first child, her daughter, Tamara. Now their nest was empty while we were only beginning to prepare ours.

"Call us Dell and Cathy, please." The order came from Dell Franklin.

"Sit down, sit down. Have some coffee and cake."

Dell collapsed heavily on his chair and his breathing was labored. He was portly and wore his hair in a buzz cut that has recently become fashionable again. I doubt that Dell knew much about fashion, though. To meet with us, he had dressed in a long-sleeve blue polo shirt with a Cadillac insignia over one breast, and new blue Wranglers. The sleeves of the polo shirt were pushed up halfway over his thick forearms. He wore boots that were reserved for indoor use. Even this early in the summer his skin was brown and weathered and the ladder of wrinkles on each of his temples was deeply furrowed from many hours, probably too many hours, in the high-country sunshine.

Cathy's gaze seemed to burn and her eyes filled me with sorrow. Over the years I'd met with dozens of parents who displayed their pain in their eyes the way Cathy did-mothers who were desperate for whatever psychological help, or salve, I could provide to aid her child. Mothers who had placed all their hope in me after they'd concluded that I was their last best chance for salvation, but were preparing themselves for the possibility or even the likelihood, that their hope would again be burned at the pyre of disappointment.

The big book that Cathy Franklin held in her lap was a photo album.

She wore a pair of old Lee jeans that she'd cherished so long the cotton was now as soft as chenille. They still fit her as they did the day she bought them. Her blouse was rayon or silk, and she wore it with the top four buttons loose.

Underneath was a faded yellow chemise.

We were sitting in what Dell had called the "sitting room." I would call it a family room. A massive stone fireplace filled half of a long wall above a hearth fashioned from thick pine logs and topped with stone. The mantel above the firebox was crowded with trophies topped with brass golfers and silver golf balls. A coffee service was set up before us on a low table.

Cathy had been anxious for our arrival.

She'd be twenty-eight today. She'd have babies by now. I think she'd have… two babies. I'd be a grandmother." Cathy sighed and flipped open the photo album on her lap and stared at a picture that I suspected had not been chosen at random. Tamara, upside down from my point of view across the coffee table, appeared to have been eight or nine when the picture was taken. She was standing on cross-country skis in front of a teepee. The psychologist in me wondered why her mother had chosen a photograph of her daughter during the quiescence of latency. It might have meant nothing of course, but Cathy Franklin hadn't locked on to an oedipal Tami, or a preadolescent, pubertal one.

She hadn't chosen a picture of Tami just before her death, either.

Cathy said, "Her smile-Tami's? It was so bright-it would make you glad that you're alive." She fidgeted and stared at her hands as she spoke to us about her dead daughter. I was thinking that the absence of a daughters smile could probably leave a mother wishing she were dead. My thoughts leapt to the life growing in Lauren's belly. I pried my attention away and my stomach flipped.

Cathy continued.

"Its been over ten years," she said as she lifted one hand and scratched behind her ear.

"Well more than ten." Her voice was disbelieving. I couldn't tell whether she was disbelieving because the tragedy still felt like yesterday, or whether she was disbelieving because she felt as though she'd already cried away enough tears to lubricate a few lifetimes.

Wendell-Dell-reached over and touched his wife on the knee. He was a bear of a man and the act seemed all the more gentle because of his mass.

His breathing grew less labored as he made contact with her. He said, to his wife as much as to us, "It's still hard sometimes. You know-it's hard to remember… and… it's hard to forget." Cathy clenched her husband's thick fingers and lifted her face to us. She manufactured a smile that brought tears to my eyes.

"We're so grateful you've agreed to help," she said.

I was fighting therapist proclivities. Cathy's arrested grief was fertile ground. But I reminded myself that this field wasn't mine to furrow. Not here.

Not now.

Lauren jumped in and explained our role in Locard. That we were consultants.

And that our participation in the investigation was limited to specific tasks that had been delineated by the permanent members of the Locard team. She explained her role as a local prosecuting attorney.

When she was finished, I spoke.

"As you know, I'm a psychologist. One of my most important tasks is to get to know your daughter," I said, moving my gaze from Dell to Cathy and back.

"When I'm done with my work, I'd like to feel that I've come to know who Tami was on that day that she died."

Dell raised an eyebrow and asked, "Don't get it. How will that help you find her killer?"

I took a moment to compose a response.

"The more I know about Tami-the better I know Tami-the better chance I have of being able to figure out what caused her to…"-I struggled to find the right word-"… to collide with whoever it was who murdered her."

Dell appeared to be on the verge of responding when Cathy said, "She was a sweetheart. No one who knew her would ever want to kill her. It had to be a stranger."

"Tami…" He shook his head a tiny bit and smiled lovingly.

"She could be kind of ornery," added Dell.

"But she was our girl. We loved her from sunrise to sunset. God, how we loved her."

Over a decade had passed and they were both still crying over Tami's death. I noticed that Lauren's hands, which had been folded on her lap, were now spread palms down, the fingers nesting protectively around her womb.

Lauren and I didn't have a plan. As things developed she spent much of the next hour sitting with Cathy at a game table in an alcove on one side of the sitting room, poring through photo albums, listening to Cathy reminisce about a daughter she had never imagined living without.

As soon as the wives retreated to the photo albums Dell invited me outside to show me some of his ranch and, it was apparent, to talk about his living child and not just his dead one. I waited while he changed his boots in a big mudroom before he led me away from the house. He had already surprised me with his openness and his sensitivity in discussing his daughter. Anticipating the visit to the ranch I'd unfairly pigeonholed him as a taciturn old cowboy. It was neither a fair nor an accurate assessment. I was beginning to see Dell as an emotionally resourceful man who didn't run from either his own pain or Cathy's.

The ranch was "a lot of acres" according to Dell.

"My father assembled almost all the land. I've added a couple of small patches over the years. Some new buildings. The technology of course, though Dad would have been the first to have that if it was available to him. But mostly I've been a caretaker of what my father imagined. I consider this place a kind of trust, you know?" I said, "I think I understand." My focus was on the expansive high prairies and the vaulting peaks of the wilderness below Mount Zirkel. Those aspen groves would sparkle like gold dust in the fall.

"Trust" felt like a good enough word.

"My part's been the animals. My addition to my father's vision. I do well with them. With the animals. I especially love just about everything that's involved with breeding. You know much about ranching?" I was a step behind him, following him down a wide asphalt lane that led from the family home to the barn with the shiny new roof.

"Not much," I admitted.

"Almost as much as I know about the economy of Serbia."

He laughed.

"Most don't. Some think they do; they think any brain dead cowboy can run a ranch. Some pretend they know. But most don't understand. Tami did. She loved it out here. Really understood what it was we were up to. What it takes to feed this monster. What it takes to tame it. We hoped-me and Cathy-we hoped Tami'd stay, marry somebody who would want to take over the ranch with her."

"Joey's not interested, Dell? In the ranch?" I assumed he wasn't but wanted to hear Dell's response.

"In this? Nah. He's got his golf. Its all he seems to need. Never seen anyone who's been so completed by one activity." Dell shook his head, apparently perplexed by his own son.

"We're blessed in Routt County. You know you can play golf up here almost as long as you can in Denver? In a good year you can play all the way from May through October. We're not as high up in the mountains as people think. Where we're standing right this minute, we're only a little above seven thousand feet. You're surprised, right? Still, don't know how Joey got so darn good at it. Golf, I mean. Some people just click with some things. You ever notice that? " I said I had noticed that.

The first two stalls on the inside of the huge barn had been rebuilt as an indoor golf driving range. An elevated tee. A huge net to catch balls. A computer to analyze and measure something. Distance? I didn't golf. I couldn't tell.

"I play a little. Been a member for years at the little golf club that's out on 40. Started as an excuse to hang out with some friends, really. I hack. It's a nine-hole and if I'm lucky, I break fifty maybe twice a summer. Never really have time to play eighteen. Lose more balls than I care to count. Joey used to like to come with me to the range when he was little, you know, like five or six. He'd hit some balls. Had a real sweet swing, right from the start. Soon enough, he wanted to play in the winter, too. Only kid I knew who would rather hit golf balls than go skiing, so one year I built this for him." Dell waved at the indoor golf setup.

