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

PART THREE. A Fool's Errand

A few years back, during a late spring when I was between wives, I attended a large, formal wedding reception at the Phipps Tennis House in Denver. I remember arriving at the affair mostly cynical and leaving mostly drunk. The buddy who drove me home afterward accused me of hitting on the maid of honor without success-and without honor, for that matter.

The facility where the event was held remained a bit of a blur in my memory. My recollection was of a huge Quonset-hut-like structure with a glass roof. The building itself was constructed of red brick and covered with green ivy-a monument that a family with too much money had erected shortly after the turn of the last century to indulge its interest in court sports and to express its disdain for the vagaries of Colorado weather.

At the wedding reception I'd done most of my drinking in the gardens adjoining the huge tennis house. I remembered the gardens fondly for the abundant shade.

I also recalled that a pair of nickers had been using nearby down spouts and gutters to drum a staccato advertisement for mates. Or perhaps they were after sexual partners-gladly, I don't know enough about nickers to make the distinction. I did recall that their insistent percussion had mitigated my enjoyment of the Mumm I was downing at a pace I would later regret.

Although I don't remember many details from the afternoon of the wedding reception, I am pretty certain about two things. One, I never set eyes on the mansion that day. And two, the couple who were married that afternoon years ago are now, sadly, divorced.

* * * It was the Phipps Mansion and not the tennis house that was my destination on the Friday in June after I returned from Vancouver. The mansion and its adjacent play structure had been bequeathed by the Phipps family to the University of Denver. The university routinely made the facilities available for community uses that ranged from weddings and bar mitzvahs all the way to the elegant proceedings of the Summit of the Eight industrialized countries.

The spectacular buildings were also used for occasional political gatherings in support of presidents, governors, and sundry state and local politicians.

My instructions from someone named Trish in Representative Welle's office in Washington, D.C." were to arrive at the front door of the mansion at 10:45 and to be sure I was carrying identification. Approaching the mansion in my car, I drove past two black-vested valets who were hijacking vehicles at the entrance to the tennis-house parking lot. I didn't slow, instead continuing up the hill in the general direction that I expected to find the manor.

It wasn't hard to spot. The mansion is a grand Georgian structure that commands a pleasant knoll not too far south of the tennis house. The redbrick home looks down both front and rear-and both literally and figuratively-on an expansive neighborhood that has grown up around it on what the Phipps family probably once called "the grounds." I was deterred from entering a long circular drive up to the mansion by two large men in gray suits who I surmised had not been hired for their facility at traffic control. I smiled at their stern warning to move on and continued around the block, driving a long, looping route that rolled up and to the west before circling back behind the tennis house.

I was in a nice neighborhood. On a street shaded by stately elms I parked across from a brick-and-stucco house that looked like a country hotel designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and in front of a vaulting A-frame that would have done Aspen proud. I decided to forgo the services of the valet because I'm cheap and also because I didn't want my car to be boxed in by the cars of the attendees of the day's fundraising event. I knew I would be exiting early. Trish had informed me that my meeting with Representative Welle was pre luncheon only.

She had asked me if that was clear.

I told her I thought it probably meant that I wasn't staying for lunch.

Yes. Trish and I had been on the same page.

In that morning's editions the Denver newspapers had reported that political supporters of Dr. Welle were going to pay one thousand dollars each to attend a pre lunch reception at the tennis house. I could only guess how much the two dozen or so who had been invited to luncheon in the dining room at the mansion afterward would be paying-or, more likely, had already paid-for the privilege of tearing puglia with the congressman.

Some memory fragment from the long-ago nuptials I'd attended suggested that I could cut through the gardens of the tennis house from near the spot where I'd parked my car and thus considerably abbreviate my walk to the mansion. I followed some catering employees past a redolent Dumpster, through a ratty wooden gate, and into the familiar tennis-house gardens. I listened for the percussive evidence of flickers. None around. From the tennis-house gardens I wandered up some brick stairs and through a charming wrought-iron-and-brick portico into the formal gardens on the north side of the mansion.

Although the flowering plants weren't at their peak, they hinted at what was to come in July and August. The grape arbors offered shade, and the abundant rose gardens were in perfect early-summer form. The cherry and apple trees showed the beginnings of a summer of good fruit. Upright junipers spaced like soldiers at parade rest protected the perimeters of the huge garden.

I wished Lauren were with me. She could tell me what some of the perennials were.

One of the two gray-suited men from the end of the driveway spotted me wandering the paths of the gardens. He apparently didn't think my stroll was a good idea and jogged up the driveway and across the lawn to tell me so.

"I have an appointment with Representative Welle," I said in response to his query about whether he could help me find my way.

"Your name, sir?" He stood between the distant entrance to the mansion and me.

"I'd like to see some ID." I told him my name and handed him my driver's license. When he returned it I asked, "And your name is?" I also held out my hand to shake his. He didn't notice; he was busy repeating my identity into a microphone that was hidden somewhere in his gray suit.

A moment later he said, "They are expecting you, Dr. Gregory. At the front door." He pointed up the hill.

I checked my watch.

"I'm a little early."

"That's not a problem. We would prefer that you not be on the grounds unaccompanied, sir. Would you like me to accompany you the rest of the way to the mansion?"

"I don't think that will be necessary."

"I'm glad to hear that."

The man who met me at the door of the big house was built like a double pork chop that had a grape stuck on the meaty end. Thin legs, tiny head, huge trunk.

Maybe five-nine. The only way to get by him in an airplane aisle would be to get down on your knees and crawl past those spindly legs.

"Phil Barrett" he said in a slightly too loud voice that I could only imagine coming in useful at a high school reunion as he was greeting someone he was afraid didn't remember who he was.

"Alan Gregory," I replied.

He shook my hand.

"Of course. Of course. Welcome. Come in." I imagined that he'd been at Phipps no more than half an hour and he was already acting like he'd just inherited it from some dead aunt.

I looked around.

"Nice place." "Yes," he said.

"Rays an alumni."

I was tempted to correct his Latin. Didn't.

"Of?"

"D.U. He was a Chi Phi. President, I think. His undergraduate degree is in economics. Not too many people know that part of Rays background. Before he became a healer he was quite a student of economic policy and all. Bet you're surprised. Am I right? I know I'm right. We have to do a better job of getting that part of Ray's background out to his public. Ray's been good to his school and the trustees are kind enough to let us use this place once in a while."

"That's nice."

"It's especially appropriate this year, of course. The original Mr. Phipps was a United States senator from Colorado, too. Did you know that? I'm afraid the history of this great state of ours eludes too many of its citizens."

I had indeed been aware that Lawrence Phipps was Senator Phipps but I said that I hadn't. It seemed important to Phil Barrett that I be ignorant.

We'd stepped far enough into the entrance hall so I could see the bustle of activity in the dining room, where the caterers were setting up tables for at least two dozen people. Lunch, apparently, was going to require a lot of silverware.

"Major supporters," Phil Barrett explained. Maybe he'd been thinking the same thing about the silverware.

"Hey," I said, shrugging my shoulders. I wondered if Raoul Estevez, my partner Diane's husband, would be in attendance. Diane had told me that R-aoul threw major money at politicians sometimes. Raoul's politics were usually difficult to discern but I felt confident that he threw money at both Democrats and Republicans without revealing his bias about their beliefs. He was practical enough, and honest enough, to admit that he was seeking influence, not ideology.

Barrett led me in the opposite direction from the dining room and we promptly got lost in the huge house. We backtracked once unsuccessfully and a second time with more success and he showed me into a library that was almost as large as the top floor of my house. The paneling and shelves were of knotty pine that had aged to a color halfway between honey and bourbon.

I let my eyes wander the room. Walls of books. Comfortable furniture. Nice lights. I decided I could read there.

"Ray will be just a minute or two. You'll be fine?"

I smiled.

Less than a minute later I was checking titles on the shelves when a young man dressed as though he was from the caterers staff entered the room and asked me if I would like something to drink.

"Please. A soft drink. Something brown and diet would be great."

I climbed a rolling library ladder and was perusing titles on the upper shelves, my back to the door, when I heard, "Your libation, sir."

I chuckled at the pretension and turned around to see not the young man from catering, but rather the familiar face of Dr. Raymond Welle. He was bowing lightly at the waist, a tray balanced perfectly on his right hand, a linen napkin folded expertly over his wrist. From my vantage, I could see that the crown of his head was becoming mostly bald.

I said, "Dr. Welle, Representative Welle, hello."

"Don't bother with all that rigmarole. Ray will do just fine. May I call you Alan? Or is it Al?"

"Alan." I reached the bottom of the ladder and took the glass from his tray with my left hand and shook his hand with my right.

"Thank you very much. I'm pretty sure that this is the first drink I've ever had delivered to me by a member of the United States Congress."

"I like to think we're good for something other than raising money, spending money, and arguing about everything and nothing. I think that if I could deliver a cold drink to every one of my constituents we might all be better off. We'd certainly trust each other more."

Over Welle's shoulder I saw Phil Barrett entering the room. He had donned a dirt brown suit jacket over his shirt and tie. I thought of a breaded pork chop. A stuffed breaded pork chop.

"You two have met, right? You don't mind that Phil's going to sit in, do you?

Didn't think so. Sit, sit, everyone, please," cajoled Welle. He guided us toward the windows, where we each took a Queen Anne chair.

I didn't want Phil Barrett anywhere near this part of my inquiry. But I already knew what objection I was going to make about his presence and knew it would play better later on than it would at the start.

"Trish tells me you want to take a trip down memory lane, Alan. Back to my roots, so to speak. Clinical psychology. Seems like at least two lifetimes ago that I was doing psychotherapy every day. Some old case of mine, right? That's what you want to talk about? I don't know how much I'll remember after all these years. But I promise to do my best"

"Thank you. That's all we can hope for." I was having trouble finding comfort while addressing Welle by his first name, but I didn't have the luxury of time to figure out why I was stumbling. I assumed it had to do with his congressional status, hoped it didn't have anything to do with his celebrity. I did know I didn't want to enter into this conversation intimidated by this man. I said, "As I'm sure your office was apprised when the request was made for this appointment, it was an unfortunate case that I wish to discuss. That of Mariko Hamamoto."

He raised one eyebrow and glanced at Phil Barrett. Something passed between them that I wasn't privy to.

Welle said, "Although I'm not fond of starting conversations this way, I'm afraid I'll have to be disagreeable right off the bat. Case wasn't unfortunate at all. Textbook intervention. I'm proud of it. I did good work. Fine work.

Poor girl's murder sure was unfortunate, though. Obscene."

"I've recently spoken with Mariko's father and-"

"You have? Well, you talk to Taro again you give him my best wishes. I still pray for him and Eri at least once a week. Sometimes more than that. And that little girl of theirs, what was her name?"

I assumed he meant Mariko's little sister.

"Satoshi."

"That's right. Satoshi. The whole thing broke her in two. The disappearance.

The murders. She was a real sweetheart."

I suspected I was watching the process by which a natural politician transfers a forgotten name into permanent storage. He wouldn't forget Satoshi Hamamoto's identity again.

I reached into my jacket pocket and took out a photocopy of the release-of-information form that Taro had signed in Vancouver.

"I'll be sure to pass along your regards. This is for your records, by the way.

Its a photocopy of an authorization signed by Taro Hamamoto permitting you to release information about his daughters psychotherapy to me and to Locard."

Phil Barrett reached for the sheet of paper. I retrieved it from his reach and handed it instead to Welle. To Phil Barrett, I said, "I'm afraid you'll have to excuse us at this point, Mr. Barrett. You don't have permission to hear any confidential information about Mariko Hamamoto's psychotherapy from Dr. Welle.

The consent that Mr. Hamamoto signed applies only to me and to the professional members of Locard. You… are not covered."

Welle and Barrett again exchanged something non verbally While Welle glanced at the document I'd handed to him, he said, "I'm sure Taro wouldn't mind at all Phil's hearing what I have to say about his daughter. Phil was sheriff in Routt County back then. He knows all this anyway."

I thought he was waiting to see if I would react to the news about Phil Barrett's involvement in the earlier investigation. I didn't. I said, "But Taros not here to give his assent. And I have no doubt that someone in your position would not want to risk violating patient confidentiality. Even on a technicality. Ray." The

"Ray" rolled right off my tongue. I smiled. My pulse was getting back to normal.

Welle wet his lips and said, "I'm afraid the man's right, Phillip. He has both ethics and law on his side. Tough combination to fight, even in Washington. So you'll have to excuse us for a few minutes. If we move onto unrelated subjects you can come right on back in."

I tried not to watch Barrett's embarrassing efforts at extricating himself from the wing chair. I failed. The weave of the material of his suit seemed to have a magnetic attraction for the velvet fabric of the upholstery.

Barrett finally departed. Welle said, "So what can I tell you? Mariko's treatment, to my memory, was a total success. Adjustment problems. A little acting out. Basically a good, good kid having trouble being an adolescent and being an American. She worked it out. I helped. Case closed."

I smiled.

"That's nice to hear. Taro Hamamoto told me basically the same thing.

My dilemma about Mariko is that I'm not sure exactly what I need to know about her. Ray. Would you mind if I take a moment to explain my role with Locard and then perhaps you can help me decide what it is I might need to know about the treatment you did?" I proceeded to give my I-needtogettoknowmarikoto-trytoknowher-killer speech.

He listened patiently. When I concluded, he said, "So the thinking now is that it wasn't a stranger who killed those girls."

"I'm not privy to Locard's current hypothesis, Ray. All I know is that this is a base they've asked me to cover."

"I think Phil and his boys investigated this whole thing pretty thoroughly.

Back then, of course. Better computers, more technology, better science now, sure.

That may help your group with its work. But my memory is that they ruled out that the killer was someone who knew the girls. FBI concurred."

"Locard seems to like to proceed from a point of view where the assumptions are wiped clean."

He nodded.

"Like to reinvent the wheel, do they? Can't argue with it. They've had their successes, haven't they? That Texas thing? Wow. Have to admit that was impressive."

"Yes, they have been successful. Why don't we start with the presenting problem?

What were the issues that you were helping Mariko with?"

"Let me see" He tightened his eyes as though he was trying to appear pensive. I wasn't convinced by his act when he said, "I think I got it. She'd been caught with some dope. Just enough to smoke, mind you, not to sell. That's my memory.

Too bad Phil's not here. He'd remember for sure about the dope part.

Mother was overprotective. Father was more reasonable but was kind of absent, you know, very busy at work. He was a big shot at the resort. Mariko was trying to find her way around a new culture, with new friends, new temptations.

Adolescent stuff."

"You mentioned her friends. Would you say she was especially susceptible to influence from her friends?"

"Especially? I wouldn't say especially. Had a good friend… yes, Tami-Tami Franklin, who was a very strong personality, a natural leader. I must say Tami didn't always lead kids in the direction that their parents wanted them to go.

But she was a natural leader. She certainly influenced Mariko."

"Tami was the girl she was murdered with."

He waved his left hand at me.

"Of course, of course. I know that. But lots of kids in town were susceptible to Tami's influences, not just Mariko. Tami was that kind of kid. She caused a lot of sleepless nights for a lot of Steamboat Springs parents, that girl did."

"Boyfriend?"

"Tami? Always. Mariko?" He shook his head and made a clicking sound with his tongue.

"You know, not that I recall. It's possible, I suppose, but I don't remember her talking about anyone special."

I was immediately curious why Welle knew and recalled so much about Tami Franklin. Had Mariko talked about her friend in therapy that much?

"What about other friends besides Tami?"

"Mariko talked about some other kids, I'm sure. But I couldn't remember their names. We're going back a lot of years. I bet the Franklins could be of some help on that. The kids all hung out in a group."

"School problems?"

"Again, not that I recall. Just being picked up that once with the dope and the oh yeah-the… I almost forgot. Her parents were mortified that when she was picked up by the police she was skinny-dipping in the hot springs out at Strawberry Park with some boys. And there was the lying, of course."

"The lying?"

"Mariko wasn't truthful to her parents about where she was going and who she was going with. That sort of thing. Her parents made a big deal out of it. May have been a cultural thing. Me? I didn't consider it too unusual for a teenager. Certainly didn't see it as pathologic. Tried to get Taro and Eri to put it in context."

"Did you do any testing?"

"You mean psychological testing? Nope. Wasn't my thing. When necessary, I referred for that."

"Did you refer Mariko for testing?"

He didn't hesitate.

"No. There was no need. I told you. This was an adjustment issue, a maturation thing. Pure and simple." I softened my voice as I asked, "What was she like, Ray? As a person, I mean.

Mariko?"

He smiled, it seemed, involuntarily.

"She was vibrant. Had a little accent still, sort of a mix of Japanese and British. Pronounced her words, every one of them, as though she'd been practicing. She was a smidgen shy, but she had this brilliance inside her that… just shined. Bright as a spotlight. Mariko was a little self-deprecating. Maybe a bit too much. But she was… witty… caring. And pretty. Oh my, pretty, pretty." I thought I saw his eyes moisten.

"You've seen pictures, right? She was a little treasure of a kid. Her death, her murder…" His fists clenched; his eyes tightened.

"My wife's death, my wife's murder… they are profane, bloody indications of what's so sick about this country. It's why I decided to go on the radio to try to do some healing.

It's why I went to Congress to try to force some change. It's why I want to be in the Senate. Its why I put up with these silly fund-raising luncheons." He waved his arm around the library as though the books were to blame.

I was moved, but at the same time, I knew I was being manipulated. I was too aware that Raymond Welle wanted me to be moved. It troubled me; I felt as though I'd been leashed and was being taken for a walk. I also wondered why Ray was so eager to alter his own personal history. He had decided to run for Congress for the first time-and had lost the primary-long before his wife was killed. Why was he arguing that her murder was a motivation for him to run for office?

Somewhere about here I lost control of the conversation. Raymond edged me, ever so cleverly, into small talk about Mariko, eventually concluding with

"I think it's time to get Phil back in here. See what he can add." He tapped his watch.

Before I could object, Welle was on his way to the door.

The first words from Barrett's mouth were, "We're way off schedule, Ray. People are waiting next door at the tennis house." He turned his head to face me.

"Doctor, I'm sorry, but we need to wrap this up."

I'd just looked at my watch. The time period I had been promised for the meeting had not been used up. But I didn't protest; I expected the congressman and I would be speaking again and I didn't want to poison the well. I also suspected the final request I planned to make was going to cause him some trouble and I didn't want to antagonize him before I antagonized him.

I needed to get a copy of his case file for the treatment of Mariko. The case materials should have been collected for the initial investigation by Phil Barrett's department at the time of the murders. But I'd searched the materials twice already and they contained no written records from Raymond Welle.