"It wasn't always this fancy. At first it was just a piece of Astroturf I nailed to the floor and a net I hung to keep him from killing the animals. I added stuff to it as he got better and better during high school. After… you know… he's been… well, a kind of salvation for me. Whenever I hated life because of what had been done to Tami, I had Joey to be thankful for. I can't tell you how much it helped. Church helped, too, of course. But when life got especially rough, Joey helped me keep the ball on the fairway."

I didn't know how my next words were going to be received. I said them anyway.

"You more than Cathy though. Dell?"

He didn't flinch at all.

"Oh, you betcha. You… betcha." He scuffed the toe of his boot into the floor. Did it again.

"Cathy was Tami's best friend. And Tami was hers. Cathy loves Joey, don't misunderstand me.

But… he was never the right shape to fill the hole that Tami left when she was…"

Dell couldn't bring himself to say "murdered" or "butchered" or "ravaged" or whatever word his unconscious mind had used to pigeonhole the horror that had been inflicted on his only daughter.

I tried to remember why I was there. Despite my instincts, I steered south of Dell's pain.

"Mariko wasn't Tamis best friend?"

"Miko was new. For Tami, for us. And she was… what's the word? Exotic, you know, Oriental like that and all? I think that Tami was intrigued by the foreignness. Tami spent her whole life up here. Other than occasional family trips, I mean. Until the Japanese bought the ski area we never saw too many of them in these parts. I think most of 'em went to Vail and Aspen. Hell, we never saw much of anybody but the American tourists. And most of them were as white as we were. We got some Mexicans for a while before their economy tanked. But they go more for Vail and Aspen, too. That's what I hear anyway. Better shopping over there.

"The girls became good friends, sure. Miko could ski with Tami. Bump for bump.

Not too many girls could, or would. Tami liked that. But when I talk about Cathy and Tami and friendship, I'm talking the bigger picture. Confidences and all that. Cathy and Tami shared something special."

I was at a loss as to how to follow him wherever he was heading. It was as though he were leading me through a cave. I should have just shut up. Instead, I asked, "Does Joey still live up here?"

The tone of his voice lightened and I knew I'd let him off a hook with my question.

"We see him a lot. But he has a big fancy place near San Diego. On a golf course, of course. We visit. He visits."

"He has that plane. That must make it easier to see him."

Dell shook his head.

"Joey has investment advisers. Agents. Managers. The jet was their idea. They want him rested and relaxed while he plays. He's just a kid; he went along.

Waste of a lot of money far as I'm concerned. But it's his now so I try and get him to do some occasional good with it."

I decided to see how Dell would react to my mentioning that Lauren and I had been on the plane. Did he already know?

"We were flown to the Locard meeting in DC. on it. I was grateful for the convenience."

He nodded. He knew.

"Yes, I know. I told him it was the least he could do for his sister."

Although the tone harbored no bitterness, the words surprised me. I followed them. Apparently the plane trip was Dell's idea, not Joey's.

"What was their relationship like? Joey and Tami?"

"Good. Fine. They got along all right. Typical brother-sister stuff. But it was good."

I waited a long minute for Dell to expound on his impression of his children's lives together. But he just let the silence bob and float on the surface and didn't nibble on it at all.

I tried another cast.

"The ranch must feel empty."

Almost instantly, he replied, "I tell her over and over that they'd both be gone now anyway. Tami'd probably have married and moved away. Maybe to Denver.

She'd probably live closer to you than she does to us. And Joey would be… Joey. No matter what."

"I'm getting the impression that it doesn't help to tell Cathy that. Is that right, Dell?"

He smiled at me.

"You seem like a bright guy. You could see it in there, right?

She's still tethered to Tami. Cathy is, over all these years. I'm hoping you guys can find some answers that will set her free. You know? That's why we're going to all this trouble. That's why I'm willing to scrape the dirt off the top of my daughter's grave. I'm hoping it will set us free."

I thought I knew what he meant and I said so.

We left the barn and I followed Dell. After he plopped down in a four-wheel all-terrain vehicle with big balloon tires I climbed onto the passenger side.

"I talk better when I'm moving," he explained with admirable self-awareness.

"Why don't you tell me about her, Dell? About Tami?" Before he said a word, he started the little cart on a straight line toward some distant fields. The air was as clean as fresh water. The hay smelled sweet. The ride was surprisingly smooth.

Later on, walking through Steamboat Springs looking for a place to have lunch, Lauren and I compared notes.

Lauren started.

"Cathy thinks Dell was too hard on her-on Tami-says she thinks that he felt that Tami needed to be broken, like a wild horse. Cathy knew her daughter wasn't a saint but couldn't get behind Dell's program, so she kept a lot from him. Tami was on birth control pills, had been since just before her fifteenth birthday. Cathy said that Dell doesn't know that and that it would have caused a whole lot of trouble if he did."

"Does Cathy know if Tami was sexually active?"

"Cathy says she was. She maintains she never asked with whom, but says she did ask Tami if she knew him-the boy. Tami replied, "Mom, you know everybody." And they dropped it. Anyway, that's the story."

"Go on."

"Couple of times at least, Cathy became aware that the kids had been going out and drinking. Tami and her friends. She says that Dell never knew about it. She was working with Tami on her own to try and get her to 'moderate." That's Cathy's word: 'moderate."

" That's all the bad news?"

We were walking down Lincoln Avenue, the long spine of downtown Steamboat.

Lauren had stopped to read a menu outside a cafe called Winona's. The tables on the sidewalk along the main thoroughfare were full, a propitious sign.

"Tami had some minor problems at school. Skipped her afternoon classes once with some friends and went sking. They all got caught. Did some detention time. She got into one fight when she was sticking up for a friend in the lunchroom. Got caught again. Cathy says Dell was proud of her about that one.

Freshman year she gave a science teacher a hard time about grades. Felt the guy had been unfair.

Principal ended up getting involved. Dell was behind her on that one, too. How does this look?"

Lauren's question was about the menu. Without really assessing the offerings I said, "Looks fine to me."

"Shall we?"

"Do you mind if we walk around town a little longer before we eat? Are you up to it? My memory is that this street is pretty much it for downtown Steamboat.

We can circle back this way when you want to eat. Downtown hasn't changed that much, you know? But around the base of the ski area? Mountain Village? Wow, a whole new world in the last few years."

"I'm not sure I like it. The development."

I didn't either but I didn't want to get distracted from Tami and Miko.

"Walk some more?" "I feel great," she said.

"Let's go." We walked. It was my turn to report on Dell. I said, "It's funny, considering what Cathy had to say about Tami and Dell's relationship, but Dell focused on Tami's strengths. Didn't say much about any trouble they had with her. He talked about the day-care work she did at the church during Bible studies, the tutoring she did at school with the younger kids. Dell's mother was still alive then and he says that Tami was devoted to her. She lived here in town and Tami would stop by to see her and read to her and help her out three or four times a week with chores and such. Dell was real proud, too, of the way she handled the animals and skied. Hell, he was proud of her for just about everything she did." Lauren said, "I got the impression from Cathy that Dell could be real critical of Tami."

"Well, he wasn't when he was with me. That didn't come across at all. Did Cathy say anything about Tami breaking her leg when she was twelve? She was in a cast all spring?" Lauren said, "No."

"Apparently she was sking off a cornice on a dare from a boy she wanted to impress. Landed funny and shattered her tibia. Dell called it a 'damn fool thing' but I never got the impression he was mad at her about it. It was just an example he used to show me what an adventurer she was. You know-how her judgment wasn't always that sound? Not that she was a bad kid but that sometimes she didn't think things through. I think he was trying to tell me that she was capable of making bad decisions. Impulsive decisions. That he feared one of them might have had something to do with her murder. Does that make sense?"

"Sure. She was a kid. She was a risk taker."

"Yeah. Like that. Dell was real aware that she was a kid."

Lauren stopped in her tracks and pointed at some birds flying in formation across the valley.

"It's interesting now that I hear you talk about Dell and where his memories take him. Because Cathy's memories take her someplace else.

She focused mainly on Tami playing around with adult things. Not kid things.

Alcohol, sex. Maybe Cathy wasn't comfortable with the child and adolescent part of her daughter." "Or maybe," I said, "she just needed her to be an adult."

"Maybe."

"Dell describes his daughter as strong-willed. Says Tami demanded an explanation for 'every damn thing' he ever wanted her to do or not do. Said she'd argue about anything. She'd hear the news on TV and she'd bark at the screen arguing with Larry Green about the five-day forecast. But Dell didn't think Tami was out of control. Far from it. In fact, he said that in many ways Joey was a tougher kid for him to raise. I'm left wondering what Cathy felt she was protecting Tami from. You know, why she felt she needed to keep so much from Dell? She say anything about discipline? Any problems? "

"What do you mean?"

"Any issues between Tami and her father?"

"You wondering about abuse?"

"I guess. Mostly I'm just trying to explain to myself why the parents ended up approaching this kid so differently."

"Well, Cathy didn't say anything about any concerns in that area, but I wasn't really asking. Did you hear anything from Dell about Mariko?"

I nodded.

"Dell liked her a lot. He called her Miko. Same as Tami did. Said she was polite, friendly, grateful. Full of life. He said if you took away most of Tami's orneriness and stubbornness, you'd end up with Miko Hamamoto."

"That's funny. I got the impression that Cathy wasn't too fond of Mariko. She calls her Mariko, by the way, not Miko. Told me that Mariko was one of Tami's projects."

"Projects?"

Lauren grabbed my wrist.

"Yeah, like the friendship was some kind of a charity thing. And I almost forgot. At one point she said that Tami adopted her, Mariko.

Said she was like a stray puppy that Tami brought home. Cathy said the friendship wasn't going to last."

After lunch Lauren napped. She didn't want to nap. But she napped. As soon as we got back to the room she kicked off her shoes, took off her bra, and pulled on a T-shirt. She claimed the middle of the queen bed, curled up, and slept.

She considered her almost daily afternoon sleep a reluctant sacrifice she offered to the MS gods. The interlude helped to refresh her only slightly more than half the time. The rest of the time, she woke from her nap groggy and disoriented, and the process of reacclimating to the day would debit another hour from her useful life. One hundred percent of the time, the absolute necessity of the daily interlude infuriated her.

We were staying in a bed-and-breakfast below Howelsen Hill. Our room was small and had big dormers on two walls. Everything that could be plastered with wallpaper was. The paper had an abundance of stripes that seemed to go every which way around the dormers. I found myself tilting my head involuntarily to try to straighten out the lines. The room also had a pleasant balcony that was about the size of an old clawfoot bathtub. While Lauren curled up, I squeezed a chair out to the deck and pecked out notes on my laptop, sipping occasionally on a diet soda I'd claimed from the downstairs refrigerator.

The air in Steamboat was light-almost feathery-and the blue hue of the sky seemed less fierce than it did in the resorts farther south in the Colorado Rockies. The almost inevitable afternoon summer thunderstorms were skirting north of town that day, and the distant thunder that they generated reminded me of the muted booms I would hear as I was trying to fall asleep while a fireworks show was still going on during some past Fourth of July.

I filled five pages with notes before I read them through once. I made some changes and easily typed three more. The excitement I felt at what we'd learned at the Franklins' ranch felt almost visceral. Tami was becoming real to me much faster than I'd anticipated, and the questions I had about her relationships with her parents-and their relationships with each other-felt swollen with possibilities that might lead to further discoveries.

At another level, I was aware that I'd already decided that I needed to talk with Joey Franklin. Not because I couldn't rule him out as a suspect-which, of course, I couldn't-but because I knew that by speaking with him, I would gain even greater perspective on the Franklins as a family. I needed Joey's perspective to try to sort out the discrepancies between Cathy's and Dells perspectives on their daughter. I assumed that A. J. Simes would have no objection to my expanding the horizon of my piece of the investigation a little.

Lauren walked out on the balcony just before four. She hugged me from behind, one of her breasts heavy on each side of my neck.

I liked the way it felt. I was about to tell her that I liked the way it felt when she said, "Before it gets dark, I want to go see the ranch."

I was surprised.

"You want to go back to the Franklins' ranch?"

Her voice was husky in my ears.

"No. I want to go see the Silky Road Ranch. The one where Gloria was killed. I don't know why, I just want to see it. It feels like, I don't know, a family thing. It feels unfinished."

I hadn't conjured up any plans for the late afternoon. Another drive in the country sounded fine.

"You know where it is?"

"Not really." I said, "Shouldn't be too hard to find out. I'm sure the owner of the B and B will know."

The owner of the B and B did know.

The Silky Road Ranch was up the same county road along the Elk River as the Franklins' ranch, but much closer to town. The directions she gave us were straightforward. I only got lost once, having to double back to the entrance to the Silky Road after crossing the bridge that ran over Mad Creek.

The ranch abutted the western-facing slope of a wide horseshoe canyon below Hahn's Peak, and most of the ranch's acreage was gently rolling high prairie.

How high? I was guessing it was about the same elevation as the base of the ski area at Mount Werner, which was about sixty-nine hundred feet or so. The setting, on this late spring day, was sublime. The southern sun lit green fields, set trees to shimmer, and sparkled off the ice-cold snowmelt in the Elk River. A serene quiet filled the narrow valley, broken only by an occasional gust of wind.

Along with directions, Libby, the owner of the B and B, had provided an abbreviated version of the ranch's recent history. Raymond Welle never sold the Silky Road after Gloria was killed by Brian Sample in 1992. After the murder Raymond lived in a rented condo near the ski area for a year before he felt that he was able to return to the ranch. He continued to practice clinical psychology but was also getting more and more involved in his radio show, which had been picked up by a few dozen small stations and was gaining a regional audience.

Within another year the show had gone national.

Ranelle and Jane-the "girls," our hostess called them-stayed on and looked after the big house at the Silky Road while Ray was living in town. But Raymond, who had never shared his wife's great love for horses, sold Gloria's herd and closed up the stable within a month or two of her death. The two cowboys moved on. Libby didn't know where those boys had gone.

Raymond did some minor renovations to the ranch house and moved back in quietly.

According to Libby, some said that the first night he slept there as a widower was the first anniversary of the day that his wife was murdered. Our hostess couldn't confirm that. The bunkhouse and stable had fallen into disuse. Raymond had never had any use for them. Eventually, Ranelle and Jane were let go.

Even though she knew that her onetime brother-in-law was still single, Lauren asked if Raymond had ever remarried.

"No, he never showed much interest in the local ladies. If he ever comes back here with a bride, you can bet it'll be some Jane Fonda type. Some society or Hollywood thing. You watch-when we're not looking he'll show up with some city girl and the two of them will go and fill the whole damn Elk River Valley with buffalo and ostriches.

Maybe even emus" She made her pronouncement with disappointment and a tiny hiss of venom, as though she was one of the local ladies who had been scorned by Raymond Welle.

I pulled in front of the main gate to the ranch and parked on the dust in the shadows of the trees that lined the Elk River. Traffic on the county road was sparse. After a minute or so, I killed the engine.

The gate was unassuming enough, a couple of long triangles of steel tubing that came together in the center. The structures that supported the gates were less modest, however. They were built of a rich red stone and they were big. Each footprint was at least four by four, and I knew if I stood next to one it would soar above my head.

A brass sign on one of the structures read

"Glorias Silky Road Ranch-No Visitors."

A box recessed into the other structure had a buzzer and a speaker on a stainless-steel plate that was about the size of a microwave oven.

Lauren and I both got out of the car. She pointed north and said, "I think that's the house Gloria built. Way back there. See? By the woods?"

I saw some structures and nodded.

"Were you ever there? At their home?"

"No. Not once."

A gust of wind kicked up a dust devil down the dirt lane that led into the ranch and we were both distracted watching it flourish and die.

I asked, "Do you want to see if we can drive around the perimeter? Doesn't look like we're going to be invited in."

"No, I don't think so. We can leave in a few minutes. I just want to get a feel for it."

I was listening to the wind whisper to me when the speaker in the far gate support blared.

"You are on private property. Please leave. Repeat:

You are on private property. Please leave immediately."

After my pulse subsided a little I looked around for a lens or an infrared sensor or something. I couldn't find a thing but didn't feel much confidence that we weren't on candid camera. I asked, "Do you think that was a recording?

Or was it a real live person?"

Lauren raised her eyebrows and shook her head incredulously.

"Not sure. But I'd guess it was a recording. Just know it was the voice of Big Brother."

The same voice belted out the same tune again.