"I understand you have a busy day. I appreciate your time, Congressman. And your candor. One last thing, though. I'll need a copy of your case file. Notes, treatment plan, ancillary contacts. You know what I mean. Locard insists on the written records. It's part of the protocol." I made that part up.

With only a heartbeats hesitation, Raymond said, "I'm sure I don't have that anymore. I think those old clinical files were all shredded. Years ago. When I moved on in my career."

I didn't hesitate any longer than he had.

"I hope not. Ray. State board regulations require that you keep those records available for fifteen years after therapy termination. I wouldn't like to see you reprimanded for violating that kind of thing." I wasn't certain what interval the regs actually specified but I suspected Ray would be more ignorant than I about the regulations of the State Board of Psychologist Examiners.

Ray's cheeks scrunched up and I could hear him force an exhale through his nostrils.

"Really? Didn't know that." His face immediately transformed into something more conciliatory.

"I'll tell you, the fool laws that legislators pass sometimes…" He made a comical face.

"I'll have someone look into the record thing, then. Phil, can you have someone show Dr. Gregory to the door? I promised to make a couple more of those damn phone calls." He smiled and waved goodbye.

Barrett escorted me back to the entry hall. A large table in the center was now nearly covered with a neatly arranged pyramid of Dr. Raymond Welle's two-year-old hardcover book. Toward Healing America: America's Therapist's Prescription/or a Better Future.

Rather snidely, I thought, Barrett said, "Want one? Go ahead. Take one. They're all signed."

I did.

He walked me all the way to the door. He said, "You people at Lo-card are wasting your time. You won't solve this case. Those girls are going to stay dead. And the killers going to stay gone. You, my friend, are on a fool's errand."

Before I could come up with a response, he had turned and walked away and the door was being closed against my back.

One of the men in gray suits was blocking the shortcut that led back to my car through the formal gardens. I waved in his direction as I circled down the long driveway. He didn't wave back.

Since my arrival an hour earlier the streets of the quiet residential neighborhood around the mansion appeared to have been transformed into the parking lot for a convention of limousine drivers. A sound system blared music from the direction of the tennis house. I thought I was hearing a Barbra Streisand ballad. Barbra, I assumed, would not be pleased. I loitered for a while and the music changed to a Garth Brooks number that stopped abruptly as a shrill voice screamed, "I give you the next United States senator from the great state of Colorado…," but clapping and cheers drowned out the final words.

I assumed they were "Representative Raymond Welle." The music resumed. Garth had been replaced by some patriotic march that I couldn't name, but that I assumed was by John Philip Sousa.

I reflected on the introducer's comments-"I give you the next United States senator…"-and decided that allowing for the prices that were being charged for admission to Raymond Welle's fund-raising reception, there might be a whole lot of buying and selling, or at the very least, renting, going on.

But giving7 Certainly not from Welle's side of the ledger.

I haven't met too many national politicians in my life. Seeing them on the news, especially when they are engaging in their four most public activities-raising campaign funds, making laws, and either accusing their opponents of impropriety or defending themselves against charges of impropriety-does not leave me inclined to socialize with them. But the point of my disinclination is moot: the fact that I'm not prone to donate money to their campaigns seems, somehow, to interfere with their desire to pencil me into their social calendars.

Nevertheless, my meeting with Raymond Welle had not left me running for a disinfectant shower, as I feared it would.

I was not surprised that Welle was as a smooth and polished as a river stone. I was surprised that I also found him to be affable, gracious, and personable. He was slippery enough to survive in the treacherous waters of Congress, but he wasn't, well, slimy-and the fact that he could actually talk intelligently about the profession we shared pleased me. The platitude-rich national radio program that had carried him to national prominence on a tide of poorly considered quasi-psychological advice and narrow-minded polemics had not prepared me for the possibility that the man might actually have known what he was doing as a clinician.

This new appraisal gave me caution. If I was viewing him accurately, Welle was an effective chameleon, which made him a more dangerous adversary. And despite the tacit cooperation he had offered during our meeting, Welle and his right-hand man, Phil Barrett, felt like adversaries to me.

I was walking down the road from the manse, skirting a Mercedes limousine that was sporting an American flag from each fender, when I heard my name. Loudly, a female voice called, "Dr. Gregory? Hello-o."

I turned to see a thin woman who appeared to be on the northern side of thirty approaching me from the entrance to the tennis house. I stopped and waited for her. She pulled sunglasses from her eyes and perched them on top of her head.

I decided immediately that she wasn't a native. She was dressed in a chocolate brown gabardine suit that was way too warm for a typical June day at the base of the Rockies. Her skin was so pale it seemed to glow from within her like a pearl. The purse she carried screamed "carry-on luggage" and was so large and heavy it caused her left shoulder to sag a good three inches lower than the right.

I guessed Seattle or Portland.

The wind shifted to the west and a noxious blend of good perfume and stale tobacco wafted my way. The combination smelled like an industrial-strength room deodorizer.

The woman was tall and composed, and as she got closer to me I couldn't steal my attention from her eyes. They were large and the color was the deep green hue of shallow water in the Caribbean. From ten feet away she again said, "Dr. Gregory?

It's you, right?"

Damn. I knew that voice. I'd guessed wrong about the Pacific Northwest. This lady was from Washington, D.C.

"I'm Dorothy Levin. We've talked? I'm a reporter with the Washington Post. Ring any bells?"

"Oh, yes."

"Good. Niceties are covered. I know you're a doctor. You know I'm a reporter.

And you know the story I'm working on." She stretched the collar of her blouse away from her neck with her fingers.

"Is it always this hot here? I thought I was going to be in the mountains."

"Common misconception. Summers tend to be quite warm along the Front Range."

"And dry? Shit, I swear the inside of my nose is cracking into a miniature mud flat and my contacts feel like they're made of Saran Wrap."

I was going to go into a relatively lengthy explanation about the value of good hydration in high-desert climes, but decided against it.

"Someplace we can sit and talk? Preferably someplace air-conditioned. I have maybe forty-five minutes till the fund-raiser lets out. They instituted a no-press rule. Pisses me off. Leaves me standing out here in this convection oven."

"I'm afraid I still don't have anything to tell you."

She smiled in a way that clearly communicated "Don't patronize me." Her smile was pleasant enough but I was still having difficulty getting past her brilliant eyes and the tobacco fumes.

"You were just with him, weren't you?" "Him?" I asked, feeling caught and feeling stupid.

She laughed at my lame attempt at being disingenuous, caught herself, and swallowed.

"You know whom I'm talking about. Colorado's next senator Raymond Welle? Six two. Handsome enough. Bad five o'clock shadow. Body mass index just this side of obese. You were just meeting with him, I think?"

"I don't… I don't have anything to say."

She licked her lips.

"I already know about the meeting, Doctor. I'm just trying to be polite, here, generate a little discussion. Tomorrow's editions of the Post will report the meeting you just had with Welle. My story won't say what you two discussed because I don't know yet. But the fact that you just had a private tete-a-tete with Ray Welle prior to a major fund-raising luncheon will soon be national news. The local papers here in this thriving metropolis will pick it up off the wires and then-I promise this on my mama's grave-then you'll get lots of calls from reporters who are nowhere near as pleasant to deal with as I am."

"Why on earth would you want to do that? The fact that I met with Welle isn't news."

She shifted the heavy bag from one shoulder to the other.

"Of course it's not news-yet. So I'll bury the fact somewhere in the story to smoke you out.

Eventually, you'll tell me."

I could hardly believe what I was hearing.

"Am I'm being threatened?"

She scoffed.

"You kidding me? You're being encouraged. This…" she waved her hand back and forth between us-"is encouragement. I say please, you say no. So I say pretty please. You still say no. So I try pretty-pretty please. That's what this is. This is the pretty-pretty-please phase of encouragement. Can we go somewhere? This laptop I have weighs a ton. I'm trying to get them to buy me one of those little tiny ones. You seen those? Couple of pounds. That's what I need.

Color screen, word processing and a modem. I don't need the rest of this shit.

What on earth am I going to do with a DVD or a 3-D video card?"

I wasn't press-sawy. I didn't have any way of judging whether or not she was telling me the truth. Would she really print my name in the next day's Washingon Post? If she did Locard would not be happy with me.

To buy time to think, I said, "Yes, we can go somewhere. My car's around the corner. There's a place a few blocks from here."

"I have to be back by the time this thing lets out." She pointed at the tennis house door.

"I'm not going to kidnap you, Ms. Levin."

"Can I smoke in your car?"

"Not a chance." "Shit. My friends warned me about coming to this state. And you can call me Dorothy."

I've always had an affinity for smart women with an attitude. By the time we got to the restaurant I already liked Dorothy Levin.

"I bet I can't smoke here either, can I?" she asked as she was pulling off her jacket and settling onto a chair in Cucina Leone in nearby Bonnie Brac.

"I doubt it."

A waiter approached and she ordered coffee and two chocolate chip cookies. I ordered coffee.

She said, "I never get enough calories when I'm on the road. Do you have that problem?"

"Will my answer be in your story?"

She laughed.

I said, "Let me ask you something. A journalism question. What's it called when I tell you something but you agree in advance not to use it."

She lowered her chin and batted her eyes.

"I think its called a cock tease, isn't it?"

It was my turn to laugh.

She said, "What? You mean not attribute it? Not quote you? That's called background."

"No. I mean not use it at all. You'll know it, but you won't print it."

"Ohhh. Deep background. We're getting sophisticated, are we? Sorry, I don't play that game."

The coffee arrived. Dorothy started into her cookies immediately. She ate them by breaking off small pieces and transferring them to the tip of her tongue as though they were communion offerings.

I announced, "Then I'm afraid this meeting is just going to be coffee." I sat back on my chair and lifted my coffee cup.

"Go ahead and write your story and start to smoke me out. I'll just have to live with the consequences." I inserted as much bravado into the words as I could muster.

She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck with the hand that wasn't breaking apart cookies.

"Don't be disappointed, Dorothy. I wasn't lying before. I really don't know anything that will be helpful to you."

"These are good." She pointed to the cookies.

"Want a bite?" She broke off a corner and handed it to me.

"A peace offering. I lied to you before. About not playing the deep-background game. I'll listen to what you say.

If I start having problems, I'll warn you. How's that?"

"You won't print anything?"

"Unless I come upon the same information independently. Then it's fair game.

But I still won't quote you."

"Are you trustworthy? You lied to me once."

"Hello. You've lied to me more than once. And whom are you going to ask if I'm trustworthy? My cats? My ex-husband? My editor? My shrink? Probably get a lot of different answers." "You're in therapy?" I asked.

"Don't get me started. So why did you meet with him?"

"This is deep background, right?"

She rolled her tantalizing eyes and nodded.

"Okay. I'm a clinical psychologist, right?"

"Yeah"

"So is he. Welle."

"Yeah. This is news?"

"I met with him because I needed to discuss one of his old psychotherapy cases with him."

"That's it? You're seeing one of his old patients and you wanted to compare notes?"

"Not exactly."

"Oh, here we go again. I smell the acrid odor of obfuscation. No more cookies for you." She slid the cookie plate far out of my reach and guarded it in the crook of her elbow.

"It's not one of my cases. It's a quasi-legal thing, actually. I've been asked to review some old therapy records."

"Ah! Malpractice? Is someone suing Welle? Cool. Not as good as a campaign violation, but cool enough."

"No, not like that. Nothing like that. I'm not sure I can tell you more without breaching confidentiality, but suffice it to say that I've been asked to review one of his old cases with him and he was gracious enough to do it." "But a lawyer asked you to do it?"

I thought for a moment. The request had actually come from A. J. Simes.

"No, another psychologist."

"Why didn't the other psychologist do it himself or herself?"

"The other psychologist isn't local. It wouldn't be… convenient."

She chewed on my answer for a moment.

"And that's what you did this morning?"

"Yes."

"In person? He met with you to review a case? I'm sorry, that doesn't make any sense to me. Couldn't that be done over the phone?"

"Could be, isn't always."

"Welle doesn't give away hours to just anybody. What he's doing now at the tennis house-raising money-that's how he spends his free time."

I made a face to indicate I was offended and shrugged my shoulders.

"I asked for a meeting. I was granted a meeting."

"No." She shook her head.

"No. Uh-uh. It's not that simple." She checked her watch.

"Time to go back to my stakeout. Have a couple more people to talk to at the old fundraiser."

"What do they do in there for all this time?"

"Never been to one? It's basically a meeting of rich white guys over forty-five.

Some of them bring wives or dates but over eighty percent of the donors are rich men with an agenda. It goes something like this:

Welle gives his stump speech about economic freedom and moral decay and the necessity for America to heal itself-blah, blah, blah-then there's a reception line where people who forked over enough dough get a formal picture with the candidate and the American flag. Patriotic music plays in the background. Backs get slapped. Lunch meetings get set"

"That's it?"

"Yessiree. That's our election process. What's so appalling isn't just that it's corrupt. It's also unimaginative. In my mind, there's no excuse for that.

None."

Her cell phone went off as soon as she got into the car. Neither of us could do anything to keep me from eavesdropping.

"Ohhh, Jesus. Whadya mean, where am I? I don't think I have to tell you that anymore, remember. Wasn't that the point of my asking you to leave?… No, you can't go checking the file cabinet for those papers. Your keys don't work in the apartment anymore, anyway. You'll have to wait until I get back… Not long, no. It's business. Business… Whadya mean am I sure? Of course I'm by myself… I'm not doing anything to you… Douglas, I'm sorry, it's just going to have to wait… I don't care; it'll have to wait until I'm back… You should have remembered about it when you packed the rest of your things…… Not my problem… No. I'll leave a message when I get home. Later."

She folded up her phone. I said, "Sorry."

"Not your fault. That was the aforementioned ex. Actually that's wishful thinking on my part. We're separated, not divorced. He's not happy with me.

Apparently I'm not as sweet with everybody as I have been with you."

"Hard to believe," I said.

"We've been separated three months and I feel much better about it when I'm out of the District. For a while I was pretty sure he was following me. I'd go to a bar, he'd show up there. I'd be out with a friend, we'd see him." She shivered.

"Is he a possessive guy?"

"You bet. Jealous. Waste of emotional energy as far as I'm concerned. As if I have any interest in other men. Any."

"Is he violent?"

"Douglas? We're both kind of hotheads. You know? Him no more than me, though.

Maybe less. Stuff gets said. Occasionally things were thrown around. You know."

She smiled but didn't look my way.

"He never actually hit me. And you-you're starting to sound like a goddamn shrink."

"Sorry, it's a reflex. Possessive exes worry me. It's an occupational hazard, I'm afraid."

"Is the air conditioner on high?"

"Yes."

She tugged at her collar and raised her chin.

"I have to admit that he worries me sometimes, too."

"Have you thought about changing your cell phone number so he can't track you down so easily?"

"My life? I need to change a lot of things." She looked out the window.

"And you know what? I think I've just decided what's going to be first." She undid her seat belt, raised her butt in the air, reached under her skirt, and started tugging down her panty hose. A moment later, the act completed, her bare toes wiggling on the dashboard, she said, "Dearest God, that feels good.

Don't you wish it was all that easy?"

The Bonnie Brac neighborhood is a maze of little curving streets. I got lost on the way back to Phipps from the restaurant. Dorothy Levin had no patience for my directional impairment.

"I can't be late, Doctor."

"I'm trying, Dorothy. This isn't my neighborhood."

On my third attempt at finding my way to the mansion, I chanced on the shingled round roof of the tennis house from the rear. I said, "Voila" Dorothy said, "Merde. Finalement." She had finished stuffing her panty hose into the big shoulder bag along with God knows what else. I pulled around to the edge of the driveway that led to a small parking area in front of the building. She climbed out of the car, leaned over, and asked, "You're being straight with me, right?" I should have just said, "Yes." Instead, occasionally forthright to a fault, I said, "I answered all your questions honestly."

She reacted as though I was intentionally screwing around with her. Which, in a way, I was.

"Oh no you don't. What does that mean? How is that different from being straight with me?"

The door to the tennis house flew open. Grateful for the diversion, I said, "I think your prey is about to enter the meadow. A herd of rich white guys over forty-five is approaching downwind."

She didn't even look in that direction.

"They won't bring Welle out that door.

Certainly not first. Not when there's all that money still inside waiting to be caressed. Don't change the subject on me. What are you not telling me about Welle?"

"That's not Welle, right there?" I asked, looking over her shoulder. The man I was pointing at was Welle's size and coloring but his back was turned to us.

The man was speaking to someone still standing in the doorway. I looked around for Phil Barrett, assuming he was never far from Raymond Welle's side. I didn't see a single pork chop in sight.

She turned away from me for a split second, then back. A cigarette had materialized in her hand.

"Where? That guy? It's just some dude in a dark gray suit. They all wear dark gray suits. I don't know… no, that can't be him.

The candidate never comes out of these things first. He still has the damn luncheon to go to."

"Looks like him."

She banged an open hand on the edge of the door and slammed it.

"I have to go.

We'll talk. You and me. We'll talk, count on it."

She was no more than ten feet into the driveway when I saw the first puff of smoke floating up around her head.

Of course, I thought the smoke was from her cigarette.

But the loud crack of a gunshot that immediately followed the puff of smoke caused me to rethink its source. I was sure it came from behind me. I screamed, "Dorothy, get down!"

She spun 180 degrees, bewildered, her hair flying. I yelled, "Someone has a gun.

Get down!" She stared at me as though I were a lunatic. Her eyes shined even brighter than before.

Only a total of five or six people had made their way out of the door of the tennis house by the time the shot rang out. They reacted to the blast by pushing and shoving at each other, scrambling to get back inside the building.

Two of them fell beside the concrete landing as they tried to force their way back in.

I couldn't tell whether the man who I thought was Welle was still outside.

Closer to me, Dorothy finally dropped to a crouch, the damn cigarette glued to her lips.

Another shot cracked the quiet, the slug hitting directly over the top of the door to the tennis house. I saw splintered brick flying. People started screaming, covering their heads.

A man in a distinctive green suit standing near the door yelled, "There!" and pointed right at me.

Behind me, I heard a car engine accelerate gently. I lowered myself farther onto my seat and turned to see a white Ford van pull away from the curb. The vehicle was unadorned and was heading in the opposite direction from mine. The driver was wearing a baseball cap of some kind, left elbow on the sill of the door, a raised hand spread casually in front of his or her face.

Before I had the presence of mind to look at the license plate, the car was around the corner and gone.

I waited for another shot. Nothing.

I spun back toward the tennis house. Three large men in gray suits with weapons in their hands were sprinting at my car.