I said, "Apparently Big Brother would like us to move along."

She turned her back on the ranch and mouthed words to herself that I interpreted to be her thoughts about something Big Brother could just go ahead and do to himself instead.

A minute passed. Maybe two. I wasn't sure what Lauren was up to. She wasn't a pacer. But she was pacing.

"Company's coming," I said, pointing up the dirt road that snaked away from the gate toward the house, the same road that the dust devil had been teasing a few minutes before. In the distance, a fresh cloud of dirt was rising behind a dark speck that I guessed was some kind of pickup truck. It was coming our way.

Lauren watched the vehicle approach for a good ten seconds. I watched her watch it. I didn't really want to have to explain to Raymond Welle's security people why we were hanging out around the entrance to his ranch. Certainly not a few days before I was scheduled to meet with him in Denver about an old murder case.

I said, "I don't think I really want to get to know those people, honi'd rather have a clean slate when I meet Dr. Welle next week. Do you see anything to gain by hanging around?"

She ran her fingers through her hair and buttoned the top button of her shirt.

Finally, she said, "No, nothing to be gained. Let's go then." She climbed into the car and waited till I joined her before she continued.

"I want trout for dinner. And a big salad. Spinach. That sound okay to you?"

We stopped back at the B and B and I used the communal phone in the downstairs parlor to check my office voice mail and the answering machine at home. The messages were all mundane except for two. The first unusual call had been from Mary Wright. She asked that Lauren get in touch with her at the Justice Department the following Monday. The second call that drew my attention sounded almost British in its formality. Taro Hamamoto had returned my call from British Columbia. His message informed me that he would be interested in speaking with me further. Would I be so kind as to call him back? He left a number that was different from the one that A. J. had given me for him. The area codes were the same though: 604.

I returned the call right away.

He answered on the fourth ring.

"Yes," he said.

"Hello, may I speak to Mr. Hamamoto, please?"

"This is he. Dr. Gregory?"

"Yes, this is Alan Gregory. I want to begin by thanking you for returning my initial call. The circumstances-a stranger calling about your daughter after so many years-must feel peculiar."

"That's a good word. Yes. It is peculiar. Perhaps you would take a moment and familiarize me, once again, with the organization that you represent. On your message you said it was called…?"

"Locard. It is named after a nineteenth-century French detective. He was an early forensic scientist, a pioneer. The current Locard is a volunteer organization of forensic professionals dedicated to solving what are sometimes called cold cases."

"And in your message you said you are revisiting the circumstances of Mariko's murder. That is correct? Her death is the cold case? Yes?"

"Yes. Her death and that of Tami Franklin."

"And you have chosen to focus on my daughter and her friend precisely… why?"

"A few months ago Locard was approached by the Franklin family-Tami's parents-and by the new police chief of Steamboat Springs, a man named Percy Smith. They petitioned for Locard's assistance. Obviously, they are hoping that Locard will be able to uncover new information that might lead to the apprehension of whoever is responsible for…"

"Killing my daughter."

The words exited his mouth with a facility that was unnerving to me. I replied, "Yes."

"And from me? You wish…?"

"I am a clinical psychologist, Mr. Hamamoto. My role in the investigation is limited. I've been asked to try to get enough of a social and psychological history of Tami and Ma-riko"-I stumbled over his daughter's name, almost calling her Miko-"to understand what might have brought them in contact with their killer, or killers."

Taro Hamamoto was silent for at least half a minute.

"You are… in the process of dissolving an assumption, Dr. Gregory."

I waited, unsure what he meant.

"Back then, there was an assumption that a stranger, perhaps a, a… drifter was… responsible for the murders. You are proceeding as though that hypothesis may lack merit."

"Yes, Mr. Hamamoto, I suppose I am proceeding as though that hypothesis may lack merit."

Again he paused, this time for even longer.

"I am intrigued by what you are proposing. I would like an opportunity to meet with you to discuss your ideas in more detail. Personal contact is important, I think. Don't you? I will make a decision at that time whether or not I feel it is proper to assist you in your new investigation. Unfortunately, I am unable to leave Vancouver at this time, so you will need to come to Canada. I can arrange to meet with you for two or three hours." I heard him pecking on a keyboard.

"There is a United flight into Vancouver from Denver that will have you arrive at twelve-thirty, Monday through Friday." More keyboard tunes.

"A return flight departs daily for Denver at four-ten. I will meet you in between the two flights in the Air Canada departure lounge. Pick a day next week and leave me a message as to your choice. Tuesday is inconvenient for me.

Is that acceptable, Dr. Gregory?"

"Tentatively, yes. But I am required to clear any travel plans through Locard.

In advance."

I thought I heard him scoff before he said, "I will be waiting to hear from you with your choice of dates."

I was off the phone in plenty of time to join Lauren for an early dinner at Antares, where my wife, true to her word, ordered trout and spinach salad. We spent the rest of the mild evening driving and then walking the trail that led to the Strawberry Park hot springs, the popular spot that Tami had told her brother was her likely destination the night she disappeared with Mariko.

The last time I'd been in Strawberry Park it was a hippie hangout. Now it was a tourist attraction with a gate and an admission fee. Despite the artificial accoutrements, I still would have been up for a soak in the natural springs, but hanging out in hundred-plus-degree water wasn't an option for either pregnant women or people with MS, so I was content to enjoy the sights and the air and the company.

"Have you decided? Are you going to go to Vancouver?" Lauren asked. During dinner, I'd filled her in on my conversation with Taro Hamamoto.

"If A. J. says yes, I'm going. I need to talk with him."

"And if A. J. says no?"

"I'll probably go to Vancouver anyway."

She said, "We can afford it"

"I know we can. That's not it. I'm beginning to feel some compulsion about all this. I don't know exactly what it is, or why it is, but I can't stop thinking about those two girls."

Lauren laughed gently.

"Me neither. This work really hooks you, doesn't it? I feel the same tug that you're feeling. I can't wait to talk to Mary Wright and find out what she wants. I'm ready to dive in headfirst. I think I'm beginning to understand why all these high-powered people donate time they don't really have to organizations like Locard and Vidocq." I said, "It won't feel so good if we don't figure it out, though."

"You mean who killed the girls?"

"Yes. I mean who killed the girls. I hope I can help, hope we both can help.

But my assumption is that Flynn Coe and russ Claven and the forensic types hold the key to this one. Not us." e decided to drive home to Boulder late Sunday morning on Highway 40 instead of Highway 9. The route would take us through Granby, past Winter Park, and over Berthoud Pass before it intersected with 1-70. For the first hour that we were on the road the traffic was minimal, the air outside was more warm than cool, and the midday sky above us a pale and soothing blue that was the color of glacier ice.

As we neared Silver Creek I asked Lauren, whose nose was buried in the Sunday newspaper, if she could guess what Mary Wright wanted.

She spent the next minute or so folding the newspaper down the spine, then over the fold, then once more in half. She rested the project on her lap, turned my way, and said, "Who knows? Statute of limitations, grand jury rules, trial protocols, special prosecutors. Could be just about anything."

"No guesses?"

"No. No guesses."

We arrived home by about 1:30. Adrienne and jonas were out somewhere and they'd left Emily in her dog run. I assumed that there had been a protracted argument between mother and son about why Emily couldn't go with them wherever they were going.

I emptied our things out of the car, played with the dog for a few minutes, opened some windows to ventilate the house, and started a load of laundry before I called Diane and told her I was back in town and back on my beeper. She said my patients had been good while I'd been gone. No emergencies. We talked about things friends talk about for a little while before I thanked her for covering, hung up, and checked messages on the home machine.

Our contractor for the renovation project that we'd done the previous year, Dresden Lamb, had returned my call about a leaking down spout and some disintegrating grout in the new shower. He promised that he'd take care of both problems the following week. My friend Sam Purdy had called inviting me to loiter-his word-with him at North Boulder Park during his son Simon's last soccer game of the season.

There were two hang-ups.

The last message was from a woman named Dorothy Levin. Her succinct message wasn't directed toward either Lauren or me. She said, "Hi. My name is Dorothy Levin. I'm with the Washington Post" She left a number with a 202 area code-which I knew from my recent Lo-card experience was indeed Washington, DC.-and concluded with, "Please return my call at your earliest convenience."

Lauren heard the message, too. She asked, "Is that for you or for me?"