I heard ravens cawing.

I wondered. Had I just seen the shooter?

Any plans I might have had for the rest of the day were put on hold by the arrival of a diverse group of law enforcement authorities who made it clear that my short-term freedom was dependent on my cooperation with their investigation.

More cops of more stripes than I'd ever seen in one place in my life. I met Denver police detectives, FBI agents, CBI agents, and some Secret Service people who had apparently stopped by just to offer their assistance.

News helicopters started hovering overhead. Microwave trucks from the local TV stations lined the distant perimeter of the neighborhood.

I kept asking everyone who approached me whether anyone had been hit by the bullets. I didn't get a straight answer. Two ambulances arrived, one with sirens and lights, the other traveling more incognito.

I watched two men and a woman wearing FBI baseball caps examine the sewer drain that was closest to my car. I was asked if I would volunteer to allow my vehicle to be searched. I signed a piece of paper that said I would, and a platoon of forensic investigators descended on the car. I was asked if I would volunteer to allow my hands to be tested for trace metals to determine whether or not I'd recently fired a gun. I signed a piece of paper that said I would, and I was swabbed and sprayed for evidence of gunshot residue.

After about an hour, I was escorted from the gardens adjacent to the tennis house to a location in the mansion for more formal questioning. The formal dining room would have been an appropriate setting but it was still set for lunch. No one was dining. I was led to the back of the house to a sunny room overlooking the rear yard. In other circumstances the setting would have been serene.

I kept telling myself that I was a witness. That was all. But from the queries being tossed my way over the course of about forty-five minutes, my best guess was that the cops were hypothesizing that I might actually have fired the gun before handing it off like a relay runner to the driver of the white Ford van. As the questions became more insistent I started moving with some rapidity toward a decision to demand to call an attorney. The attorney I planned to call would be my wife, an assistant district attorney. Lauren would know what to do, and would know whom to call next.

That's when they told me I was free to go.

Dorothy Levin was waiting for me on the long circular driveway of the mansion.

I asked if she was okay. She assured me that she was but didn't reciprocate by inquiring about my well-being-instead she pumped me for details about my interview with the cops and feds. Before I would tell her anything, I demanded that our conversation be on background.

She took a step back from me and glared at me as though I'd just spit on her.

"What? Background? You're just a witness to what happened. Same as me. Jesus, give me a break. A quote or two isn't going to kill you"

"I don't want my name in the paper." With an incredibly irritating whine, she said, "Poor baby, you don't want to get involved."

"Apparently I am. involved. So are you. I just don't especially want the world to know it."

"Somebody else will find out your name."

The man who had escorted me from the gardens earlier spotted Dorothy flipping open her notebook, a mechanical pencil between her teeth. He walked over briskly and said, "No press in here, ma'am. You're both going to have to exit the grounds."

She wasn't the least bit intimidated. She said, "Today, I'm a witness. Thanks so much for your help."

He pressed.

"Are you a reporter?"

"I said I'm a witness. What's your name? You have ID? Who are you with? Are you legal or rental? Let me get my camera, get a snapshot of you. My camera's in here someplace." She lowered her head to her big bag and started a search-and-rescue mission trying to locate the camera inside. I watched her push the jumble of panty hose out of the way.

The man turned and walked away.

Dorothy stopped her subterfuge.

"I don't actually have a camera. But God almighty I love being a reporter.

Okay, you win. We're on background. What happened in there?" I told her.

She was disappointed, as I assumed she would be.

"That's it?"

"That's it. Except I did hear one FBI agent whispering to another FBI agent that they thought they found the white van that drove away in the King Soopers lot up the street."

"The what?"

"The white van that drove away behind me? They think they found it in a grocery-store parking lot not far from here" She was scribbling, "King what?"

"King Soopers-two o's-it's a supermarket chain."

"Guy must have switched cars in the lot. Smart. I gotta go." She stuffed her pencil back into her bag.

"I'm staying at the Giorgio. You know where that is?"

"No."

She shrugged and laughed.

"Me neither. I hope there's somebody around here who can give me directions."

Near sunset, Lauren sat down beside me on the deck outside our bedroom. There are two decks that face the mountains on our house. One is outside the living room dining room; the other is off our new master bedroom. She had already made me dinner and cleaned up the kitchen. Now she handed me a cognac on ice. I was being pampered. We waited until the sun finished its lazy decline behind the Continental Divide, enjoying the show. She said, "Pretty sunset." For a hundred miles to the north and to the south the clouds were lighting up like coral.

"Gorgeous," I agreed.

"Hon?"

"Yes" "You should have asked for an attorney. Right away." The tone she employed was less scolding than her words.

"If you were questioning me, you wouldn't have wanted me asking for an attorney."

"My point exactly."

"I didn't do anything."

"I wish that mattered more often than it does." She started rubbing my neck with her left hand.

"I'm just glad you're okay. Were you scared?"

"Terrified. More for that reporter from the Post than for myself, though. She was right in the line of fire." I sneezed suddenly, which startled both of us.

She blessed me.

I said, "Right after? You know what was going through my mind? I was thinking about the baby. As soon as that van drove away, my first thought was of the baby. I don't want anything bad to happen to any of us. You know? You have those feelings sometimes?"

She touched my arm.

"I know. Yes, I do. Frequently."

I was startled again as one of the French doors that led to the deck outside the living room opened. We weren't expecting any guests. Reflexively I jumped up and shielded Lauren's abdomen with my body.

"You guys out here? Hey, there you are." Sam Purdy stepped out on the deck.

"Didn't hear Emily barking, was afraid you weren't home. You really should lock your doors." "Hi Sam," I said.

"You scared me."

"I knocked. I said 'yoo-hoo." Hi Lauren. How's the baby? You're feeling just fine, I hope."

"Good, Sam. Thanks. How're Simon and Sherry?"

"Simon's Simon. Kid just breezes through life. Sherry's working too hard.

People die, people want flowers. People get married, people want flowers.

Economy's good, people want flowers. And it's Boulder, so she can't get good help. Hey, where's the dog?"

"Over visiting Jonas across the way. They're becoming pretty tight with each other."

Sam eyed the four-foot expanse that separated the two decks.

"Tell Jonas he has to learn to share. I'm not giving up any claims to Emily."

He pointed at the deck we were on.

"So how do I get from here to there?"

Lauren was afraid Sam was going to climb, or worse, try to jump.

"How about we join you over there. That deck's larger. Get you a brandy, Sam?"

"You got beer? Last time I was here you gave me one with a trout on the label.

I liked that."

"Of course."

Sam Purdy was a detective with the Boulder Police Department. Years ago we met over a case, as adversaries. It had taken a while, but he'd become one of my best friends. We saw eye to eye on almost nothing in life, but it didn't seem to matter. He liked guns, rodeos, fishing, porterhouse steaks, the Milwaukee Brewers, and hockey. I could live with hockey. But I was an advocate of gun control and American Humane, didn't understand piercing fish cheeks with metal spikes for recreation, was trying not to eat much beef, and could never remember what sport the Brewers played.

Still, I'd trust Sam Purdy to help deliver my baby.

Lauren walked to the kitchen to get Sam his Odell's porter. After I had woven through the house to the living room, I found my friend still standing at the rail on the deck. He said, "Heard through the grapevine that you were out dodging bullets today." Hearing it said out loud, I shivered.

"You heard right. As a recreational activity, all I can say for it is that it ranks well ahead of needing to dodge bullets and not quite pulling it off. I've been thinking about what Winston Churchill said-"Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result."

"I like that-there's definitely some truth in that. Case you're wondering, I made a call for you. The two victims are going to be fine. Both just lacerations from the ricochets. Ones already been released from the hospital.

The other one got a fragment in the eye. Nothing serious."

"That's good. Neither of them was Welle, right? Nobody at the scene would tell me."

"No, Welle wasn't even in the vicinity. He was still inside the building. So what were you doing there? At Welle's fund-raiser? You turning over a new political leaf? Something I might actually endorse?"

Politics was another one of those areas where Sam and I didn't exactly see eye to eye.

"Hardly. I needed to talk with Raymond Welle about an old case of his. I had an appointment to meet with him before the reception that he was at when everything went crazy."

"What? You were talking to him about a psychology thing?" I vacillated for a fraction of a second before I said, "Yeah," and knew that my brief hesitation wouldn't escape Sam's scrutiny.

"But not just a psychology thing?" he asked.

I said, "Remember A. J. Simes?" I knew he did. Sam had been intimately involved in helping Lauren and me sort out the mess with A. J. and her partner the previous year.

"Sure."

"She called recently and asked for my help investigating an old case she's working on. My role involves talking to Welle."

He lowered his elbows to the deck railing, leaned over, and cupped his chin in his palms.

"Is it Locard business?"

I exhaled audibly and shook my head a little before turning to face him.

"How the hell do you know about Locard?"

He laughed, and I felt the day's tension begin to tumble from my musculature.

"I checked her out for you last fall, if you recall. A. J.? You wanted some background research."

"Oh yeah."

"When I turn over rocks, I'm thorough. So is it Locard business that you're helping her with?" I nodded. He asked, "What's the case?"

"Two teenage girls were murdered up near Steamboat Springs in 1988. Place called the Elk River Valley Their bodies stayed hidden all winter. Were found during the spring thaw."

It obviously rang a bell.

"I think I remember that. The snowmobile thing? That one?"

"Yes"

"I do remember it. Weren't they mutilated or something? What's the connection to Raymond Welle?"

Again, Sam noticed my hesitation. He said, "A. J. asked you not to talk to me about all this, didn't she?"

"Not in so many words, Sam." I decided right then that I wasn't going to keep him in the dark.

"Welle used to be a psychologist in Steamboat. You knew that?"

He nodded.

"When Welle was still in practice he treated one of the two murder victims in psychotherapy. This was back when he was just a clinician, before his radio fame and political fortune."

I guessed that Sam was still working on trying to figure out two things. One, why A. J. didn't want him to know about me being involved in Locard. Two, why the hell A. J. thought I could be of any help.

Sam asked, "So, did you have your meeting? With Welle?"

"Yes. We talked before all the fireworks."

He examined his fingernails and half-jokingly he said, "You wouldn't want to tell me what he said."

"Sorry," I said.

"Why were you still hanging around? You said your meeting with Welle was before this campaign thing."

"A reporter kind of hijacked me. Thought I might know something about illegal fund-raising practices she's investigating."

"Regarding Welle?"

"Yes."

His eyebrows elevated a smidgen.

"Do you?"

"Nope."

Sam cracked the knuckles on the little finger of his left hand. Then he did the right.

His silence made me nervous. I said, "Lauren's helping out, too. With Locard.

She's the local legal connection."

The French door opened behind us and Emily barked once until she recognized our guest. The dog loved Sam Purdy and almost knocked him over while displaying her affection. Lauren told her to get off of him and said, "Here's your beer, Sam," and handed him a bottle with a cutthroat trout on the label.

He gazed at the bottle with some curiosity. He shook his head and mused, "Never thought I'd prefer one of your froufrou beers to a Bud. Wonder what's happening to me." I said, "I was just telling Sam about Locard."

We were still standing at the rail of the deck. The pastels had totally dissolved from the clouds and the western parts of the valley were starting to be soaked in dusty black. Behind us, Lauren lowered herself to the end of a weathered teak chaise. She said, "Ah."

Lauren had made an angel food cake before dinner. She excused herself and went inside to whip up a fresh strawberry sauce for it. I asked, "When you made your calls today, Sam, did you hear anything about threats? Against Raymond Welle?

There seemed to be a lot of security around when I was there."

He shook his head.

"Nobody said anything to me about any threats. But a lot of security doesn't mean much. Controversial politicians travel with plenty of muscle these days.

They need to. And Welle's a controversial politician. You know something specific about that? About threats?"

"No."

He sipped some beer.

"Do you wonder about a connection? Between what you're doing for Locard and the shooting?"

I was surprised at the question.

"No. Of course not. Not at all."

"Why not?"

"Just don't see any relevance."

He swallowed a yawn.

"You have to admit it was a pitiful assassination attempt.

I mean-a major amateur act. A nine-millimeter handgun at over a hundred feet?

The target not even in clear sight?"

"That's not totally accurate, Sam. There was a guy at the door who looked kind of like Welle. And who's to say it wasn't an amateur? As you just pointed out, Welle is plenty controversial. I'm sure he stirs up some resentment among that segment of the citizenry that is fond of guns and struggles with impulse-control problems."

He tapped his fingernail on the edge of his chair.

"And my guess is that reopening old murder investigations tends to stir up resentment among those people who are not only fond of guns but also have old homicide problems. You know what they say about sleeping dogs."

He was being obtuse, making me guess at things. It was his way of telling me what a pain in the ass I was being.

"You think somebody was trying to keep Welle from talking to me because of some old murders?"

Sam shrugged. His eyes were locked on the prairie grasses below the deck. It was apparent to me that my arguments were weighing on him with all the gravity of a slight fluctuation in atmospheric pressure. He said, "You're sure this out-of-town reporter you were talking to doesn't know anything about the Locard investigation?"

"Not unless she's lying to me."

He found that denial particularly amusing.

"God, that would be a first. A reporter misleading a source. Wow."

I smiled.

"She doesn't seem to know anything."

"And Welle wasn't evasive with you?"

I thought back on the interview.

"Sure he was, a little. But he's a politician.

He's evasive by nature."

Sam's smile was cunning.

"That's the facile explanation. It's also possible that he knows something he'd rather you not know he knows. Being linked to an old murder of teenage girls, even tangentially, is not exactly the stuff of a politician's dreams while he's running for the Senate."

I thought about it before responding.

"Raymond Welle rode the crest of his wife's murder pretty well, Sam, if you remember. Rode it all the way to national prominence on the radio, then to a seat in Congress. I don't think this investigation would swamp him, even if news about it got out. He'd probably use it to try to prove his point about our degenerate society."

"You done with him? Welle?"

I thought of the case notes I'd requested.

"No, probably not. If I had to guess I'd say I'll probably talk with him again."

"Some advice? Keep an eye out when you do. Things may not be what they seem."

"And sometimes," I said, "a cigar is just a cigar."

He shook his head a little to let me know I wasn't really getting it.

"These cold cases… they aren't really ever very cold, especially not to the people who might get burned by them. The more you stir up the embers, the more dangerous everything becomes. Sleeping dogs," is how he concluded.

"Sleeping dogs."

"Are you suggesting you don't like what Locard is doing?"

"No, no. Not at all.

What I'm suggesting-no, what I'm guaranteeing-is that whoever murdered those two girls isn't going to like what Locard is doing. Don't forget it."

Lauren arrived with the news that dessert was ready. Sam finished his beer in one long pull and stood to go inside.

After Sam left to go home, I called A. J. Simes. It was almost eleven on the East Coast. A. J. sounded exhausted. I asked if she was feeling okay.

"Good enough," was her reply.

She'd heard about the shooting at the tennis house, of course; it was one of the lead stories on the national news. She didn't know I'd been a witness at the event. Her curiosity about the ambush was cursory, however. She implied that the FBI members of Locard would funnel any necessary information into the pipeline, information more reliable than my impressions. The questions that were foremost on A. J."s mind had to do with my interviews with Taro Hamamoto and Raymond Welle and my impressions of the psychotherapy Welle had done with Mariko Hamamoto.

I shared my conclusions, told A. J. that it looked like Welle had done a decent enough job with Mariko and that his story about her presenting problems and the therapy outcome was consistent with Taro Hamamoto's account.

"Hamamoto didn't tell me anything about his daughter that we didn't already know. He's still trying to come to terms with it, A. J. With the murder."

"Wouldn't you be?" she replied.

"I'm sure I would." I informed A. J. that I was about to fax her a detailed report about my trip to Vancouver to see Mariko's father. I asked, "Does Locard have any information about a drug arrest in Steamboat Springs involving Mariko and Tami maybe six, eight months prior to their disappearance?"

"No. Absolutely not. What kind of arrest?"

"Possession. According to Taro Hamamoto, the girls were picked up smoking dope with some tourists."

"And?"

"He says the charges were eventually dropped. Why doesn't Locard know about this?"

"I don't know. But I'll look into it."

I then told A. J. about the contacts I'd received from Dorothy Levin. A. J. peppered me for details about Levin's calls and questions, and asked twice for reassurance that Ms. Levin wasn't on to the Locard investigation.

Twice I gave her the reassurance. I also relayed my suspicion that Dorothy had a source inside Welle's Washington, D. C." office. A. J. seemed to concur with that impression.

We discussed strategies for what I should do next. She wanted me to write up what I had so far, then sit tight while some other avenues were being developed.

"What other avenues?" I asked.

"Soon," she said.

"And under no circumstances should you contact Welle again without clearing it with me first."

"How about talking with some people who knew the girls? Would that be okay?"

"No one in Welle's camp?"

"No"

"Fine. And Alan? You're doing a great job."

"Oh, A. J.? One last thing."

"Yes."

"I'd like to talk with Hamamotos other daughter"

"I assumed that would be your next request. You're convinced it will add something?"

"She was old enough when her sister was murdered to be a reliable informant about her sister's lifestyle. And there are no records of interviews with her in the material you sent me."

"None? You're sure."

"I've checked twice."

"Go ahead and plan it. I'll talk to the committee and let you know if there's a problem."

The moment I hung up with Simes the phone rang again.

"It's me. Dorothy. You survive all the excitement?"

"Yes. You find your hotel okay?"

"I did, I did. If you're ever looking for it, it's a black glass box behind a bank. What I'm calling about is… I just want to know your impression of what you saw today. Now that things have settled a little bit. No more bullets whizzing past our heads. Was Welle really the target? What do you think?"

I was silent while I thought about how I wanted to answer. Just when I was about to speak, she said, "Don't worry. We're still on background." I heard her take a bite of something.

"Room service isn't bad here. It's Italian. I love room service. Don't you love room service?"

"I have a cop friend here in Boulder who thinks that if Welle was the target of an assassination then the target shoot was pure amateur hour. Wrong weapon at the wrong distance fired at the wrong target in the wrong circumstances."

"You agree with your friend?"

"I just know what I saw. Somebody shooting at the doorway of a building where a controversial congressman was raising campaign funds to run for the Senate. It doesn't make sense to rule him out as a target. It doesn't make sense to assume he was the target, either."

"That's what I'm thinking, too. I'm trying to put together a list of the other people who were close to the doorway so I can rule them out as possible targets.

I have the names of the two people who were hit by debris and a few others' names, too. Do you know who any of those people were?"

"Sorry. I don't run in the rich-white-guys-over-forty-five circles. But I'll bet the Denver papers and the local TV station shows manage to run most of them down for you."

"Figured you wouldn't know, but thought I'd ask. I've got the Channel 2 news on right now. They're not giving out names. And I can't wait for the Denver papers to fill out my piece. I only have half an hour till deadline." I heard her light a cigarette.

"At least they still let you smoke in hotel rooms in this state.

That's something, right? I was afraid I'd be out on the roof with coyotes or something." She sucked hard and exhaled before she continued.

"The shooter's escape was well planned today, don't you think? Have you thought about that? The getaway? Not amateurish at all. And you were right about the white van being found at that grocery store close by. King Soopers? What kind of a name is that, anyway? I thought Winn Dixie was a stupid name for a supermarket. But King Soopers? In case you care, the van had been stolen the night before in… Aurora. That's like a suburb, right? No witnesses yet who saw anybody switch vehicles in the parking lot. I bet the guy just got out of the van, walked in one door of the store, walked right out another, and got into his second vehicle."

Made sense to me.

"Are you heading back to D.C. in the morning?"

"I could. But I have some people to see in Steamboat Springs on Monday about this campaign-finance thing. How far away is that? Looks close enough on the map. I may just spend the weekend there."

"If you drive, it's over three hours by car assuming you don't get lost in the mountains."

"You mean I have an alternative? I can fly there? There's an airport?"

"Yes. Yampa Valley."

The nicotine was invigorating her.

"Cool. Maybe I'll do that. That's Yampa spelled how? Y-a-m-p-a? Like it sounds?

Bet you it's one of those little planes though, isn't it? I don't really like them. Too… tubey. And I like jets more than propellers. I wonder why that is…"

I didn't know why it was but I suspected Dorothy didn't need to hear that from me.

She plowed on.

"Do you know Ray Welle hasn't done a single interview-broadcast or print-about his wife being murdered since he was elected to Congress? I find that kind of strange, don't you? He wouldn't shut up about it when he was on the radio every day. And do you know her parents-I'm talking about Welle s dead wife, now-you remember about her being taken hostage and executed, right?

Her parents live a few blocks away from where we were this morning. Okay, they don't actually live there-people that rich don't actually live in just one place-but they have a house there. She grew up there. Gloria did. Right around the corner from where the Coors kidnapping took place. Bad neighborhood for having your rich kids kidnapped. Oh Christ! There's another one. Hold on."

"Another what?"

"My hotel room has been invaded by these kamikaze moths that buzz around like they're drunk. They dive-bomb right at you, flap all over the place. And they're covered with dirt."

I laughed.

"They're miller moths. They're pretty harmless. They're migratory; they'll all be gone in a few weeks."

"Ahhh. Shit. It almost flew in my mouth. Gross. This one will be gone before that, I promise you." I could hear her whacking at it.

"Got it!

Yes!"

I hadn't known that Gloria's parents-Lauren's ex-in-laws-lived so close to the Phipps Mansion. I also couldn't see how it meant anything significant.

"Who are you going to see in Steamboat?"

Her tone switched from conversational to suspicious. She said, "You connected up there?"

"Not at all, no."

"Then why do you want to know who I'm going to talk to? And why do I keep getting the feeling that you're more withholding than my two-year-old niece when she's constipated?"

"I was just asking."

"No you weren't. You weren't just asking. We're going back to class for a minute so pull out your syllabus. Here's lesson number two in Journalism 101.

Let me show you how this is done. Okay? I'm actually going to answer your question.

This is what it sounds like when somebody actually answers a question. Is your pencil ready? Pay attention. The reason I'm going to Steamboat Springs is to talk with some people who were involved with the ski area a few years ago. I need to talk with them about the campaign-finance irregularities I've been investigating. At the time, a big Japanese company controlled the resort. Does any of that information ring any bells for you?" She gave me two seconds to respond, then said, "Hello? I'm still listening for the peal of those bells."

I swallowed and hoped she didn't hear me.

She said, "Near the end there? A moment ago? That was a question. Now it's your turn to answer." Pause.

"You know, you're not very good at this" I knew I was about to lie to her. I didn't want to tell her I'd been in Steamboat only a week ago and that I'd already interviewed someone who had been one of the local managers of the ski area back in the late eighties. I said, "No. No bells. What? Are you looking for foreign money being shoveled into Welle's campaign? Japanese money?"

"Should I be?"

I didn't answer. She said, "Were you always this bad in school? How the hell did you ever get a Ph. D.? Let me try an easier one for you. If I do go to Steamboat for the weekend, where should I stay? Keep in mind, there's a possibility this will be my dime."

"Do you want charming or do you want efficiency?"

"I want plumbing. I want to be able to smoke. And I want room service. Not necessarily in that order."

The smoking part would limit her choices considerably. I suggested she call the Sheraton.

My first wife, Merideth, had been a producer with Channel 9 in Denver. I still had some contacts at the station. I called one of them at home, a young man who had been an assistant producer. He had lusted after Merideth for the entire three years that he worked with her. I hoped that fact would make him guilty enough to agree to do me a favor.

It did.

I came home late Saturday morning after a long bike ride to Lyons and back and found that a messenger from Channel 9 had left the package beside the front door, as promised.

Inside were two videotapes. One was a compilation of clips of the disappearance and murder of the two girls in the Elk River Valley. The other was a compilation of clips of the kidnapping and murder of Gloria Welle.

I stripped out of my Lycra and took a shower. Lauren called while I was in the bathroom. She left a message letting me know that since I was seeing patients that afternoon, she and a girlfriend had decided to go shopping in Denver.

Maternity things. She thought she'd be home for dinner.

I made a sandwich and carried it into the living room. The first tape I stuck into the VCR was the Gloria Welle footage.

Nineteen ninety-two. Channel 9's talent was a lot younger then. Still, except for some curious hair styles and some dubious wardrobe choices, Ed and Mike and Paula looked pretty good back in 1992.

On tape, the entrance to the Silky Road Ranch was totally different from the one I'd seen recently in person during my visit with Lauren. The day that Brian Sample went to visit Gloria Welle with retribution and murder in his heart, no gate at all blocked the entrance to the ranch. No imposing stone pillars marked the spot where the dirt lane broke off the county road. No video cameras checked on the arrival of visitors. No speakers announced curt warnings; no microphones eavesdropped on conversations. In those days before the murder, the sign that hung above the rough-cut pine logs that marked the entrance to the spread was carved of wood and read

"Silky Road Ranch." It wasn't engraved on a stainless-steel plate that read

"Gloria's Silky Road Ranch-No Visitors."

The Silky Road wasn't a memorial to Gloria back then. It was just Gloria and Raymond Welle's horse ranch.

It didn't surprise me that few of the actual details of the murder had stuck in my memory. The television stories about the crime referred to the victim of the murder as a "Denver debutante," "a wealthy socialite," or "the daughter of railroad billionaire Horace Tambor."

None of the reports identified Gloria as a successful horse breeder, or even as Mrs. Raymond Welle. Ray's radio fame was barely starting to percolate; and his first term in Congress wouldn't start until 1994.

I was curious about having my memory tweaked. What had transpired on the ranch that day?

According to the television news reports, the whole affair had lasted only ninety minutes. During that brief window of time, Brian Sample had somehow entered the ranch house, joined Gloria for tea, forced her to make a telephone call in an effort to lure Raymond Welle home from his office, locked Gloria in a guest-room closet, and then shot her to death right through the wooden door.

Shortly thereafter, Brian had fired a few rounds at the arriving law enforcement authorities. The police had gunned him down as he made a dash to the woods to try to escape.

A follow-up story the day after Gloria's murder reported that authorities had learned that the suspect in the killing, Brian Sample, had been a patient of Gloria Welle's husband, psychologist Dr. Raymond Welle. Sample was, it was assumed, bent on revenge when he invaded the Welle home. Although the exact motive for seeking revenge upon his psychotherapist wasn't revealed in the report, the reason that Sample had sought mental-health treatment was already apparently the stuff of local lore. No one in town had any questions at all about what the precipitant was for the almost yearlong decline in Sample's emotional state.

Brian Sample had owned a local saloon called The Livery. On a Tuesday night eleven months before he killed Gloria Welle, Brian had been behind the bar of that saloon, pouring drinks. One of his customers that evening was a regular, a not-certified public accountant named Grant Wortham who played catcher on Brian's softball team. Wortham had come into the bar after work for a cheeseburger and a beer, and had left the establishment three hours later after consuming eight beers and two shots of Cuervo Gold. When he left to go home, Wortham climbed behind the wheel of his big old Dodge Ram pickup truck.

Wortham had managed to maneuver the vehicle only three blocks before he ran a stop sign at the edge of town while going almost fifty miles an hour. In the intersection, the big truck demolished a bright red Subaru. The driver of the Subaru didn't leave an inch of skid mark on the road. The driver of the Subaru never saw the big truck coming.

The driver of the Subaru was killed instantly.

The driver of the Subaru was Brian Sample's son, Dennis. He had been on his way home from a Drama Club meeting at the high school.

By delivering those beers and pouring those shots of tequila for Grant Wortham, Brian Sample had effectively handed a loaded gun to the man who would soon become his son's executioner.

On the ides of March, Sample sold the bar for less than he owed the bank. Weeks after that Brian attempted suicide, overdosing intentionally on Jack Daniel's, Valium, and penicillin. When he got out of the hospital, his wife, Leigh, kicked him out of the house.

Not too many more days passed before Brian Sample killed Gloria Welle.

The last clip on the videotape was a montage of scenes from Gloria's Denver funeral. A massive procession from the synagogue to the cemetery had tied up the metro area's streets for most of an hour. To get my mind off the tragedy of Brian Sample's family, I stuffed the second of the two videotapes into the VCR. This one would tell the story of the two dead girls.

I'd already crossed whatever line of psychological defense it required to think of them-deceased-as the "two dead girls," not as Tami and Miko. And, from the detailed presentation at the Locard briefing and from all the reading I'd done of the case documents, I already knew the details of the story that the television journalists were about to tell me, so little about the video anthology surprised me. My interest in reviewing the news reports was limited.

I had, in fact, only one goal. I wanted to discover the identity of the local residents who had been interviewed by the surprisingly tenacious reporter that Channel 9 had sent to Steamboat Springs to report on the developing story. I was hoping to uncover the names of some locals who seemed to have been well acquainted with Tami and Miko.

The first few reports had been taped in the late autumn days right after the girls had disappeared. The sheriff in Routt County, Phil Barrett, was a much smaller pork chop back then. He certainly gave a lot of interviews, and appeared to enjoy acting constipated around the media. One of his first impromptu press gatherings took place in front of the snowmobile trailer that had been discovered the day after the girls disappeared. The trailer had been found in the parking lot of a condominium near the gondola at the base of the ski resort.

The base area of Mount Werner was far from the Strawberry Park hot springs and even farther from the upper reaches of the Elk River Valley.

The mayor of Steamboat spoke on camera twice without revealing a thing. I assumed that her discretion soon caused her to be removed from a list of locals deserving airtime. Mr. and Mrs. Franklin made three different televised pleas for help and mercy, young Joey a silent witness in the background each time.

The Hamamotos, in contrast, never appeared on any of Channel 9's broadcasts.

One of the television reports had been taped at the high school. It piqued my interest. As I watched I wrote down the principal's name, those of two teachers who knew both girls, and the names of three classmates who identified themselves as good friends.

It was a start.

I glanced at my watch and noted that the first of my appointments with my rescheduled patients began in twenty minutes in my downtown office. Emily needed fresh water. I filled her bowl and hustled out the door.

Our home is at the end of a dirt and gravel lane that Lauren and I share with only two other residents-our neighbor across the way, Adrienne, and her son, Jonas. By default, any traffic on the lane is either heading to one of our homes-or more likely the case-the driver is lost. Vehicles almost never park on our lane. Not only is there no reason, but there is also no room. The lane is barely wide enough for two small cars, and the shoulders are as soft as cotton candy.

So I was perplexed by the white Nissan Pathfinder that I saw parked on the west shoulder of the lane when I climbed into my car to go to my office after lunch.

I was sure the car hadn't been there when I'd ridden my bike home an hour or so earlier. I slowed my own car to a crawl as I edged past it.

I didn't see a driver at first, so I stopped just opposite the car. A man suddenly sat up on the front seat. He appeared to be as startled as I was.

I waved hello and lowered my window. So did he.

"Hi," he said through a mouthful of food. He was listening to a country station on his radio.

I wasn't.

"Hello," I said.

"Can I help you?"

He swallowed and smiled.

"No. No. Don't think so."

The man was young, mid-twenties at the most. Wide shoulders, crew cut, small silver earring in his left ear. He held a drink cup from Wendy's in his right hand and a single French fry in the other. The French fry was long, laden with ketchup, and was drooping in the middle.

Farther down the lane Jonas was home alone with his nanny. I wasn't comfortable having this stranger parked down the road from their house when I wasn't around.

I said, "This is private property." "Really?" he said.

"I didn't know that. I'll just go, I guess." Although he wouldn't look me in the eye, he could hardly have been more polite.

I wrote the license-plate number of his SUV in the dust on my dashboard as I pulled away. I waited down near South Boulder Road until I saw his car leave the neighborhood.

I was late for my one-thirty patient.

I saw two patients in succession, after which I had a half-hour break-which barely gave me time to walk over to the Downtown Boulder Mall to pick up a part I'd ordered for my bike and grab something to eat to hold me over until dinner.

I rushed out the back door of my office and down the driveway to the street. In my rush I almost missed noticing the white Nissan Pathfinder that was parked at the curb in front of the building. When I saw it I stopped in my tracks and looked over my shoulder. My heart rate jumped as I walked up to the car. No driver was sitting inside. I looked for a Wendy's bag on the seat. The car was tidy.

I walked to the front bumper and checked the license plate. It matched the one I'd scribbled in my dashboard dust earlier that afternoon.

I immediately accepted the obvious: that the presence of this vehicle first near my home and next in front of my office was not a coincidence. The echo of yesterday's gunplay hadn't quieted in my head, so I spun on my heels to go back inside to call Sam Purdy and ask him to check out the license-plate number for me. That's when I saw the young man who had been sitting in the car on the lane earlier in the day. He was perched on the rickety porch swing on the rickety front porch of the little Victorian house that contained my psychology office.

He was reading the Boulder Planet.

I hustled up the concrete walk. He didn't notice my approach. He was engrossed in the newspaper, humming something. Something country.

I stood on one of the steps and said, "Hello again. I think you may be looking for me."

"What? Oh. Darn. It's you again. Hello." He made a mess of folding the newspaper and stood up. He towered over me by at least ten or eleven inches.

Subtracting for the stair tread I was on, that made him six six or so.

Involuntarily I took a sideways step away from him. I said, "Yes. It's me."

"I didn't see you coming. I saw your car in back and expected you would come out this other door, here." He pointed at the front door of the building, then proceeded to wipe his palms on the thighs of his khakis. Before he spoke, he swallowed.

"Hello, then. I'm, I'm Kevin." He held out his hand for me to shake.

I stepped up to the porch and we shook hands. His was huge and soft. He offered almost no resistance during the greeting, as though he was afraid to hurt me with his grip. Shaking his hand was like sticking my hand into a warm loaf of Wonder bread. My tone more tempered, I said, "I'm Alan Gregory. But I think you already know that."

"Well, I do now, I guess. If I had known who you were before I would have said hello up on the road earlier. Where you live, you know? You kind of caught me by surprise up there. Embarrassing. I'm Kevin, by the way, Kevin Sample." He smiled in a manner I found quite affecting.

"I hear you've been asking around about some stuff that has to do with my dad."

Picking up my new crank at the bike shop would have to wait until tomorrow or the next day. I said, "Yes, Kevin. As a matter of fact, I have," and I invited Brian Sample's son into my office.

Kevin Sample was a veterinary student up the road in Port Collins at Colorado State University. I didn't ask but I assumed that he was planning to specialize in treating large animals.

Most of the strangers I'd met recently had been either new therapy patients-with all their inherent defenses-or people associated with the lives and deaths of Tami and Miko-with all their invisible agendas. Kevin presented himself so differently from either category that I was briefly taken aback by his manner.

The young man appeared to lack guile. Absolutely.

"You stayed at a B and B in Steamboat recently. The owner, Libby, is an old friend of our family. She phoned my mom and said you were asking questions about Gloria Welle's death. My mom told me about the call. I've been waiting a long time for someone to care enough to ask some questions about what my father did that day. I thought I'd come down and talk to you about him. Who knows, might help us both."

I was trying to decide whether or not to admit to Kevin that my queries during my recent visit to Steamboat were actually directed not at learning more about his father, but rather at learning more about Raymond Welle. I postponed the decision and asked, "Help you how, Kevin?"

"Dennis was my twin brother. Did you know that?"

His reply felt like a non sequitur. I said, "No, I didn't know that."

"Fraternal twins, not identical. But we were tight." I watched Kevin smile again, then watched the smile vanish.

"In less than a year I lost the two most important people in my life. I lost my brother first and then I lost my father.

And because of what Dad did on his last day on earth, I lost all sense of my family. I lost all my friends. Eventually I lost my school. Mom and I left Steamboat a few years after what happened up at the Silky Road. We had to, I guess. It's been just me and Mom since then. To be honest, she never got over Dennis's dying. And she certainly never got over what happened at the Silky Road."

I was still waiting to hear how talking with me about his father was going to help Kevin Sample. The tone of his words had caused me to begin to wonder whether he was perceiving me as a potential therapist.

"Can you imagine what it was like for him after Dennis died? For my dad?" he asked, and shook his head.

"You know that my father poured the drinks to the man who ended up killing Dennis? My dad felt that it was exactly the same as if he ended up killing his own son. Well, when you imagine what it was like in our house, imagine the worst. Because that's how it was. The guilt. The shame. The recriminations. The anger. The anger was vicious. It was all there in our house after the accident." Honestly, I said, "I can't really imagine. It's too horrible."

"The truth is I lost my father and my brother on the same night. Dad was never the same after Dennis died."

I needed a clarification.

"The anger? It was his?"

"No. Mom's. She could be… mean. Still can be. She had a mean streak even before the accident. But after? Especially after Dad decided he was going to sell the bar and she saw the writing on the wall. She knew they were going to lose the business and then we were probably going to lose the house.

She was cruel to him after that. And he just took it from her. It was like a penance for him."

"But it took its toll?"

"You know about the suicide attempt?"

I nodded.

"Not much. Just what I saw on the news." I didn't mention the fact that I'd seen videotapes of the news earlier that day.

"He took an overdose. Pills and alcohol. She found him in the basement. Mom did.