"I think it must be for you."

"Bull. It's for you."

"I bet it's Locard business. Washington Post? It has to be."

"How would a reporter with the Washington Post know about us being involved with Locard?"

"How did they know about Monica Lewinsky?"

"I don't want to have that discussion again," Lauren admonished me, "Ken Starr has managed to do for prosecutors what O. J. did for Heisman Trophy winners.

Should we return Ms. Levins call?"

"No, I don't think so. Kimber's instructions were to 'no-comment' the press and to let him know about any contacts we receive. We should just let him or A. J. know she called and not worry about it." Lauren said, "Until we return her call, we don't actually know whether or not we've been contacted about Locard business, do we?"

Her argument was persuasive, as usual.

"Okay," I said, "then you go ahead and call her back."

She was already walking away from the general vicinity of the phone.

"No. I think you should. This may just be another Jonbenet cold call. I'm tired of them and I don't even want to think about taking another one. You promised you'd field them for me while I was pregnant."

"You haven't had one of those for months."

She leaned over and knocked on the pine table in front of her.

"Thank God for small favors."

I had promised I'd shield her fromjonbenet calls.

"Okay, on the unlikely premise that this might be yet another reporter writing a true-crime book about Jonbenet, I will return Dorothy Levin's call. But… it's only because you're pregnant and beautiful."

"Actually," she said, lowering her T-shirt off one shoulder, "I'm beautiful and I'm pregnant."

"Whatever you say. I'm not about to argue. Pretty soon you'll be bigger than me so I have to be careful." Two seconds later I successfully dodged a pillow that was whizzing past my head.

The number in D.C. was that of Dorothy Levin's home phone. She answered breathlessly after two rings. She said, "Hell-o." The emphasis was harsh and clearly on the "hell."

"Dorothy Levin, please."

"You got her."

"This is Alan Gregory returning your call from Colorado."

"Yeah? Good, good. Great. What a surprise. Hold on a second." I heard background noises as though she was fumbling around for something.

"Listen, is it Mister or Doctor?"

What?

"You still there? Is it Mister Gregory or Doctor Gregory?"

I had enough of my wits about me to ask, "Am I being interviewed about something?" She sighed.

"I didn't say on my message? I'm a reporter with the Washington Post and-"

"No, no. You didn't say that you were a reporter. Only that you were with the Post"

"Really? That's not like me. I'm an honest person and I'm pretty sure I-"

"I'm happy to play back the message for you. Would you like me to play your message back for you?"

Another sigh.

"That won't be necessary." The sarcasm was spread thick, like peanut butter on Wonder bread.

"Listen… okay, okay. This isn't going like I had planned. I'm not smiling at the moment-you know what I'm saying? I'm just not a happy person when things don't go well at the beginning.

Whadya say we start over?" She didn't wait for me to concur with her request.

"Here goes. This is my new intro:

Hello, Mr. Gregory? I'm Dorothy Levin. I'm a reporter with the Washington Post.

How are you today?"

She was so out-there that I played right along with her.

"I'm fine, Ms. Levin.

How are you?"

"Great, great. Hey, what I need-" She caught herself falling back out of character.

"Sorry. Sorry. I'm doing well, thank you. I'm so sorry to interrupt your weekend, but I'm doing this story about fundraising practices in the early congressional campaigns of Representative Raymond Welle. Your name was brought to my attention as someone who-"

"How? How did you get my name?"

She slapped something. Hard. The sound cracked like a steak dropped on the counter.

"Oh, damn. And we were doing so much better the second time around.

That question really ruins things though. The momentum? It's a fragile thing in interviews. You know I can't tell you how I got your name. There are rules.

Journalism rules. You ever hear of Watergate? Confidential sources, stuff like that? Deep Throat ring a bell? Let me see-do you want to just back up and pretend you didn't really ask that question? Or do we need to start all over again?"

I laughed. She laughed. I heard her strike a match and light a cigarette. She sucked hard on it before she spoke again.

"You still there? You didn't hang up on me, did you? Can't stand it when that happens."

"I don't know anything about Welle's campaign financing."

It sounded like she was trying to spit a speck of tobacco out of her mouth. Was she really smoking non filters I tried to imagine a Camel hanging from her lips, smoke circling toward the heavens carrying the souls of dead smokers to their reunions with God.

She said, "Go on."

I laughed again.

"I'm not going on, Ms. Levin. I don't have anyplace to go on to. I don't know anything about Raymond Welle and his campaign financing." She didn't respond immediately. But I thought I could hear the squeaky sounds of someone writing quickly with a felt-tip pen.

She was jotting down everything I said.

I decided that it was prudent to either shut up or hang up. But I couldn't decide which. So I waited.

She did, too. Patiently. For about twenty or thirty seconds. Then she said, "Okay? Yeah?"

If this was her best attempt at conducting an interview, I decided that hanging up would make the most sense. Not even trying to hide my incredulity, I said, "

"Okay? Yeah?" That's your next question? Seriously?"

She broke into a mixture of coughing and laughter that caused me to pull the phone away from my ear. At the conclusion of her paroxysm she said, "That was kind of lame. I'll do better. I promise. Oh, please give me another try. And whatever you do, don't tell my editor. Deal?"

She was still laughing.

"What is it that you want, Ms. Levin? As entertaining as this conversation might be, I think we may both be wasting our time."

She had composed herself by the time she spoke again.

"I am doing a story… about fund-raising practices during Representative Welle's 1990, 1992, and 1994 congressional campaigns. I got your name. I'm calling for information."

"About…?"

"About what you know."

"But I don't know anything." She sighed before she took a deep drag on her cigarette and hummed a few bars of

"Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" She stopped the melody abruptly and asked, "Tell me this, then, Mister or Doctor Gregory. If you're so ignorant about Representative Raymond Welle, then why are you planning on meeting with him before his fund-raiser in Denver on Friday?"

How on earth did this reporter or the Washington Post know about that? I stammered, "Excuse me?"

Her voice turned slightly arrogant as she said, "Now please. You're going to have to help out a minute. With a small, small clarification. Was that an "Excuse me, I didn't hear you'? Or was that an

"Excuse me, I can't believe you know that I'm meeting with him'?"

"No comment."

I thought I heard her muffle a profanity before she said, "Ah jeez.

hate this. Suddenly something doesn't feel kosher to me. We go from

"I don't know anything' to

"No comment' in less time than it takes me to clean my contacts. What's happening with the world?"

I had a temptation to explain to her why I couldn't talk to her about Welle.

But I resisted.

"I don't have anything to say, Ms. Levin."

"That's a mite different from

"I don't know anything about Raymond Welle, Ms. Levin."

"She mocked me with a whiny rendition of my words.

I shrugged and opened my eyes wide, confident that she couldn't hear me shrug or open my eyes wide. I said, "I'm afraid that's where I'm going to have to leave it."

She made a noise that I didn't really want to know the source of.

"You may leave me no choice but to write a piece reporting what I do know.

Without any opportunity for your comment."

I laughed again, more nervously this time.

"What you know is too boring for the Washington Post."

Her lips popped as she exhaled. I imagined a cloud of pungent smoke around her head.

"So be it. We'll talk again. I'm sure."

She hung up.

I used directory assistance to get the number of the main switchboard at the Washington Post. I asked for Dorothy Levin and was immediately connected to her voice mail message, which she'd recorded herself. I'd have recognized that voice anywhere. I hung up before the tone.

She was for real.

"Who knows about your appointment with Raymond Welle besides us?" Lauren asked.

"Welle's office. And apparently the Washington Post."

"And A. J. Don't forget A. J. And whomever she might have told."

"You're thinking someone in Locard would intentionally mislead a Post reporter about the nature of my meeting with Welle?"

"No, that doesn't make any sense. Then it has to be someone in Welle's office who's been helping Levin with her investigation of his fund-raising practices.

She has to have a source inside Welle's congressional office or campaign office.

This person must have misinterpreted the reason for the meeting you have scheduled with Welle because its happening around one of his fund-raising events."

"That explanation makes the most sense. The next question is, do I need to tell A. J. and Kimber Lister about the press contact?"

Lauren considered it for a moment.

"No. I don't think so. This doesn't involve Locard. She didn't say anything about Locard, right? Or about the two girls or Steamboat?"