Made me drive him to the hospital. She wouldn't call for an ambulance. She didn't want the neighbors to know what he'd done. She didn't want anything to do with him. Didn't visit him in the hospital. She called him 'the coward' after that. To me. To his face. To any friends the two of them had left. He didn't have a name anymore. To her, he was just 'the coward." She wouldn't let him come back home after he got out of the hospital. He stayed with some people in town.

Eventually he got a little apartment."

Every day in my practice I saw men and women who had crumbled in the face of psychological stresses that didn't begin to compare to the pressures that this young man had endured as an adolescent. Yet he appeared emotionally intact. I wondered about things I couldn't assess so readily, about his relationships with women, and his relationships with mentors in the veterinary school.

Still, I marveled.

Kevin interrupted my reverie.

"That's when Dad went to see Dr. Welle. After the suicide attempt."

I nodded knowingly.

Kevin spotted my arrogance and corrected me, gently.

"No, you don't understand.

This is the part that people get confused about. Dad liked Dr. Welle. He liked him a lot. He wouldn't have done anything to hurt him. Anything."

I was perplexed. This young man seemed way too intelligent to discount, so cavalierly, the evidence of his fathers crime.

"You don't believe that your father shot Gloria Welle, Kevin?"

The young man's face tightened. I saw wrinkles around his eyes where there had been none before.

"Of course he shot her. There's no other explanation for what happened at the Silky Road that day. But it wasn't because he was angry at Dr. Welle. That's the part that everyone has wrong. And that's the part that I want to help everybody clear up."

"And you know that how?" My voice was soft. He was out on a limb and I wanted to offer him a cushioned place to fall.

"Because I had breakfast with him that morning. With Dad. He was pretty upbeat.

Not happy, not like that. He wasn't capable of being happy anymore. But he was up enough that we could actually have a conversation, you know? That hadn't happened a lot recently. He told me that Dr. Welle was a man he could trust. A man who was going to save him from himself." Kevin pulled a battered little notebook from his shirt pocket and slapped it on his thigh.

"I'm not making all this up. I kept a journal in those days. Like a diary?

That's how I know."

"So why do you think it, um… happened?"

"At first I thought maybe he just snapped. I'd been worried about him losing it-you know, going crazy?-for a while."

"But you rejected that?"

"Yes sir, I did. I didn't think he could go from being reasonable at breakfast to being psychopathic and homicidal midmorning. Now maybe that's possible with some people. But not with my dad. And then there's the gun he used."

"Yes."

"It was his. When Dennis and I were, oh, twelve or thirteen, he'd showed us where it was at home and taught us how to use it. He also told me that he could never use it himself-could never point it at another human being-unless the family was in danger. He wanted us to feel the exact same way. He meant what he said that day. I know it. I knew him."

I wanted to believe Kevin was correct in the same way I often wanted to believe in the veracity of my patients as they constructed and polished a version of reality that would shine more brightly than the tarnished one that often stains the truth. Kevin's view of his father was part of his ego's defenses against the enormous weight of his pain. I decided to say nothing that might interfere with the integrity of those defenses. He needed them.

I said, "It must be hard making sense of what happened, then."

"Yeah," he acknowledged.

"Hard."

I watched a tear form in the corner of his eye. Kevin didn't react to it until it had migrated halfway down his nose.

"There is one way that you might be able to discover… some information that might help you answer the questions you have about your father's frame of mind."

He swallowed.

"How?"

"Talk with Dr. Welle" Kevin laughed bitterly.

"My mom tried. Years ago. He wouldn't talk to her. Said he didn't have the right to tell anyone what my father said to him. during therapy.

Confidentiality."

"Technically, that's true. But after your father died the rights to control the record of what happened in his treatment with Dr. Welle passed to the person who controlled your father's estate. If that person asked Dr. Welle about your father's treatment, Dr. Welle would have to respond. He'd have no choice."

"That would be my uncle Larry. My dad's brother. He handled Dad's estate."

"If your uncle Larry sends Dr. Welle a letter identifying himself as the personal representative of your father's estate-if I were him, I'd have the letter notarized-and authorizing the release of confidential records, Dr. Welle should be happy to cooperate with the request."

"That's it?"

"That should be all it takes."

"Will you write that down for me? How to do it?"

"Of course " Across the room I spotted a tiny red dot light up beside the door.

The light was a sign that my next patient had arrived. I said, "Kevin, I have an appointment now. Just one more today. I'll be done in about forty-five minutes.

Would you like to get together again when I'm done and talk some more about all this? Maybe go have a beer or something? I'll go over the instructions on how to approach Dr. Welle again then."

He smiled.

"That would be great. But maybe coffee or something to eat. I don't drink."

I felt foolish.

I was late getting home after meeting with Kevin Sample. Once my last patient had left my office I'd walked Kevin over to the Mall and offered to buy him something to eat. He wavered for a moment on the sidewalk between Juanita's and Tom's Tavern on Pearl Street, finally choosing Tom's and ordering a cheeseburger, salad, fries, and onion rings. He drank lemonade. He devoured the food and afterward talked almost nonstop for another hour.

I walked him back to his car and watched him drive away, hoping he felt more contentment than he had when he decided to come to Boulder and look me up. On the way out of town I stopped at the police station to leave the videotape of the news coverage of Gloria Welle's murder for Sam. Despite the errand, I made it home before Lauren returned from her shopping excursion to Denver.

After her friend dropped her off, Lauren and I took Emily for a walk before dinner. Lauren was wearing a new maternity top that, to my eye, had enough gussets sewn into the front to permit her to carry quintuplets to term. On the way out the lane I told her about Kevin's arrival on our doorstep that afternoon and replayed his impressions of his brothers death and his reluctance to believe the theories about his fathers motives the last day at the Silky Road Ranch.

Her assessment of Kevin's protest about his father's intentions when he shot Gloria Welle was about the same as mine had been. She said, "He sounds like a kid who's trying to make sense of the unfathomable. You like this?" She fingered the hem of the new top she was wearing.

"Yes. Of course. It's, urn, nice." My praise was so weak I didn't even believe me.

She punched me on the arm.

"Get used to it. I got some jeans and some shorts with elastic waists, too."

"I can't wait to see them."

She hit me again.

As we climbed a ridge to the east to watch the shadows edge into the valley, I moved on to the next part of Kevins story.

"There's more that I learned from Kevin. I should have made this connection on my own, but I didn't. It turns out that Kevin and his brother were the exact same age as Tami and Miko. They were in the same year at school. Kevin knew both of the girls."

Lauren looked my way, raised her eyebrows, and asked, "The plot thickens. So were they friends?" "Kevin says his brother was actually closer to Tami and Miko than he was. Kevin says that Dennis, his brother, was the better skier. This group of kids who hung out together-apparently they were all pretty great skiers. Only the best of them could ski with Tami and Miko, though. That wasn't Kevin-but he knew the girls well enough. They had classes together, hung out together after school.

You know. It was a pretty small town then." "Still is," she said, pointing out a big bird soaring high above Highway 36.

"Especially if you leave out the tourists." "Is that a hawk?" I asked.

"Don't know. Maybe. Did he date either of them?"

"Says not."

"And? What does he remember about what happened to them? What does he think?"

"Mostly he just remembers it as the beginning of the tragedies. That's what he calls that time in his life.

"The tragedies."

"The hawk, or whatever it was, swooped behind a ridge top. Above the grasses on the crest of the hill the sky had turned thick and black. A massive thunderstorm was building in the foothills near Golden. Lauren said, "I'm glad that's not coming our way. Bet it's full of hail."

We started back toward our house just in case Lauren's meteorological forecasting abilities were flawed. Emily ran into the thick grass along the lane and pawed frantically at something in the dirt. We waited for her to finish whatever she was doing. She dawdled until a crisp crack of thunder in the distance spooked her out of the meadow, her ears as plastered down as a Bouvier's cropped ears can be. If she had possessed more than a nub of a tail it would have been between her legs. Emily despised thunder and lightning.

Lauren asked, "Did Kevin and his friends have theories about the girls? About their disappearance? About the murders?"

"Sure. At first-for a few days, he said-everybody thought that the girls had run away. He describes Tami the same way everyone else does. Heart of gold, a lot of fun, but a bit of a wild child. She was always talking about wanting to see the world, to go places. To get away. Her friends thought she may have had a fight with her parents about something and just taken off."

"Did she argue a lot with her parents?"

"The impression I got is that it was a love-hate thing. She and her mom would be real tight and then Tami would push her away for a while."

Lauren chewed on my impression.

"And Kevin and his buddies-they thought that Miko would just go along with Tami if she ran?"

"I asked the same thing. He was evasive about that. Said Miko wasn't really like that. Wasn't really a follower. But he didn't elaborate."

Lauren knelt down to comfort Emily after another explosive clap of thunder.

"And after? After the bodies were found? What did he and his friends think then?"

"Kevin said that he and his buddies all bought into the stranger theory. None of them wanted to believe that anyone they knew in town could do what had been done to their friends. He said that none of them really considered that it might have been a local. But…"

"But?" "But… he also told me that there was a rumor going around that Miko was seeing an older guy. Somebody in town."

"But they didn't know who?"

"No, they didn't."

"Did they speculate?" She stood back up.

"Yeah. And this is where it gets really interesting. Kevin and his friends thought it might be Raymond Welle. Some of the kids had seen the two of them together a couple of times. Going for a walk. Having coffee. Things like that."

"Did Kevin know that Miko was in psychotherapy with Welle?"

"It didn't sound like he knew. I didn't tell him. Couldn't figure out a way to ask directly without spilling the beans."

She threaded her fingers through mine and pulled my hand over her abdomen. The tight bulge made my heart jump every time I felt it. I desperately hoped to feel a kick from her womb.

No.

She asked, "Could that be benign? Mariko and Welle being out together? Could that have been part of her psychotherapy?"

I thought about it.

"Could have been. Would have been unusual, but not unheard-of. Sometimes with kids, you find they talk more openly outside the office. I've done it with a couple of adolescents. It could have been that. At this point you have to give Welle the benefit of the doubt about the therapy. I keep reminding myself that Miko's parents thought he worked wonders with their daughter."

Lauren stopped and picked up a stick. She shook it in Emily's face and threw it deep into the meadow. My wife has a good arm, and the stick covered a lot of territory before it fell to the ground. Emily stared at her as though she were a moron. She laughed at the dog and said, "Take all the speculation to its most toxic conclusion, sweets, and it gives Welle a pretty darn good motive."

It was exactly what I'd been thinking since I'd waved good-bye to Kevin an hour earlier in downtown Boulder.

"You mean if we accept the proposition that he was involved with Mariko?"

"Yes. Absolutely. What if-I'm speculating here, so cut me some slack-what if Tami found out somehow that her friend was involved with Raymond Welle? Or what if Miko told Tami that she was screwing around with Welle and Welle suddenly saw some threat to this wonderful life he was building for himself? You know, his practice, his little radio show up there, his marriage even. It gives him a motive for the murders."

"That's a lot of ifs. But you're right. If he was sexually involved with Mariko, and if Tami knew about it, it would give Welle a motive."

"No one in Locard has discovered anything that gives anyone else a motive, have they?"

I shook my head.

"They haven't told us anything. But that doesn't mean they don't know something."

"So?"

I pressed.

"Who could corroborate what might have been going on with Miko and Welle?"

"Welle could."

"Yeah, and he's going to admit it. Right."

"I don't know who else would know. You have to assume that he would have been smart enough to keep it a secret."

"You know, none of this is in the records we got from Locard. None of it. The original investigation should have uncovered some of this information, even if it was just categorized as rumor. Phil Barrett and his detectives should have talked to all the girls' friends. All of them. One of them should have mentioned to the police the possibility that she had an older lover."

"Makes you wonder all over again, doesn't it? About the thoroughness of the initial investigation?"

"To tell you the truth, it makes me wonder more about Phil Barrett. And whether he was already in bed with Raymond Welle back then."

We heard a car approaching from behind us and moved off to the shoulder. I called Emily to my side while Adrienne plowed by in her Suburban. She honked.

We waved. I heard Jonas yell, "Emily, you want to come over and play?"

The dust settled around us, on us.

"You knew him back then-Raymond," I said to Lauren.

"And you've known a lot of violent criminals, right? Do you think he could have done it?"

"What? Screwed one of his patients? Or murdered two high school girls?"

"I don't know. Take your pick."

We walked a good ten paces before she responded again.

"My answer is that… he wouldn't have suffered a single night of guilt for being unfaithful to Gloria.

Would he have done it with a sixteen-year-old? I really hope not. And murder?

That's something else. I don't know." We walked a few more steps.

"And the very fact that I don't know is incredibly troubling."

"Was the marriage, Gloria and Rays… I don't know… stable?"

She shrugged. " I didn't know them that well as a couple. Gloria was a flirt, but that was just her nature. She may have said something to Jake about problems, but I think he would have told me. If they kept their problems up in Steamboat with them I'm not sure any of the family down here would have known."

The fax machine had been busy while we were out on our walk.

"Look at this," Lauren said, handing me three sheets, keeping one for herself.

"It appears that your reporter friend did exactly what she said she was going to do."

I was busy throwing together some lo mein with shrimp and bok choy. Dark, leafy greens had become as much of a staple in our diet as kibble was in Emily's. I dried my hands and examined the first page of the fax.

It was an article from that day's Washington Post. The byline was Dorothy Levin's. The headline was

"Trail of Questions Dogs Candidate's Finances." The focus of the piece was Raymond Welle. I read quickly and skimmed the continuation on the next page.

In the margin of the first sheet Dorothy had scribbled, "Et voila. Steamboat is breathtaking. Literally. There is no air up here." I nipped a page and said, "I wonder what this means?" I was reading another note from Dorothy, this one in the margin of the last sheet. It read, "Met with a guy today who couldn't help me with my stuff but seemed to know a lot about Gloria's death. Interesting… I'm going to follow up. Planning on seeing someone else, too." Lauren asked, "What?"

I pointed out Dorothy's margin note. Lauren shrugged.

"I bet there are a lot of people in Steamboat with a lot of opinions about Gloria Welle's murder."

"You're right." I smacked the paper.

"But at least Dorothy kept her word. I don't think my name is in the article," I said, smiling.

"You're much happier after reading that article than Raymond Welle is going to be." She read the fine print on the leading edge of the fax.

"This was sent from Steamboat. She's still in Colorado?" "The last time I talked with her she told me she had some interviews to do at the ski area on Monday. She was trying to decide whether to stay over or go back east for the weekend. I guess she stayed over." I shook the pages in my hand.

"How serious are these allegations she's making? Can you tell?"

"I don't really know the federal election laws very well, but if what the Post found is actually true, it will make Ray pretty uncomfortable. Especially the allegations about the Japanese contributions being tunneled through employees of the ski company. He won't want to deal with this so close to the election.

Not after what Clinton and Gore and Reno went through with those Buddhist nuns.

Remember that? And especially after he was one of the House members who was so instrumental in killing the latest campaign-reform bill."

My mind was still consumed by the possibility that Raymond Welle's biggest problem was an old murder investigation, not a new campaign-finance probe. I pointed to the sheet of paper Lauren still held in her left hand.

"What's on that last page? That's not from Dorothy?"

"No. This one's from Russ Claven. Remember our chauffeur to the Locard meeting in Washington? He and Flynn Coe are flying in tomorrow. They want to see us before they go up to Steamboat."

I spent a moment trying to remember some of the people I'd met at the meeting in Washington. " Flynn's the one with the eye patch?"

"Yes. And the great smile. She's the forensics-crime scene expert. Our case coordinator."

"What time do they get in?"

"Their flight gets in at eleven-thirty. According to this, they want directions here. To our house."

"Here? Where are they staying?"

"Doesn't say."

"Let me see that." She handed me the fax. The stationery was from Johns Hopkins Medical School. That meant Claven.

"Do you think they want to stay here, with us?"

"Doesn't say."

"We only have one guest room. Are they a couple?"

She pointed at the sheet in my hand and laughed.

"Doesn't say."

Lauren's day had fatigued her. While she went to bed early, I plopped in front of the word processor and typed a report for A. J. Simes. I wanted to bring her up to speed on my meeting with Kevin Sample and to relay his suspicions that Mariko Hamamoto might have been having an affair with an older man and that Mariko's adolescent peers considered Raymond Welle to be a likely suspect.

I printed it and faxed it on its way before I climbed into bed beside my sleeping wife.

Russ and Flynn arrived the next afternoon a few minutes before one. The trunk of their rental car was packed full of heavy nylon duffel bags.

Among other things, Russ had come to Colorado do some rock climbing.

Russ Claven, it turned out, was blessed and burdened with more energy than even my friend Adrienne. And Adrienne was occasionally so hypo manic I considered her in need of medication.

After popping the trunk open and saying a cursory hello to Lauren and me, Russ patted a frantically barking Emily on the head, found his way inside to the bathroom to pee and change clothes, to the kitchen to examine the contents of our refrigerator and swipe an apple, and then back outside. Lauren and I were still standing near the car renewing our brief acquaintance with Flynn Coe.

Flynn's eye patch that day was a rusty satin stripe. The stripes were horizontal and the patch went well with her hair.

Russ interrupted and asked for directions to Eldorado Canyon. I drew him a crude map on the back of his airline-ticket envelope. His eyes brightened; he couldn't believe he was only ten minutes away from the rock-climbing equivalent of Disneyland. He asked Flynn if she was cool hanging out by herself for a while.

She said she was. He asked me whether I wanted to go climbing with him. I declined. I think he was relieved that I'd declined. Russ jumped into the car and took off west toward Eldorado.

We invited Flynn inside. She excused herself to the bathroom after suggesting that traveling cross-country in the airplane seat beside Russ Claven did not make for a particularly restful journey. But I thought she offered the assessment with humor and at least a trace of affection. * * *

Flynn wasn't as good a pool player as Lauren was, but at least she could give her a competitive game, which was something I'd never managed to do.

Considering how much her eye patch must have compromised her depth perception, Flynn's playing was all the more remarkable. I could tell that she wasn't accustomed to running into players with Lauren's skill, but she handled the competition, and the repeated losses, with grace.

I parked myself on a nearby chair while I watched the women demonstrate their talents, and actually had the feeling they forgot I was there.

Once Lauren managed to get Flynn talking, she spoke of herself with little self-consciousness.

Flynn Coe had been a protegee of Henry Lee's in the Connecticut State Police crime lab. She had worked with him for over three years before she was recruited away by the North Carolina authorities to run their crime lab facilities, the job she still held at the age of thirty-three. She'd been married once at twenty-four, divorced at twenty-six, and had a nine-year-old daughter named Jennifer.