"Right"

"There, then."

I should have had an easier time clearing my conversation with Dorothy Levin from my head than I did. But the fact that a reporter from a big eastern newspaper wanted to talk with me made me nervous. It just did.

When I'm nervous, I do. I get decisive. I get focused.

My first decision was to go ahead and go to Canada. I chose Wednesday to fly to Vancouver. I called United Airlines and booked a round-trip on the flights that had been suggested by Mr. Hamamoto. When I heard the price for the ticket I prayed that A. J. would approve the expense. I left her a message asking for approval.

Next I left a message for Hamamoto confirming our meeting in the Air Canada lounge on Wednesday afternoon.

Five more phone calls later, I'd succeeded in rescheduling the five patients whose day would be inconvenienced by my impulsive decision to fly to Canada to meet with Taro Hamamoto. After the shuffling was over, Tuesday and Thursday were going to closely resemble psychotherapy marathons in my office and I was going to be working on Saturday, too.

Emily needed more attention so I took her over to Adrienne's house to play with jonas While dog and child were playing a game that made no sense to me, I asked Adrienne how she and Erin were doing. Erin was Adrienne's last known romantic interest.

Adrienne was cranky. She said, "Why?" I lied and said I was just curious.

"Yeah. Right. You and the National Enquirer"

"Well, I haven't seen her around much lately and I've been, I don't know… wondering."

"God, you're such a pathetic liar." She laughed.

"The truth is I think I've been dumped."

"Ren, I'm so sorry."

She waved off my sympathy.

"Nah, it's okay. We were winding down to the basics, anyway."

"The basics being?"

"The… uh… gender thing."

"Oh, yeah. The gender thing. Are you having some second thoughts about… you know?"

"No. I had second thoughts about that so long ago I can't remember what they were."

I waited for her to move on someplace. We both watched Jonas try to mount Emily as though she were a horse. Emily was pretty cool about it. Jonas stayed on for the better part of ten feet. I thought it might be a new record.

"Are you still gay?"

She smacked me on the shoulder. It hurt.

"That's not a question a polite person asks."

"Then how does a polite person find out the answer?"

"A polite person minds his own business." "So who's the Lexus?" I asked.

She glared at me.

"What Lexus?"

"You've been getting visits from a Lexus. Whose carriage is it?"

She made a guttural noise I associated with disgust.

"A woman lives alone out in the goddamn wilderness with her kid and still she can't get any privacy? I'm beginning to understand those nuts with guns in Idaho."

"We live in adjoining fishbowls, Ren. We can see into yours. You can see into ours."

"Not fair. Mine's much more interesting. You ever watch your life from a distance? It ain't no Truman Show." She hadn't told me who owned the Lexus.

It should have been enough activity to calm me down about Dorothy Levin. But it wasn't. I was still anxious about the phone call by the time Lauren and I climbed into bed to watch the late news. I told her about my conversation with Adrienne.

"Is she okay?"

"Adrienne's resilient." "The bet's still on," she concluded.

"I'll go talk to her. She'll tell me things she won't tell you. I still say its a boy Lexus, not a girl Lexus."

Lauren connected with Mary Wright early Monday morning. Mary had a list of questions about Colorado law and procedure that she needed answered. Lauren suggested E-mail, Mary said she preferred paper, and they settled on a correspondence via fax. The first sheet of paper from the Justice Department was sliding from our home machine as I was rinsing out my coffee cup and heading to town to see my first patient on Monday morning.

Lauren thought she could have something drafted for Mary by the end of the week at the latest.

The flight to British Columbia was painless. At least two dozen of the 737's seats were empty, and miraculously, one of them was next to my exit-row aisle.

Having the room in front of me to be able to actually cross my legs on an airplane felt decadent. I read a biography for the first couple of hours before allowing my attention to drift outside as the pilot began the descent. As the plane banked to make our approach into Vancouver my eyes followed the linear wake of an early-season cruise ship that was heading north from Canada Place toward the Strait of Georgia and the Inside Passage. In the opposite direction a freighter headed south out to the Pacific through the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

I fantasized about being on one ship and then the other. After a long winter and spring in Colorado's aridity, the lushness and richness of the northwestern landscape was seductive. The day was clear enough to make out topographic details of the distant face of Vancouver Island. Closer in, the smaller islands and inlets of the San Juans gave my eyes and my imagination a thousand inviting places to hide. There are plenty of cities in North America where it would be just fine to hold a business meeting at the airport. Vancouver isn't one of them. I immediately wished I had made arrangements to stay longer.

Canadian immigration and customs were efficient, and within fifteen minutes of deplaning I had checked back in with United Airlines and was going through U.S. customs and immigration prior to moving on to the departure area for flights to the U.S. On the U.S. immigration form I was asked about my length of stay in Canada. I was tempted to write "fifteen minutes." Officially, I had left the United States, arrived in Canada, and returned to the United States without ever leaving the Vancouver airport.

The immigration official who checked my papers, the customs official who didn't check my carry-on, and the ticketing agent who gave me my boarding pass were all of Asian descent. In the ten years or so since my last visit the city of Vancouver had truly become a gateway to the Pacific Rim.

Taro Hamamoto had not arrived but he had made advance arrangements for me at the desk of the Air Canada lounge. The facility was small by U.S. standards but its comfort and amenities more than made up for its dimensions. Wonderful local beer on tap, plentiful snacks, fresh fruit, friendly people. I helped myself to something to eat and drink and settled into the small conference room where I had been instructed to wait for Mr. Hamamoto's arrival.

He stood in the doorway about ten minutes later.

I expected a man of typical Asian stature. But Taro Hamamoto was almost as tall as I was, nearly six-two. I expected a man graciously creeping from middle age into gentility. But Taro Hamamoto appeared to be no older than his late forties and had the lean, fit look of a distance runner. I expected to see a man wearing the Japanese version of Brooks Brothers. But when I stood to greet Taro Hamamoto as he walked into the conference room, he was Polo and Timberland.

We shook hands and he bowed almost imperceptibly as he introduced himself.

Immediately he offered me a business card. With barely a glance at his, I fumbled in my wallet for one of my own.

"Dr. Gregory," he said.

"I'm pleased to meet you."

"The pleasure is mine, Mr. Hamamoto. I'm grateful for the opportunity to talk with you."

"I hope I wasn't late."

"Not at all. My flight was early. Immigration was a breeze."

He glanced down at the conference table and saw the empty plate and the bottle of water in front of me. He said, "May I offer you anything before we begin?"

"No. I'm great. I helped myself. May I get you something?"

"Indeed not," he said.

"Please, let's get started, shall we. I'm… anxious to hear more from you.

It's not often I get the opportunity to speak about my daughter." His eyes saddened noticeably.

"My wife, she… well, she would rather forget than remember. Does that make sense?"

"Of course."

He held the tip of his tongue between his teeth for a moment and sat straight, his shoulders squared. He achieved the posture without effort or strain. The polo shirt he wore under a white cotton sweater was the exact same hue as the tip of his tongue.

"I have resources-contacts, if you will-in the United States. At my request these individuals have been kind enough to provide me with some research and background into the organization you represent, Dr. Gregory."

He smiled the slightest bit.

"Locard. It's a fascinating group with an impressive record."

"Yes" My business card lay on the table in front of him. He lowered his eyes to it before he spoke.

"And you… are not a permanent member."

Hamamoto's words were not posed as a question. I tried not to sound defensive as I replied.

"No. As you can see from my card, I'm a practicing clinical psychologist in Boulder, Colorado. I am not a permanent member of Locard. They consider me 'a guest specialist," which is a fancy way of saying that I'm an invited volunteer. I was asked to participate only in the current investigation.

The one involving the murder of your daughter, Mariko, and her friend, Tamara Franklin."

"And-please excuse my ignorance-why does Locard feel it needs the assistance of a clinical psychologist in Boulder, Colorado?"

My speech about the necessity of getting to know the two dead girls was beginning to feel rehearsed, even polished. I gave it again with some confidence.

As I finished, Hamamoto's face softened and his lips parted.

"You have completed your words, Dr. Gregory. In your eyes, though, I see that you are not done with your explanation of your involvement with me and my family."

Prevaricating with this man felt as though it would be counterproductive.

"All right," I said.