Flynn had known Kimber Lister for years, had actually met him when she was attending a training seminar at the FBI Academy on a fellowship when she was still a graduate student at Northwestern. Years later, when he'd started to discuss his ideas for Locard with her, she'd volunteered her services before he got around to asking her to join.

After almost ninety minutes of pool Lauren excused herself to go rest. I asked Flynn if she was tired from her trip, if she wanted someplace to lie down. She said she didn't and followed me into the kitchen, where I began to prepare some food.

"Will you and Russ stay for dinner?" I asked.

"Sounds great to me but I think we need to wait for Russ. He may have other ideas about tonight."

"Are you two on your way to Steamboat Springs?"

She nodded.

"Eventually. I need to interview the people who worked the initial crime scenes and I want to examine the physical evidence that's still in storage. It helps me sometimes. And Russ wants to talk to the doc who did the autopsies on the girls and check on the storage of some blood and tissue and fluid samples that he wants to retest."

My head was mostly inside the refrigerator as I said, "I don't really know how to ask this, but, are you and Russ, you know, a couple?"

I looked back and watched her smile, suppressing a giggle.

"God no. But I have to admit that we tried once a few years back. Neither of us could do it. Even long-distance we couldn't make it work. I spent the whole time feeling like Captain Ahab. Always trying to reel him in, always feeling that he was too big, too strong, too indefatigable for me. So… it didn't work romantically. But I've learned to love him anyway. He's a good man." After a few minutes of small talk, I asked, "So-if you don't mind my asking-what happened to your eye, Flynn?"

She smiled.

"Most people don't ask."

"I'm sorry if I offended you. But you seem pretty comfortable with it, whatever it is."

"Comfortable? I don't know about that. You must be reading something into the patches, though. When it was clear to me that I had to start wearing one, I decided that I could either think of the patch as a medical device or think of it as jewelry. I decided that I liked the idea of jewelry better. I design them myself, and my sister makes them for me. Now, when people look at me fanny-you know, don't look me in the eye-I can allow myself to believe that they're distracted by the patch, not by my disability. It's a nice rationalization, a little advantage."

I finished washing some tiny round carrots that I had picked in Adrienne's garden. I handed Flynn a couple.

"So what happened?"

"I got… fooled… by a booby trap at a crime scene. A serial rapist left me a present. An explosion. My eye got mangled in the blast. The vision couldn't be saved. I can still perceive light with it, but it's distracting-it interferes with the vision in the good eye. And the scarring is… well… it's butt ugly. So I wear the patch."

"I'm sorry."

She bit off a piece of carrot and shook her head.

"Don't be. It was my own damn fault. I was careless. Good carrots."

We talked about the two dead girls and about Locard until Flynn said, "You're a believer now, aren't you?" I asked what she meant.

"This work we do. Investigating old crimes. Reopening wounds. Examining scars.

Finding answers. You like it, don't you?" I admitted that I did.

She smiled. Her eyebrow arched so that the narrow end peeked out from below the patch.

"By the time I get to see these old cases, everyone is always discouraged. The bodies are always buried, the crime-scene tape is always down, the blood is always dry. Always. When I arrive, what I try to bring along with me is some hope, some enthusiasm, and some science. I try to bring fresh blood to an investigation that is often as forlorn as the victim. I try to be… that fresh blood. I try to be a… transfusion."

"And you see that in me?" I asked.

"It seems that the work is most infectious for those of us in Locard who actually get to meet the families. If you do enough of this you'll see the variety of their responses. Some of them-I'm talking about the loved ones-are. almost numb to our arrival. The resumption of the investigation doesn't cut deeply for them at all; it's almost as though they're anesthetized to us.

But that's rare. More often we watch the parents or the wives or the children come alive with hope… or grief… or even rage. Sometimes in the end, we see gratitude. Even though we're always investigating something that has to do with death, the process somehow is incredibly invigorating for me. Others too."

She smiled warmly at me.

"Yes, I'm seeing some of that in you," she said.

"You're fresh blood, too."

Russ and Flynn agreed to stay for dinner, so they were still at our house when Phil Barrett called that evening. I excused myself from the table when the phone rang and took the call in the bedroom.

Barrett was summoning me back to Steamboat to retrieve Mariko Hamamoto's case file from Raymond Welle. Welle would be departing for Washington at four-thirty the next afternoon. I'd need to be at his ranch by three at the latest. I explained to Barrett that I had patients scheduled on Monday and requested that he overnight the material to me at my expense.

"Representative Welle didn't offer any latitude when I received my instructions, Dr. Gregory. He said if you want to see these records, you're going to have to meet with him again. He wants to go over them with you in person. It's not negotiable. Because of his schedule, it's either tomorrow in Steamboat or sometime much later on in Washington."

Welle's request was not out of the ordinary. Clinicians often asked for, and usually were granted as a matter of courtesy, an opportunity to review case records face-to-face before making the copies available to other clinicians.

Although I suspected that Welle's case notes would reveal little or nothing novel about his treatment of Mariko, I knew I couldn't risk not examining them.

I suspected that Welle knew it, too.

"I need to make some calls, try to get in touch with tomorrows appointments and try to reschedule them. Where can I reach you later tonight, Mr. Barrett?"

He dictated a number and said, "Confirm by ten."

I started making the calls.

By the time I rejoined Lauren and our guests at the table, the dinner plates had been cleared and the rest of the wine had been consumed. Lauren frowned and asked me if everything was okay. I think she was assuming that I'd had an emergency in my practice.

I replied, "That phone call earlier? That was Phil Barrett. Raymond Welle's chief of staff. Welle wants me to drive up to Steamboat tomorrow to meet with him about Mariko Hamamoto's treatment file. I've been busy rescheduling patients so I can go up there and do it. What a pain."

Flynn identified the issue instantly.

"Welle doesn't want to send the records to you-he wants to go over them with you in person."

"Exactly." Russ said, "Which means he's concerned that there's something in there that might be misinterpreted."

"I'm not sure I'm willing to jump to that conclusion," I said.

"It could be something more benign; it may just be that the treatment file is really thin and he wants a chance to explain why he takes such sparse notes."

Flynn again: "He couldn't do that over the phone?"

"He obviously didn't want to."

Flynn told me, "Try to get the original file. I can get a documents guy to look at them and see if anything's been forged or tampered with."

"I doubt if he'll give me the originals. I wouldn't if I was in his shoes."

"Never hurts to ask." Lauren asked, "So it sounds like you're going to go?" I said, "I'm not sure I have much choice. You working tomorrow? Can you come with me? "

"Sorry, I'm too busy."

"Well, if I have to go, I'm going to go up early. I want to be back before dark." I looked at Russ, then Flynn.

"You want to ride up there with me, or do you want to take your own car?"

Russ looked at Flynn and said, "We'll caravan. I do best when I have my own wheels."

"He does," Flynn agreed, smiling at him.

I went back to the bedroom and phoned Phil Barrett to confirm an eleven a.m. meeting with Raymond Welle. Barrett offered directions to the Silky Road Ranch.

I accepted the directions; I didn't want to admit that I already knew my way around the Elk River Valley. My final telephone call of the evening was to the Sheraton in Steamboat Springs. Dorothy Levin didn't answer her phone. I left a message on her voice mail and asked her to meet me in the lobby for lunch at one o'clock.

Flynn and Russ accepted an invitation to spend the night at our house. They somehow negotiated a way to share the double bed in the downstairs guest room.

I admit I was curious about the details. But neither of them offered any clues.

Our little convoy was on its way into the mountains by seven the next morning.

We arrived in Steamboat at 10:05. Flynn and Russ drove straight to the police station to find Percy Smith. I continued on to the Sheraton to try to confirm my lunch with Dorothy Levin.

The base-area village for the ski resort is a couple of miles from the town of Steamboat, and the Sheraton is the dominant structure in the village. Even I didn't get lost. I tried Dorothy's room from the house phone in the lobby. She didn't answer. As I left yet another message on her voice mail I noticed a freshly printed sign hung on a banner above the entrance to the bar off the lobby. It read, "Welcome home, Joey. Way to go in Augusta." I returned to my car, and made my way out of town to the Silky Road Ranch. Over the course of the drive I went back and forth a half dozen times about whether or not I should try to interview Joey Franklin while I was in town.

Despite the fact that Welle was in temporary residence at the ranch, there was no visible change in appearance at the entry gate. I left the engine of my car running as I walked up to the microphone and identified myself. A voice told me to stand back five feet. I did. Thirty seconds later, the voice told me to get in my car and wait for the gate to open. I did that, too.

My mind wandered as I slowly drove the dirt lane into the heart of the ranch.

My only real context for this huge property had been through the lenses of the news cameras that had recorded the aftermath of the brutal deaths of Gloria Welle and Brian Sample years earlier. As I approached the big ranch house, my eye sought the landmarks that I associated with that day. I identified the spot where the sheriff's vehicles had circled together like pioneer wagons. I decided which window it was that Brian Sample had busted out in order to fire at the deputies.

I spotted the cedar deck that led from the master bedroom to the woods. I knew which garage bay Gloria Welle had used to park her green Range Rover.

Pork chop Phil Barrett was waiting for my arrival. He almost filled an Adirondack chair on the front porch. I didn't consider it auspicious that the mug of coffee in his hand was adorned with the smiling face of Rush Limbaugh.

"Doctor" he boomed, calling to me as though I might have somehow missed the fact that he was sitting there.

I waved.

"You're early," he said.

"Didn't know how long it would take me to find you," I said as I stepped up onto the porch.

"That's a lie, Doctor." Phil smiled broadly as he accused me.

"I think you've been out this way before. Matter of fact, I know you have."

I immediately decided that I would neither confirm the earlier visit nor defend my untruth.

"If I arrived at an inconvenient time, I'm happy to wait in the car.

Or even go back out to the road."

"No. No. Sit right down here next to me. I have some coffee coming for you. How do you take it?"

"Black."

"I guessed that right. Look at this day." He opened his arms to the expanse of the valley.

"Now aren't you glad you decided to come up here and spend another day in all this beauty?"

The horseshoe of peaks surrounding the ranch was stunning in its summer splendor. The green trees played off the distant granite, and the pastures and cultivated fields glistened in the light breeze.

"It is beautiful," I acknowledged.

"But the reason I came is because I had to. You know that. My being up here has inconvenienced a lot of people."

He shrugged; he wasn't moved. Inconveniencing strangers cost Phil Barrett no sleep whatsoever.

I sat next to him on a chair identical to his. An athletic young woman in jeans and a pale green polo shirt brought coffee. She smiled at me with a look that I interpreted as sympathy. I thanked her while trying to convey the same sentiment back to her. I was relieved that my mug wasn't adorned with Rush Limbaughs face.

It was decorated with Dilbert's.

I decided to try some small talk.

"Until now, I've only seen this house on the news."

Barrett immediately knew what I was referring to.

"That was a day. Let me tell you. I was here, you know. I was the commanding officer who gave the order to fire on the rascal."

The rascal?

"Yes," I said.

"I do recall that."

"Only three rounds were fired by the guys in the white hats that morning. First two of them hit him. Either of the two would have been kill shots. My boys did good work. I only have one regret, one wish. Only wish we'd made it out here before he got to Gloria."

"Yes." I paused.

"He didn't really give you a chance though, did he? Didn't he shoot her before you got here?"

"Actually, right after we pulled up is when we heard the three shots come from inside the house. Didn't know he was shooting Gloria right then, but the possibility certainly crossed my mind at the time." He turned his mug upside down and let the last few drops of his coffee drip onto the porch.

"Been over that day a thousand times. I wouldn't play it any different if it happened here today. You know, I mean, now. All in all, though, quite a shame.

Quite a shame."

I couldn't think of a way to respond.

"Yes, a tragedy."

"Crazy men do crazy things."

I nodded, but quickly decided that I didn't want to discuss Brian Sample's mental health with Phil Barrett. I asked, "Where's the original house, Phil?"

He pointed down the hill.

"Can't see if from here."

"And the stable and bunkhouse? I understand Gloria built some truly special buildings. Where are they?"

He'd been sliding his coffee mug on the wooden arm of the Adirondack chair. He stopped the motion and said, "Huh?"

"I heard that Gloria had a pretty impressive bunkhouse. Nice digs for her ranch hands. That's not exactly true?"

"Oh, oh. Those? Ray doesn't use them except for some storage. I don't think about them much." He stood and pointed toward the southeast. I had to stand, too, just to gaze past him to look where he was pointing.

"Follow that dirt lane with your eyes. You can see the stable and part of the corral poking out from behind that stand of aspen. See it?"

I did.

"Ray's not fond of horses?"

Phil laughed his response.

"Nope. That was Gloria's thing. Ray isn't exactly here at the Silky Road very often, anyway. Most of our time we're in Washington or on the road in the district. This is a big district. Spend a lot of days taking the pulse of the constituents, you know. One good thing-I'm glad Gloria never had to see that stable empty. That would've broken her heart." "I'm sure that's true," I said, making conversation.

"Tell you what, though, I think Ray has some plans for all that space after he retires from public life. I wouldn't be surprised if he sets up a recording studio out there, gets back into radio."

"Really? Back into radio?"

"Sure. He calls it the pulpit of the new millennium. Ray's a preacher at heart.

Don't you think?"

I hadn't thought about it, of course, but at first blush it didn't seem too far off the mark. I decided to consider the thought further. First I said, "This is all a major change for you, Phil. Do you miss what you were doing before? Miss. being in law enforcement, I mean."

He sat back down before he answered.

"You know, sometimes I do. But in a small town like this, being sheriff can get pretty routine. Which is something I can't say about being in Washington. I like my life now just fine, thanks."

I nodded as though I were being agreeable though I wasn't feeling particularly agreeable.

"I saw a sign in town that seemed to indicate that Joey Franklin is in Steamboat today. Do you know him? Do you ever get to play golf with him? I would think that would be a thrill."

Phil stretched his neck and made a valiant effort to touch his chin to his chest. Wasn't going to happen.

"Golf is not my game. But the congressman plays.

As a matter of fact, he and Joey are playing nine as we speak."

Hadn't Percy Smith told me he'd played golf with Phil? Why the lie? I glanced at my watch so that Phil couldn't see how perplexed I was. He saw me check the time.

"Don't worry. They teed off at eight-thirty at the course at the Sheraton.

He should be back out here any minute." "Good," I said. I was aware that Barrett hadn't answered my question about being acquainted with Joey Franklin. I decided that pressing the issue would be too obvious. Instead I asked, "Do you stay out here when the congressman is in town, Phil? On the ranch, I mean?"

He nodded.

"I still have my old place in town, rent it out. Good location, do pretty well with it actually. But it's more convenient for everybody if I'm out here close by trying to keep messes from oozing under the congressman's door.

That's my job, protecting him from blind sides I think of him as the quarterback of the team. And I like to think of myself as the offensive line.

Unheralded but essential. That's me. I keep Ray Welle from getting sacked."

I thought, Well, you certainly have the size to play the position. I kept the thought to myself. What I said was, "It's ironic, don't you think, that you ended up living out here? After what happened?"

He shrugged. Apparently he didn't see the irony.

I snapped my fingers as though I'd just remembered something I wanted to ask him.

"I knew there was something important I was meaning to talk to you about, Phil.

The two girls-Mariko and Tami? I heard that they got into a little trouble with your office just a few months before they disappeared. Something about some skinny-dipping and some dope up at Strawberry Park?" "Let me think," he said.

He thought for half a minute. I assumed he knew exactly what I was asking about, which meant that he required half a minute to choose and polish a falsehood to serve me on a dish.

"You know, I do remember them coming in for something like that. My memory is that that's why the Oriental girl ended up seeing Ray for mental help. You know? Of course you know-you're here to see Ray about the mental help he provided for the Oriental girl, right?"

I was trying hard not to be disagreeable. But I couldn't keep myself from giving the "Oriental" girl a name.

"Mariko Hamamoto. Tami Franklin's friend. What's surprising is that there's nothing in the murder book that refers to the girls' being arrested at all.

I've read the reports quite carefully. Does that, I don't know, concern or surprise you-that the incident wasn't part of the initial investigation?"

He harrumphed.

"No, can't say that it does."

"Do you mind telling me why?"

"Do I mind? Or will I tell you anyway?" He slapped his knee, thought his comeback was pretty amusing.

"Will you tell me anyway?"

"Sure. The reason there was no report is that they were never arrested. They were never charged. I met with the parents myself after the girls were brought in. Came to a reasonable disposition with the parents. I promised to throw the book at the two of them if it ever happened again. Didn't ever have any more trouble with those girls until… well, you know." I said, "I know."

But I remained skeptical. Taro Hamamoto was certainly still under the impression that his daughter had been arrested and charged with a crime after the police had picked her up. I supposed that his cultural unfamiliarity with our legal system could have left him confused about what had actually happened.

Or I supposed Phil Barrett could have been lying to my face at that very moment.

"As sheriff I was, mostly, a compassionate man," Phil Barrett explained.

"They were good kids who made a mistake. I decided not to make them pay for it for the rest of their lives. That's all." scene that began unfolding below the horizon in front of me felt a little like an old western movie. A plume of dust had kicked up down the trail, and over my shoulder the sun was riding high in the sky above the distant peaks.

Pointing in the direction that the dust cloud was rising, Phil said, "I bet that's the congressman now."

Distances on the ranch were deceiving. Although the gate to the Silky Road was visible from the porch, the dirt lane that ran from the entrance soon descended and meandered alongside a dry creek bed, where it temporarily disappeared from view from the house. The road curled around for quite a ways in a pattern that roughly followed the confusing path of the creek before climbing back up toward the house.

Phil and I sat silently watching the progress of the cloud of dust that was Raymond Welle's vehicle as it tracked slowly through the dry bottoms near the creek bed and then through the wide expanse of high prairie that carpeted the dirt all the way up to the house.

"He loves this ranch," Phil told me.

"He was born and raised in Manitou Springs, of course, but he calls this place home."

I sipped bitter coffee from my Dilbert mug. I hadn't known that Ray was from Manitou, but I didn't see that it was relevant to much. I said, "I think it would be pretty easy to love this ranch."

Phil shot a glare my way. I guessed that he was wondering if I had been sarcastic with my comment about the ranch. To put him at ease I said, "Most of us can only dream of having a spread like this, right, Phil?"

"Amen," he said. I suspected that it was a word that rarely crossed Phil Barrett's lips on any given Sunday.