"Let me share the other reason for my involvement. Sometime shortly before her death your daughter, Mr. Hamamoto, was in psychotherapy in Steamboat Springs with a clinical psychologist like myself. It is an episode in her young life that Locard feels is worthy of more investigation. I concur with that assessment.

The forensic psychologist and psychiatrist on Locard thought that I would be the correct person to explore the issues related to that therapy."

"Dr. Welle," he said.

"The now famous Dr. Welle." Taro Hamamoto touched the collar of his shirt and swallowed. I expected him to launch into criticism of Raymond Welle. Instead, Hamamoto said, "He helped her. I want you to know that.

He helped all of us. Dr. Welle did. Dr. Raymond Welle." His hands clenched into fists before he released the pressure and spread his fingers.

"Back then, Mariko was skiing too fast. She was in danger of catching an edge.

Dr. Welle helped her get back under control. It was a great service to us."

The skiing metaphor surprised me almost as much as the praise. I said, "I'm glad to hear that he was so helpful to your family."

"Yes"

"It turns out that I am scheduled to meet with Dr. Welle in two days. In Colorado. His office has been gracious enough to set up a meeting to discuss the resumption of the old investigation."

Hamamoto nodded.

"For that meeting to be of any benefit to me I will need to provide Dr. Welle with written authorization from you-or your wife-that he has your permission to speak with me about your daughter's psychotherapy. Without that permission the records of her treatment remain confidential and he is not allowed to share with me any details of his work with Mariko."

"Are you suggesting that Dr. Welle has information that would help identify my daughter's killer?" His jaws tightened as he finished speaking.

"I have no reason to suspect he has direct knowledge," I replied.

"But he may know something that might help us reconstruct-with the benefit of hindsight and modern forensics-the circumstances that brought your daughter in contact with her killer."

I didn't know how Hamamoto was going to reply. He said, "My wife is not available. She is… living in Japan." These words were clipped, almost unfriendly.

I didn't comment on the tone.

"Your signature alone is sufficient, Mr. Hamamoto."

My carry-on bag was a slender satchel that contained a notebook and a case file. I removed the file and from it and withdrew a single sheet of paper that I had prepared on my computer the previous evening. I slid it toward him.

"This is all you want from me?" His voice betrayed his disappointment. Was there also contempt?

"This paper is all you want from me?"

I softened my voice and leaned closer to him, just an inch or two.

"No, Mr. Hamamoto. I need this paper for the next step in my work. But this step"-I touched the table in front of me-"what will happen between us today, must precede it. I want you to help me know Mariko. I want to know your daughter through your eyes. I want to begin to appreciate her the way you did."

He raised the index finger of his left hand to his mouth and pressed gently on his upper lip until it separated from the lower one.

Symbolically, I thought, he was unsealing them.

"When my company acquired the ski area in Steamboat Springs I was honored to be selected to serve as general manager. My family joined me in Colorado after I was in Steamboat Springs for four months and two weeks. My family then was my wife, Eri, and my two daughters, Mariko and Satoshi. Mariko was sixteen, Satoshi fourteen, then, I think. Yes."

Taro had allowed his posture to soften enough that I no longer felt that I had to impersonate a marine to sit comfortably with him.

"We had, of course, lived abroad before. As a family. The children spoke English well. My wife, not so well. She has always found the language and the culture to be… difficult. She often mused to herself while she knew I was close enough to overhear that she hoped our exile in Colorado would be a brief one. It was one of her favorite words." He said something in Japanese. In English, he said, "Exile."

His eyes grew heavy as though he were suddenly too tired to continue.

"My wife, it seems, she was granted her wish." His eyes closed for a few moments as he composed himself.

"My children loved living in Colorado. Are you familiar with Steamboat Springs, Dr. Gregory?" I said, "Yes, as a matter of fact I was there last weekend with my wife. It's a lovely town."

"The Mountain Village was small then. The town quiet. Everything was much less congested than it is now. The hillside-it reminded us of the place in Japan where my parents lived-a small village near Nagano. You know Nagano? From the Olympics? I felt safe in Steamboat. So did the girls. There is some irony there, yes? They walked places on their own. Visited with other children, went to school, had a normal life. We were outsiders yes, but we were accustomed to that. The girls were… happy.

"Both girls were skiers, of course. Excellent skiers. That helped them-what do you say?-fit in with the local kids in Steamboat. At my urging my wife permitted Mariko and Satoshi freedoms similar to those enjoyed by their new friends. My wife argued against the permissiveness. She felt that it would not serve them well when we returned to Japan."

With apparent sorrow, he said, "My wife… it seems… has always been someone who is concerned mostly with the past… but also some with the future. She worries little about the present… except that she worries as to how it will change the future. And how it will be viewed-appraised?-once it has become the past. I am a businessman, the one in the family who concerns himself with the present. A flaw of mine? Perhaps. If it is a defect it is one that Dr. Welle supported. But… that came later."

I didn't ask permission to take notes, but simply removed the notepad from my satchel and a pen from my pocket and started keeping a chronology of dates and people as Taro Hamamoto sketched in every minute detail of his family's acculturation in Colorado. If he objected to my keeping a journal of the specifics I couldn't discern it from his demeanor.

We were halfway through the time alotted for our meeting when he mentioned Tamara Franklin for the first time. We both laughed as he said, "I met her father and mother, of course. Her father called Tamara'a little pistol." When I got to know her better I thought she was more like a whole big gun." The memories were affectionate, not cross.

He turned serious again immediately.

"But she was kind, so kind to my Mariko. I forgave her the impetuousness. I forgave her the occasional disrespect. I forgave it all because she was so kind and generous to my daughter. Tamara was a very good friend to Mariko. I had good friends growing up, so I know about friendship. And Tamara Franklin was a good friend."

I perceived a natural break in his narrative and opened my mouth to ask a question about Tami and Miko. But he continued before I had a chance.

"I was here, right here, when I learned she was missing."

Confused, I asked, "In Vancouver?"

"Yes. In Canada. In Vancouver. In this airport. I'd just completed a business trip to Whistler Mountain. I wasn't there with my family when she disappeared.

My wife, she is silent, but she blames me I think. For not being there to help."

He shrugged.

"What could I have done? But at the time…"

I felt a familiarity with Hamamoto right then. It calmed me. It was as if our interview had become psychotherapy. I did what I do best. I said nothing and tried not to get in his way.

"Work. I was here for work. The company? We were negotiating then to buy Whistler Mountain. You know Whistler? The ski resort?"

I shrugged. Whether or not I knew Whistler Mountain wasn't the point. He knew that, too.

"A beautiful resort. It is my assignment, now. Whistler. For a different company, though, not Japanese. The economy in Japan in the late nineties was… so fragile. So much of what was gained in the eighties was lost in the nineties.

It has seemed to me that whenever Japan begins to feel strong that is when Japan is most weak. That is our history. Are you a student of history, Dr. Gregory?"

"Personal history."

"Ah." He appraised me warmly.

"My Mariko? Her personal history? Yes, I think I see. From her confidence, too, perhaps came her vulnerability. But she was never arrogant, like Japan. Even like Tamara. Mariko was young, had the self-assurance of the young."

"Her vulnerability?"

"To influence."

"From friends?"

"Yes. From friends."

"Including Tami Franklin?"

"Of course."

He stared at me in a manner that I found disarming. He said, "You know, of course, that my daughter was arrested?"

I did my best to try to not act surprised. I thought I did a pretty good job.

But not good enough.

"You didn't know?" Hamamoto said.

"I'm disappointed."

"I've read the investigative reports thoroughly, Mr. Hamamoto. That information is not there."

"No?" He shrugged.

"Her record was eventually cleared. And now, it doesn't really matter. It is not relevant to finding who killed her. Only to knowing her and her-what did you say?-personal history. It is because of the arrest we came to know Dr. Raymond Welle." Marijuana," he explained.

"In case you are wondering." I waited for him to go on. He seemed embarrassed by his admission and was content to allow the word to hang in the air for as long as possible, as though it were a cloud that would dissipate with the wind.

Finally, I asked, "Possession or sale?" I immediately regretted my bluntness; I needed to encourage Hamamoto, not assault him.

As I feared, my question appeared to offend him.

"Possession. Mariko and Tamara and two boys… men, really. Tourists, skiers.