Raymond Welle's vehicle was finally pulling up to the house. The car, if you could call it that, was actually a snow-white Humvee. I should have been more surprised than I was. Welle was driving the huge thing himself. The young woman in the jeans and polo shirt who had delivered my coffee rushed out the front door to meet him. I wondered if that was part of her job description. Ray jumped out with the motor still running. A light breeze was to his back, and it carried his crisp radio voice to the porch. I heard him say, "My clubs are in the back, Sylvie. They'll need to come back to Washington with me this time.

Pack 'em up careful, okay? I don't want to see any scratches on that new driver."

I didn't hear him say "please."

Phil Barrett stood, and I decided I should, too.

Still twenty yards from the porch, Raymond said, "Joey let me beat him on a par three, Phil. The fourth, you know that one? The one with the green by the creek?

After I got a lucky tee-shot that left me a three-footer for a birdie, I think he intentionally put his in the sand so that I could say I beat him on a hole.

Had witnesses for it, too. Good kid. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Nice of him. Nice gesture. Only wished I had time to play eighteen with him. Who knows, I might have gotten lucky a second time." He reached into his pocket, pulled out a golf ball, and held it high in the air.

"I kept the ball I used, too. He even initialed it for me. When Joey goes and finally wins one of the majors, this will be a sweet memory for me."

He stuffed the ball back in his pocket.

"Alan, Alan. Welcome to Gloria's Silky Road. I can't tell you how grateful I am to you for pulverizing your schedule to accommodate my need to return to Washington. So kind of you. So kind. Please offer my personal apologies to all of your patients for the inconvenience I've caused them." He hopped up the two steps to the porch and held out his hand to me.

"I'll be sure to do that, Ray" Yeah, right after I distribute copies of my driving record and income tax returns to each of them.

"The only good news for me is that its real likely that they're all living outside my district. Don't have to worry much about voter backlash." He laughed and moved toward the front door.

"Come on inside, now. It's starting to get warm enough to cook oatmeal out here." We walked inside and stood in a bright entryway. The walls were papered in rich red paisley and the floor was made of octagonal limestone tiles. To my left I saw the huge post-and-beam space where Gloria Welle and Brian Sample had shared tea and Girl Scout Cookies. Ray said, "Phil, go find those files for me and bring them to us in the study."

I followed Welle down a narrow hall to a pine-paneled study. The room was large, but warm. One wall was covered with bookcases. I've learned that my eyes are as magnetically attracted to a wall of books as they are to a woman's cleavage. I had to remind myself not to be distracted, and I tried to stay focused on my conversation with Welle.

"Sit, sit."

I did, in a leather club chair beside a low table that had been built on a frame fashioned from an old wagon wheel. The wheel caused me to recall the photograph that Kimber Lister had used to begin his film about the two dead girls. Tami and Miko against a background of an old wagon wheel.

I expected Ray to take his place behind the monstrous desk halfway across the room. He didn't. He chose another one of the club chairs. As he sat down, his trousers rode up, and he spent a few moments trying to free his boxers or his briefs from the confines of his crotch. He yanked and tugged at his underwear as though I weren't even in the room.

Finally he said, "I don't know about you and the way you practice. But I've never been comfortable just handing over case files. I actually like to review them, explain them."

"Sometimes I feel the same way. Ray."

"Good!" he said much too jubilantly.

"Glad to know we're on the same page. Phil should be in here any second with those files. Phil! Hey!"

Phil chose that second to waddle through the door shaking two manila folders.

"Sylvie had these in the lockbox of papers that were packed to go back to the District. I had to dig them out." He handed the files to Raymond. I could tell he was dying to be invited to take a chair.

Without looking up Ray said, "This will be one of those clinical talks you're not allowed to listen to, Phil. Sorry. We won't be long."

Phil looked hurt.

"Oh. Sure. Sure. I'll be, uh, following up with Senator Specter's office about that highway matter, Ray. I'd like to have that whole thing settled before we get on the plane." To me, Phil said, "The congressman is trying to get funding for two additional lanes on 1-25 south out of Denver."

"That's great," I said, trying to sound like a grateful constituent though I was neither grateful nor Ray's constituent. And 1-25 south of Denver wasn't even in his district.

"Yeah." Ray's attention was already on the case file.

The label on the tab of the manila folder was handwritten but I couldn't read it from where I was sitting. I said, "That was scary the other day. What happened at the tennis house."

Ray shrugged, seemed nonplussed.

"You know, I didn't even hear the shots. Saw some people runnin' around crazy over by the door. Then Phil flattens me to the floor. Next thing I know I'm being hustled into a side room by a bunch of security types. I wasn't so much scared as I was… puzzled."

"Do your people think you were the target, though? The thought of someone coming after you with a gun has to be frightening regardless of the amount of security you might have."

"My people?" He chuckled and seemed to find the concept amusing.

"It's risky, being in public life. But the danger comes with the territory-that's what I think. We all have to come to terms with it. Those two Capitol policemen killed by that crazy guy? No more than sixty feet from my office. Who can predict those things?" He shook his head, and his voice changed an octave or two with that sentence. For a moment I thought he might have reminded himself of his wife's murder. When he continued, though, his tone had modulated again.

"I'm an outspoken advocate of some unpopular ideas. I always have been. And that, my friend, raises are." Listening to him, the thought that crossed my mind was stump speech, and I prepared myself for a long oration, but he quickly returned to the matter of the two dead girls.

"Here we go"-he opened the file and his face softened a little as he continued-"one of my absolutely favorite clients of all time."

Are? I repeated to myself while he silently perused the top sheet in Mariko Hamamoto's record. Had he really said, "raises are"? I tried to steal a look at the rest of the file on his lap. The collection was as thin as an anorexic gymnast. If it had held as many as six sheets of paper, I would have been surprised.

Fifteen minutes later we had accomplished our review. To say the case file added anything to my understanding of Miko's psychotherapy would have been a generous assessment. The first page in the folder was a typical doctors-waiting-room information form. The second was Colorado's mandatory disclosure statement for psychologists. Welle had asked both Mariko and her parents to sign it. The third page was a request for information about Mariko from the local high school. I didn't see any indication that he'd ever received anything back in writing. The next page was a photocopy of a billing record. The ledger form had been kept by hand. In 1988, Welle charged fifty bucks an hour.

Only on the last two pages did I see any useful information. Welle had scribbled a half a page of notes after his intake meetings with Mariko and had repeated the process after his first meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Hamamoto.

Nowhere in those intake musings did Welle offer opinions or perceptions different from those we'd discussed in Denver the previous week.

The last page in the file was the only page that surprised me at all. It was typed. The other pages were either printed forms that had been filled out in handwriting, or notes in Ray's handwriting.

The top of the last sheet was a five-point treatment plan listing outcome goals.

The bottom of the sheet was a termination summary that specified the accomplishment of the stated outcome goals. Basic stuff.

I immediately suspected that this last sheet was a relatively recent addition to Mariko Hamamoto's case file.

On the long drive up from Boulder I'd already decided that I wasn't going to critique the contents of the file in Welle's presence. As he handed me each page and I read it. Ray seemed relieved that I appeared to peruse his work with acceptance and equanimity. So I pondered my choice of words for a moment before I held up the last sheet and asked, "Did you type these last notes yourself.

Ray, or did you dictate them for a secretary?" I handed him back that last sheet.

"Um, I don't know-both. Could have been either, I suppose. Sometimes I'd do it myself, type the notes. Sometimes I'd dictate it-you know, put it on tape, and turn it in to a service for transcribing. Couldn't tell you with this one specifically. It's been a long time. A long time."

I suspected he was lying to me, and I was impressed, but not particularly surprised, by how facile he was.

"This one you must have done yourself though, right? Since her name is typed right on it, I mean. You wouldn't give that kind of personal information to an outside secretarial service, would you?

Small town like Steamboat? I use initials or case numbers on my dictations."

He looked at the page again.

"Course you're right. I must have done this one myself." I asked a couple of mindless questions about the treatment plan so he wouldn't be wondering about my interest in that last sheet of paper. I concluded with, "I appreciate your continuing candor about all this, Ray. As we discussed last time, I'll need to take these with me." I retained the slimmest of hopes that Welle would allow me to keep the original file. It couldn't hurt to ask. I was already wondering what forensic magic Flynn could bring to bear on the question of the authenticity and age of that last page.

Ray didn't smile as he told me, "I anticipated your request and I've had copies prepared for you." He handed me the second of the two files that he'd been given earlier by Phil Barrett.

"I'm sure you'll find this complete. You understand that I can no longer guarantee the sanctity of these records after I turn them over to you?"

Sanctity?

I nodded and opened the file containing the copies he'd given me and glanced at the patient-information form that was on top. Next to the space marked "Referred By" someone had written

"Cathy Franklin." The information wasn't new to me; I'd already been told by Taro Hamamoto that the Franklins had recommended Raymond Welle to them. Seeing it here in writing gave me pause, however.

I wondered about something else. Nonchalantly I asked, "Did you treat Tami Franklin too, Ray? I've been thinking how hard it would have been to be in your shoes and have one patient murdered. Didn't even cross my mind that you might have treated both girls at one time or another."

He shook his head.

"Tami? You want to know if I treated her?" He squirmed on his chair. It could have been the underwear riding up again, of course, but I thought he was squirming from my question.

"Course I couldn't tell you if I did treat her, now could I? But I suppose I can tell you that I didn't."

It was a good answer. Ethical and barbed simultaneously. Ray was a favorite on the weekend morning news shows. I was beginning to understand why.

He could think on his feet.

"What about Cathy? You help her out with anything? Before or after the shooting?"

"I think you're fishing now, Doctor. And I'm afraid this is private land that you're trespassing on."

"You're right. I apologize. One last thing, Ray, and I'll get out of your hair.

The most important piece to me is still something that I'm uncertain about. And that's the relationship between you and Mariko. How would you characterize it?"

He sat back and looked as though he wished he had something in his hands, a prop of some kind, maybe a cigar. He'd be good with a cigar. I judged him to have failed the nonchalance test as he asked, "Why do you ask?"

"Just curious. What I'm really trying to discover-what I really need-is some sense of how she related to people. You know, specifically, to men. The assumption has always been that she was killed by a man, perhaps a stranger.

I'd like to know what style she might have brought to the table when she came in contact with that man for the first time."

His tone sharpened.

"You talking interpersonal style or are you wondering about the nature of the transference?"

"Both." I wasn't sure how much Ray Welle was going to like talking about the transferential aspects of his treatment of Mariko. But he had kicked the door open, so I was happy to walk on in.

For a moment it seemed he couldn't find a comfortable place to rest his eyes.

They finally settled on mine.

"She idolized me. Almost right from the start. She seemed to think of me as a sage. I had never before had a patient who made me feel wiser or more… I don't know. I don't know. She treated me as though I knew the secrets of the universe."

I allowed his words to hang, hoping he would pick up on them himself. He didn't seem eager to continue though.

I decided to be empathetic.

"It's my experience that that kind of reverence can be quite a therapeutic burden."

My words surprised him.

"What do you mean?"

"An idealizing transference. It aggravates the power you would have over her just being her therapist. Requires additional delicacy. You have to be especially conscious of everything you do and say. Don't you think?"

"I don't know. I found it delightful to work with her. That she thought I was more perfect than Buddha caused me no problems. I can live with that transference." He laughed at the image.

"It's when patients thought I was more evil than Satan that I didn't like it so much."

"Did that happen much?"

"That was a joke, Alan." "What was Mariko's style with you?" I asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Interpersonally. How was she when she was with you? Was she reticent?

Assertive? Coy? What?"

His eyes narrowed.

"You want to know if she flirted with me, don't you? If she came on to me. You want to know if I played Bill to her Monica."

I was taken aback not only by his bluntness but also by how much he'd revealed with his question. I said, "Only if you did." He stared me down, then finally said, "Next question."

"I'm trying to discover how she might have interacted with her killer."

"She did flirt with me. Almost from the start. No need to pretend it was any different."

"And?"

"I dealt with it."

"Which means what exactly?"

The easygoing camaraderie that had characterized our earlier interaction was now completely gone. The tension between us was thick. We were two boxers just before we raised our gloves. For the first time, I felt that he was now on the defensive. I kind of liked it.

"Which means I handled it appropriately. Kept her on her side of the room, so to speak. Keep in mind, I wasn't doing psychoanalysis with the kid. I was helping her find her way through adolescence. I pointed out the transference that I saw.

I interpreted it. We worked with it. And… I'm proud to say… she got better."

"Did she ever act inappropriately with you?"

He crossed his legs and his voice sharpened again. I heard anger.

"You trying to blame the victim here? Insinuate that she might have acted inappropriately and seduced her own killer?"

"No. I'm just trying to know the victim. Did she ever act inappropriately with you?"

"For instance?"

I shrugged.

"Patients cross the line sometimes. I had a young woman start disrobing in my office once."

He snarled.

"And what did you do?" "After I asked her to stop and she didn't I left the room and sent a female colleague in to talk with her."

"Nothing like that with Mariko."

I looked him in the eyes and smiled as ingratiatingly as I could.

"You know, Ray, you and I have something else in common besides this case.

Something that's probably been even more difficult for you than it was for me."

"And what's that?" I could tell he found it almost preposterous that we might have something significant in common.

"A few years back, I had an irate patient act out some transference and try to kill the woman who's now my wife. The outcome was more fortunate for me than it was for you and Gloria. Unlike you, I got there in time to interfere. She survived."

He crossed and uncrossed his legs before he said, "I admit that I find that interesting. You know, I didn't know that about you. Don't get a chance to meet too many folks who have walked in these shoes of mine." He slapped one of his cowboy boots. I thought he seemed uncomfortable.

What was my reaction to his discomfort? I watered the weed that was growing up through the crack in Raymond Welle's demeanor.

"I didn't see it coming clearly enough. Did you see it coming with Brian Sample? I mean, I knew my patient was angry. I knew he was threatening. But I didn't actually believe he would do anything, you know? Certainly not to this woman I loved. Was it like that for you?"

He wasn't looking at me as he shook his head.

"Totally different. Totally. I didn't see it coming at all. I thought my patient and I were doing fine. I'm still at a total loss. Right to this day."

I opened my mouth to ask another question but stopped as the door opened across the room. I actually suspected that Welle had hit some concealed button to signal for an interruption. Phil Barrett, now dressed for travel in a suit and tie, burst in.

"Sorry to disturb, Ray. We have a call for Dr. Gregory. Urgent, so they say." His tone communicated his disbelief that anything in my life could be urgent enough to interrupt a meeting with Raymond Welle.

Welle smiled at me, suddenly the gracious host again.

"Take it right here, Alan." He pointed at his desk.

"What line, Phil?"

"The one lit up there. I think it's line two."

Instantly, I feared for Lauren and our baby. Trying to retain my composure, I stepped across the room, lifted the receiver and touched the button below the light on the phone.

"Hello."

"Alan? It's Flynn. I'm in town at the Sheraton. It appears that your reporter friend from the Post has been involved in something serious. She may have been injured in some way. There's blood in her room, which is a mess, and she's nowhere to be found. Do you mind finishing up out there and getting back here as soon as possible? Chief Smith has some questions for you given that you know her."

I swallowed and turned my back to Welle and Barrett. Dorothy Levin, injured?

Dorothy Levin, missing?

"I, um, appreciate the update. Are there any other details I should know?"

"You're with Welle right now, aren't you?"

"That's right."

"You're doing the right thing. Keep this quiet for now. Russ and I will fill you in as soon as you get back here. We're up on the fifth floor of the Sheraton.

Tell whatever officer you run into that Chief Smith is expecting you."

"I will take care of that as soon as I can," I said.

"We'll be here. And Alan?"

"Yes."

"If this turns out the way I'm afraid it looks, I'm sorry."

"Me, too." I hung up the phone. Out the window, I stared at the ragged horizon between the mountaintops and the high clouds. My eyes locked on the line with some desperation, as though I were using its stillness to quell motion sickness.

Ray Welle said, "Nothing serious, I hope."

Without facing him, I said, "Nothing I can't handle, Ray. Some colleagues need my consultation on something that's just come up. I apologize for the interruption." I looked at my watch and spun to face him.

"Listen, I've taken too much of your time already. I'm sure you have plenty to do to get ready for your trip back to Washington. If any other questions come up about Miko's case I'll get in touch with Phil."

"Now, you also be sure to let me know if you guys get lucky and find the monster who killed those girls. I want to be the first to know."

I nodded.

"Of course," I said.

As I drove away from the ranch house I realized I'd started my visit on the Silky Road with a lie and now I'd ended it with one.

I quickly decided that politicians didn't bring out the best in me.

Russ Claven spotted me arguing with a police officer who was acting as a sentry at the top of the fire stairs that led to the fifth floor of the Sheraton. Russ walked up behind the officer, placed a hand on his shoulder, and said, "Please go ahead and sign him in to me. I'm Dr. Claven, remember? The coroner's consultant for Chief Smith? The chief's been waiting for this man to arrive."

I offered ID to the cop and was soon under the yellow tape. Except for a cluster of men and women loitering together halfway down the hall, the corridor of the hotel looked like the corridor of a hotel.

"Sorry about all this," Russ said.

"It's always harder when it's somebody you know."

"Thanks." Russ Claven seemed like a changed man. The hypo manic abruptness I'd become accustomed to in his manner was absent. He was calm, thoughtful, and centered. The task at hand focused him.

We stopped in the hallway at least four rooms away from the cluster of authorities.

"Before we go any farther, here's what I know: Flynn and I were with Chief Smith this morning at his office at the police department when a call comes in about a bloody mess in a hotel room here at the Sheraton. Not surprisingly, Smith was kind of flustered by the news. Tells us that there hasn't been anything like a homicide since he's been chief. He invites Flynn and me to come along with him while he checks things out.

"By the time we get here, three different hotel staff had already been in the room, which means at least three different hotel staff had already potentially contaminated the scene prior to us protecting it. Front desk records show that Ms. Levin checked in on Saturday. Reservations said they expected her to check out today. With me?"

"Yes, that fits with what I know."

"Worse news is that the local sherif isn't really set up to handle this kind of crime scene. Better news is that they know that they're not equipped to handle this kind of crime scene. Flynn observed as a couple of detectives secured the scene. She said their work was fine. Then they went and got a warrant, which took like no time, and we've all been waiting around ever since for help to arrive from the mobile unit from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Flynn asked for and received permission from the chief to look things over, though.

From a distance.

"If it turns out we need him, the local corner is an M.D." but not a forensic pathologist. He's out of town on a family thing of some kind. They reached him on his pager. He's coming back into town tonight, late. Percy Smith asked him, hypothetically, if they found a body was it all right with him if I took a look at it. Coroner said it was cool.