They were from Chicago. They attended Northwestern University. The sheriff arrested them all. This was in March. We were… devastated. My wife, she…" Hamamoto bowed his head.

The hair on his crown was thinning.

"There was much shame. It was my fault. Mariko should not have been granted the. the… oh, oh…" He snapped his fingers twice. "… the license… the the… freedom. That was my fault. Mariko should not have been free to be there then with those… men who we did not know. That was my doing. My responsibility. My error in judgment. As her father, I failed."

He looked up and examined my face, wary. I assumed he was trying to assess whether my infelicitous frankness was likely to continue.

"But my daughter was smoking the marijuana. She admitted that to me honestly.

And that was Mariko's responsibility. That was her error." He closed his right hand into a fist and struck his chest lightly with the side where his index finger and thumb united.

I was wondering what was so grave about what I had heard. A sixteen-year-old girl experimenting with dope, hanging out with college boys? Not exactly earth-shattering behavior.

"They were at one of the hot springs. You know about the hot springs in Steamboat? At Strawberry Park?"

"Yes. It's where Tami told her parents that she and Mariko were going the night they disappeared. It's become overrun by tourists. They charge admission now."

"Really? I suppose that I am not surprised that the tourists have discovered it.

Your other statement is true as well. Mariko did not tell her mother that she and Tamara were going to the hot springs. Mariko knew she was prohibited from returning there."

"You are concerned that Mariko lied to her mother?"

Taro Hamamoto's face flushed.

"When the sheriff" arrested my daughter, she was. " He averted his eyes.

"She was… naked." He corrected his posture and touched his collar with the fingers of both hands.

"Mariko was in the hot springs without clothing. She was with two young men she had just met that afternoon on the gondola. She was smoking marijuana. And you think that she would not lie to her mother about a plan to return there? The shame."

I considered the facts I was hearing. When I was sixteen I hadn't done what Mariko had been caught doing. But I'd done it when I was a little older.

Different hot springs, in the Sangre de Cristo Range above Buena Vista. Older girls, graduate students at Arizona State.

The memory warmed me now as the experience had then.

But the difference was, I hadn't been caught.

"I was at a meeting that night at the resort. I came right home. My wife, Eri, she was in shock, and was not sure how to proceed. I went to the police station and retrieved Mariko. She was released to me without…" He snapped his long fingers.

"Bond? Is that the right word?"

"Yes."

"Good. At the police station I saw Mrs. Franklin, Cathy Franklin. Tami's mother.

I was upset, more upset than she. I told her I was afraid that Mariko would now need to go home to Japan. The influences, I explained. We, her parents, were failing. We couldn't control her.

"Cathy tried to calm me down. She explained that the kids were just being kids.

Experimenting, she said. Spreading their wings, she said.

We argued a little about that. We discussed grounding. She said maybe we should keep the girls apart for a while but she thought sending Mariko to Japan was… rash? Is that the right word? She gave me a name of someone who could help settle Mariko down." I said, "Dr. Raymond Welle."

"Yes. That is when I heard for the first time of Dr. Welle."

I remembered Lauren telling me that Cathy Franklin wasn't fond of Mariko.

Tami's mother thought the friendship wouldn't last. That she referred to Mariko as one of Tami's projects.

Taro Hamamoto stood and excused himself to the rest room.

The pieces didn't fit together with any grace.

Our time together was running out. I felt it burning away like the wax in a candle. I decided I needed to be more assertive with the remaining minutes available to me. I doubted that I would ever be face-to-face with Taro Hamamoto again.

"You went to see Dr. Welle together? As a family?"

"Not right away, no. Eri, my wife-the shame was too much of a burden for her right after the arrest. She felt that everyone in the town was judging her because of what Mariko had done. She begged me-she wanted to take the girls and leave Colorado. Return to Japan. It was, for me, a difficult time."

Taro was silent long enough that I felt it necessary to prod him.

"Difficult?

How?"

He paused.

"Selfishness." The solitary word was spoken as an almost-question.

"Not one of my most proud traits. I am vain, and I can be selfish. I was loving my work at the resort. I knew that it would not look good for me in my employer's eyes for my family to leave Steamboat and return to Japan. The company would be… unsympathetic to our problems. They would be critical of my inability to control my daughter. And as to that solution?" He shook his head.

"My career would be in jeopardy"

"Ultimately, your wife agreed?"

"My wife… submitted… to my wisdom. A few weeks later, we saw Dr. Raymond Welle for the first time."

"As a family?"

"First he met with Mariko. Alone. Then he met with Eri and myself, alone.

Finally, he met with the three of us together. Three different days during one week. He called us all together the following week and offered us a plan. He called it a treatment plan.

"He wanted to meet with Mariko two times each week to help her with her adjustment to… being a young woman. To being in America. To being in Steamboat Springs. He wanted to meet with my wife and me once every other week to discuss ways to assist us in managing our daughter during this difficult time in her life. He described Mariko as straddling two cultures and sometimes losing her balance. He also said that she was not ready to relinquish either culture and if we tried to force her to choose one, or if we took one away from her, she would rebel against us further. Our problems would only exacerbate. He was telling us that we could not make our problems go away by returning to Japan."

Given the facts, Welle's treatment approach sounded thoughtful and cogent. I don't know what I'd expected, but given the pontificating nature of his national radio show, I wouldn't have been surprised to hear a plan that consisted of something much more embarrassing to the profession, and much less potentially salutary for the Hamamoto family.

As described by Taro Hamamoto, Dr. Welle's treatment of Mariko sounded like an appropriate method for dealing with an adolescent and her family after a single serious incident of acting out. The intervention with Mr. and Mrs. Hamamoto lasted for six sessions over a period of almost two months. Mariko was seen individually in psychotherapy for slightly longer; her father estimated that she attended psychotherapy sessions twice a week for one month, once a week for two months after that. Maybe sixteen sessions total. He offered to check old financial records if the specific number of visits was important. I told him I'd let him know.

These days her managed-care company would never have approved such a luxurious investment of psychotherapeutic intervention. But her treatment was back in 1988, when health insurance policy provisions were less strict. Psychologists with psychologically unsophisticated clients often took advantage of the system in such circumstances and continued treatment long after it was necessary. It didn't appear to me that Dr. Welle had abused the system, however.

The treatment he provided to Mariko was not too long, not too short. Just right. When I was able to pull it off in my own practice, I liked to think of it as the Goldilocks solution.

Taro noticed me eyeing my watch.

"I am aware that our time is almost up. I will try to be brief as I conclude.

As I said before, Dr. Welle helped us. He helped my wife and me understand better the pressures that were weighing on our daughters. He taught us ways to help the girls adjust. He was sensitive to the cultural concerns we had. Eri and I did not want to relinquish,… the Japanese culture. And whatever Dr. Welle said to Mariko, whatever he advised her to do, we never again had problems with her about drugs and boys."

I sensed that he expected me to challenge him about the last point he'd made. I didn't.

He tapped his wristwatch with his fingertip.

"You have a flight to catch. I will be pleased, now, to sign your paper before you go." He slid the permission form from the center of the table and aligned it in front of him.

"I am grateful for your interest in my… family. Please give my greetings to Dr. Raymond Welle when you see him." He fished a pen from the pocket of his chinos and scrawled his signature along the bottom line.

I slid the paper into my satchel.

"Thank you," he said.

"What you are doing-it gives me a small measure of hope.

For my family, for me, this has been a wave that never breaks."

I thanked him.

"Should we have the opportunity to talk again, we can talk about my other daughter. Satoshi. She is at Stanford, in California. She is studying zoology.

She hardly remembers living in Japan, I think. You should consider talking with her as well, you know? She knew her sister in ways that I never would."

"She would be agreeable?"

"Of course. Let me write down her phone number for you. I will tell her you will call."

Ten minutes later I was on board the 747 that would take me back to Denver.

Only after I'd walked the length of the jetway did I glance at my boarding pass and notice that my seat had been upgraded to first-class. On board, the flight attendant couldn't tell me why I'd been moved in front of the curtain, and suggested with a crooked smile that I not "question fate that comes in the form of sunshine."

It seemed like good advice. My suspicion, though, was that Taro Hamamoto had pulled a string or two.

After a moment's contemplation I decided I was more grateful than suspicious, and eagerly accepted the champagne I was offered by the flight attendant with the wisdom and the crooked smile.