"Anyway, Flynn goes in and does her thing for a while. She-"

"She's separated from her husband, Russ. Dorothy is. She was fearful he was stalking her. When she described his behavior to me, I worried about his potential for being violent."

"Really? That may fit what we see in there. Know his name?"

"Douglas. She called him Douglas."

"Great. See? This is exactly why we wanted you to join us here. We figured you might know something that would help. Anything else?"

I was speechless.

Russ filled the void.

"Turns out that what we have looks like a crime of passion. There was almost certainly a struggle. There was a knife, or something equally sharp. I think Flynn sees it the same way. For now."

"But? I hear a 'but' lurking in there."

"But… Dorothy's also a nationally known reporter who has just published a highly critical piece about a well-known local politician who's prominent enough that his problems are beginning to show up on national radar. And then it turns out her hotel room is trashed and streaked with blood. Can't ignore those facts either."

I was having trouble riding along with Russ as he was doing his problem solving.

I said, "She's funny. Witty, too. Dorothy." I was beginning to digest the idea of her being dead.

He touched me on the shoulder again.

"Like I said, it's always harder always when it's someone you know. No sign of forced entry into her room, by the way. She let whoever it was in. Which means Smith can't rule out hotel personnel. That's a lot of people to interview."

I got the sense that his mind was wandering away from the conversation we were having. He cupped my elbow in his hand and eased me down the hall closer to room 505. The hotel was configured in a T;

room 505 was near the center of the intersecting hallway. We stood against the wall on the far side of the corridor. A second perimeter of yellow crime-scene tape blocked any closer access to the body.

"This is her room. You can't go in, of course."

I didn't want to. I didn't tell him that.

Close by, between the two perimeters of tape, detectives and cops huddled together in separate clusters, their voices hushed to reverent whispers. None of them faced the door to the room; most of them were no more comfortable around violence than I was.

The door to 505 was open. From where I stood across the hall I could see part of the bedspread on the floor at the foot of the near side of the king bed. The sheets and blankets were ripped and torn from the end of the bed. The mattress was exposed. At the far end of the room a side chair lay on its side on the floor next to an overturned telephone. Above the chair a smear of blood as wide as a wrist ran at least eighteen inches across the glass panes of the doors that led from Dorothys room out to a small wooden balcony.

In the distance, through the glass, I could see the ski runs decked out for summer. A steady stream of mountain bikers flowed down the mountain trails.

Today, from my vantage, the green grass of the runs appeared smeared with blood.

Dorothy's blood? Likely.

The gondola continued carrying tourists to the top of the mountain.

As I narrowed my focus back to the room, I became aware that I was breathing through my mouth. That's when I saw Flynn Coming into my field of vision.

Her hair was covered by a surgeon's cap and her gloved hands were clasped behind her back. She seemed to be examining the carpeting beside Dorothy's bed.

Percy Smith startled me by opening the door directly behind where I was standing.

"Got a little command post set up in there." He pointed toward the room behind him.

"My idea."

I ignored his bluster and told him without being asked what I had told Russ Claven about Dorothy's marital problems. Smith jotted down everything I said in great detail. He asked a few questions. I answered them.

"And this story she's been working on? The one about Ray Welle. What can you tell me about that?"

"Don't know anything more than I read in yesterdays Washington Post. She faxed me a copy of the article at my home in Boulder on Saturday. Campaign irregularities that go back a few years."

"You wouldn't happen to have the article with you?"

"No"

"But it's about Ray Welle and the fund-raising rumors?"

"Yes. Something like that. Also, she hand wrote a note on it about having met with somebody who wasn't helpful with the campaign thing but who seemed to know a lot about Gloria Welle's murder."

"This person have a name?"

"It's a man. She didn't give a name. She's a reporter. That makes him a source.

She wouldn't give out his name. She also said she had another meeting planned.

Didn't say with whom." Russ said, "Flynn hasn't searched carefully, but she didn't see a laptop in the hotel room. Did Ms. Levin use one?"

I tried to remember.

"Yes. She mentioned one at one point. She said hers was too heavy. Could this have been… I don't know, a burglary?" Oddly, I found the possibility soothing. I wanted to think that this had been a greed-based, random attack. I directed the question at Russ.

Percy Smith raised his voice to a patiently pious tone that reminded me of Charlton Heston sermonizing about the Second Amendment. Smith said, "I'm of the opinion that… we have a lot of ground to cover before we arrive in the territory of the coulda's and the shoulda's."

Russ waited patiently for Smith to cease pontificating, then responded more directly to my question.

"Anythings possible. It's even possible… that maybe someone really didn't want her to work on her story anymore."

"Theory," complained Smith.

"Just theory. Right now we need to collect evidence.

We'll build a theory around the evidence we collect. We're not going to collect evidence to fit a theory. That's not how we do things around here."

Russ Claven was standing slightly back from Percy Smith. I watched a small smile creep onto Russ's face as he papered himself back against the wall. He said, "Hey, Flynn, Alan's here."

Flynn pulled the paper cap from her hair and leaned across the tape to kiss me on the cheek. Her unpatched eye captured both of mine and she said, "I'm so sorry. I got the impression you're fond of her." Flynn's tone told me that she thought that Dorothy Levin was dead. I swallowed back a tear and said, "I am." I was thinking, I was.

Percy Smith interrupted.

"ETA on the crime van is about ninety minutes. Anything else we should do before then, Flynn?" I thought I heard some smugness in his words.

She said, "I've done what I can in there without compromising the scene for them."

Russ interjected, "If a body shows up I'll need a physician with a Colorado license-something I happen to lack-to come with me. He or she can supervise me while I work up the body. The sooner we get somebody on deck the better, Chief.

If circumstances arise I'd like to get started as soon as possible."

"I'll get somebody on call. Anybody with a license will do?"

"That's right. As long as they'll leave me alone to do my work."

Flynn took me by the hand and said, "Come on. Why don't we go somewhere and get something to drink?" Smith said, "Room service set up a canteen for me down in 533. You go help yourselves."

Flynn replied, "I think we'll get some distance from all this and go downstairs.

Thanks, Percy."

We settled into a booth in the restaurant off the lobby. The view was up the ski slopes and was almost identical to that in Dorothy's room. Each of us ordered ice tea. As soon as the waitress departed Flynn said, "He's all right, you know.

Percy. You get past his narcissism and he's reasonably competent."

The eye patch she was wearing that afternoon was of bronze satin stitched in concentric circles with burgundy thread. I found that it was distracting me as I said, "Maybe I'm not as generous as you are, Flynn. I find Percy Smith's narcissism to be a major impediment to perceiving his underlying strengths."

She shrugged, and contemplated my face for several seconds.

"You know what it is I do for a living? I mean really? What I do for a living is… I work other people's crime scenes. On every job I do, I'm an outsider.

On every job I do, I'm a woman. On every job I do, I have only one eye. On every job I do, I'm a threat. Butting up against inflated egos conics with the territory. I would think you've seen your share of them along the way, too."

"Maybe I'm more tolerant when I'm in my office."

"And maybe you're more tolerant when you haven't just learned that someone you cared for may have been murdered?"

"That too. You think she's dead?"

She shrugged.

"A lot of blood in there. A bad struggle. Let's say I'm afraid that she's dead."

"Me too." "You haven't asked, but do you want my impression of what happened upstairs?"

"Absolutely."

"I could be wrong. These are first impressions, okay?"

"Okay."

"The evidence of struggle is clear. The room is trashed. It appears that the fight she put up was protracted and… valiant."

"Help me with something, then. Why didn't anybody hear her? Why didn't she scream for help?"

"Room on one side of hers is vacant. According to housekeeping, the neighbors in the other adjoining room haven't been around much. Dawn-to-dusk tourists.

Why didn't she scream? Maybe she couldn't. She might have been gagged before she started resisting. One possibility of the order of events is that the offender entered her room and had her under control long enough to get a gag on her face.

Probably at knife point At that point she broke free and started to fight."

"Someone she knew?"

Flynn chose not to answer me directly.

"I think one of two things happened in that hotel room. Either what happened in there was, plain and simple, a crime of passion committed by someone with reason to be passionate enough to commit it.

Or what happened in there was disguised to look like a crime of passion."

"But not a burglary?"

She touched my hand.

"No. That would surprise me."

"Russ said her computer was missing."

"I only did a quick visual. I didn't see it. But we can't be sure that it's actually missing until the criminalists look around carefully."

I repeated to Flynn my concerns about Dorothy's estranged husband, Douglas, and about her recent meeting in Steamboat with someone who wanted to talk about Gloria Welle's murder and her planned meeting with someone else.

She didn't comment at all about the mystery man with the interest in Gloria Welle, but she looked relieved at the news about Douglas Levin-pleased that the crime scene might be a simple domestic scene gone bad. She said, "There you go then. If I were Douglas Levin I'd be getting my alibi on real straight right now. Real straight."

Hearing Flynn comment about Douglas Levins need for an alibi caused me to recall the day I met Dorothy and left me concerned that I'd missed something important already.

"I wonder if it was him in Denver on Friday, too?"

"What do you mean? What happened on Friday?"

"Those shots that were taken at Welle's fund-raiser on Friday? You read about them?"

"Yes"

"Dorothy was the Post reporter covering the event. She was directly in the line of fire. She and I had been talking until seconds before the shots rang out.

Until right this second I didn't even consider that she might have been the target and not just a bystander."

"She was literally in the line of fire?"

"Yes"

"Then, so… so were you."

"I was in my car. The shots were way too high to be aimed at me. Dorothy was between my car and the door. She was a potential target. I wasn't."

"The possibility that this is the second attempt on her life in a few days is something that has to be blended into the mix. I'll run it by Percy when we're done here."

I finished my iced tea and watched the clear cubes tumble together as I placed the glass back on the table.

My mind retreated from the horror of Dorothy Levin's hotel room, and I recalled my meeting with Ray Welle that morning and the suspicious last page of his treatment record.

"Flynn, can you do anything magical with a photocopy of a piece of paper?

Basically I want to know if you can help date it."

"Date the copy or date the original?"

"Date the original."

"Possibly. If it's a forgery, it will depend on how sophisticated the forgery was. If they used time-period-appropriate devices and materials to generate the document, it would be hard to pick up discrepancies on a photocopy. We're talking a machine copy? That kind of copy, right?"

"Right. Assuming the forgers weren't that good-that they might have made a mistake-what could you pick up?"

"I'm not a documents specialist, so this is an educated guess, but let's say they used a computer printer that generated a typeface that's common now but wasn't common then. That sort of thing would help date the document. Or, I don't know, maybe a reflection of the watermark on the paper came through on the copy.

With a watermark the documents people can sometimes date the paper of the original. There are ways. What do you have for me to look at?" I explained my suspicion about the last page of the file that I'd received from Raymond Welle that morning.

"Let me take the first-generation copy with me. I'll see what our documents examiner can do with it. Why would Welle forge something like that?"

"I don't know, Flynn. It's down in my car. Want to walk out with me? I'll get it for you."

She paid for the tea and followed me out of the hotel lobby and over to my car.

"Did you learn anything else from Welle this morning?"

I shook my head.

"No, the file is as thin as it could be. I'm still working under the impression that his psychotherapy of Mariko Hamamoto was relatively skillful. I did discover that Welle drives a Humvee. And that he was out playing golf with Joey Franklin this morning."

She raised her eyebrows. The patch moved provocatively.

"Really?"

"Raymond seems quite fond of Joey." "Does he?" she asked.

"You have any gut feelings that this guy Dorothy met with about Gloria Welle might be connected somehow to her disappearance? " Flynn shook her head.

"Why would that be connected? Gloria Welle's murder was solved, wasn't it? "

She must've seen something in my face as I conjured a response to her question.

"Isn't it?" she repeated.

"I guess," I said.

"I guess."

I drove back to Boulder later that afternoon without having learned anything new about Dorothy's disappearance and without having learned anything that I could use to fashion a cushion that might soften the blow of seeing her bloody hotel room.

By the time I'd traveled most of the way down the Divide and cut off onto Highway 6, the route into Golden was jammed with gambling traffic generated by the casinos of Central City and Blackhawk. I managed to pass one giant motor coach that was belching diesel fumes into my face only to end up smack behind another. At that point I gave up fighting the traffic and tried to get lost in the radio broadcast of a Rockies game at Shea Stadium in New York. After losing four in a row, the Rocks were up by three runs. The best thing about baseball is the constant opportunity for redemption. Almost every day the players and the teams get another chance to try to set things right. I wished life were like that. There were so many nights that I felt as though I were climbing into bed after going 0 for 4.

The ivory Lexus was in front of Adriennes house again, but I was too distraught over Dorothys disappearance to grant the solution to that puzzle much of my attention. Lauren was at a dinner meeting with a committee that was organizing a benefit for the Rocky Mountain MS Center, so the house was quiet when I got inside. I took care of Emily's pressing needs-food, water, exercise.

A. J. Simes called while I was outside with the dog. She left a terse message approving my request to fly to California to interview Satoshi Hamamoto. The approval felt like a small victory. I started throwing together a sandwich for myself for dinner while I mentally plotted when I could squeeze an abbreviated trip to Palo Alto into my schedule.

Sam interrupted my plans with a phone call and an invitation to go out for a beer to talk about the videotape of news clips about the murder at the Silky Road Ranch that I'd dropped off at the police department. My impulse was to stay home and pout about my rotten day, but I reminded myself he had done me a favor by looking at the tape, and I agreed to meet him at a barbecue place close to his house on North Broadway in twenty minutes.

Sam was in a good mood. That helped.

The first beer helped, too. But not as much as the second.

I'd already decided that I wouldn't tell Sam about Dorothys disappearance in Steamboat until we were done talking about the murder at the Silky Road Ranch.

I didn't want to distract him.

It turned out that Sam had been so troubled by two aspects of the news coverage of Gloria Welle's death that he'd made some calls himself to learn what he could about the details of the crime. It turned out that the two parts that had bothered him were things to which I hadn't given a second thought.

I told him that.

"That's why I'm the cop," he explained.

"So the first problem, the problem with the shooting, what's that? I don't understand." "Like I said, the first thing I don't like is that the offender shot her right through the closet door. I've never heard of such a thing. This guy-this Brian Sample-he supposedly went there wanting vengeance, right?"

He waited for me to reply. I said, "Yeah, that's the assumption."

"So he's furious, right? You're the psychologist-people wanting vengeance tend be your angry people, right? "

"Yeah."

"You could say murderous, even?"

"Yes. Apparently so in Brian's case."

"So what does he do with all his murderous vengeance? He kidnaps his shrink's wife, has tea with her, locks her in a closet, gives her a chair, and then shoots at her through a locked door? Huh? Why?" His tone had grown way too sarcastic for my comfort.

"I don't know, Sam. I guess he didn't want to watch her while he, you know, killed her."

"He didn't want to watch? Are you kidding me? Think about it. This guy is eager to inflict pain. He wants to torment her. I mean, if I know him right, he'd pay extra to watch her head explode. He's bought his ticket and he wants to watch her die. If you put it on tape for him he'll play it back a hundred times in slow motion and freeze-frame. He's rageful enough to kidnap her, and he's rageful enough to kill her, but you're telling me that when push comes to shove his sensibilities are offended and he doesn't actually want to watch her die?

Sorry, buddy, but it does not compute."

I was tempted to order another beer, but I'm a cheap drunk and I thought it might take me over the threshold of inebriation and didn't want to have to take a cab home. I passed.

"What you're saying makes sense, Sam. I have to think about it some more, but it makes some intuitive sense. Now go back to the second problem you found again. I don't get that either."

"This ranch house of theirs? It's a big house, all on one level. From the news footage, I counted at least twelve doors to the outside. That includes the garage doors, patio doors, all the doors. Okay?"

"Okay"

"What are the odds that these two cops with their scopes and high-powered rifles are going to be set up in exactly the right place to shoot this guy when he makes his break from the bedroom deck? How the heck do these geniuses know that he's coming out that door?"

I was playing with the cocktail napkins on the table, making patterns of diamonds and squares.

"Sam, why do I get the sense that you already know the answer to your own question?"

He laughed. "

"Cause I do. I tracked one of 'em down. One of the two shooters. I got his name, found out where he lives, and gave him a call at home. He's a welder in Lamar now. You know where Lamar is? He says that it was all deduction.

That they guessed that the guy had ditched his car in the woods near those bedroom doors by that deck. So they figured that's where he would run out to make his escape. He and the other deputy had already taken up position. Had their weapons ready. The guy I talked to, he called it a duck shoot."

Sam's voice was still singing a melody of suspicion. I said, "But? You're not satisfied. I can tell you're not satisfied."

"But? But do you know who did the deducing? Raymond Welle and Phil Barrett, that's who."

I shrugged. My own conclusion was that this second argument Sam was making wasn't anywhere near as compelling as the first had been. I said, "Somebody had to do the deducing. And it sounds like they did it well" He sat back on his chair.

"No, you're not getting it. With a hostage inside a house, cops don't put all their eggs in one basket like that. The reason is that kidnappers don't usually make a run for it in hostage situations the way Sample did.

"Strategically, if you only have a few deputies you certainly don't set up snipers waiting for a kidnapper to scoot. The kidnapper is in there for a reason. Before you commit resources you have to know what that reason is. The kidnappers barricade themselves in and hunker down or they make demands or they take pot shots at the cops. Sometimes they set fires. They ask for a helicopter and a zillion dollars. They want to talk to reporters or they want to talk to their mother. But they're there for something. I've never seen anybody in Sample's circumstances just run for it when he knows that there's a couple of cops with rifles aimed right at his intended escape route."

"Sample knew they were there? He could see them from the bedroom where he was?"

"Clear line of sight, according to the videotape you gave me. The cops' vehicles were out in the open. One of the bedroom windows faces the front of the ranch.

He could've seen them. Have to assume he did see them."

I considered the circumstances Sam was describing. Tried to conjure up Brian Sample's state of mind and tried to imagine his tortured decision-making process. It wasn't easy. I said, "Brian Sample underestimated them, I guess."

"I… guess." He raised an eyebrow.

"Fatal damn error" I decided to try another argument.

"Maybe he just didn't care. He was a very depressed man."

Sam scowled and flagged down our waitress to order another beer. Before it arrived, I decided it was time to start to tell him about the visit I'd received from Brian Sample's son Kevin the previous weekend.

When I finished the story Sam's beer was gone and he had an evil little smile on his lips. He said, "See? What'd I tell ya. The kid is making a variation of the same argument that I'm making. The story doesn't make sense.

What his father did when he was in that house-hey, the whole thing is too goofy for words."

"What's the alternative explanation?"

"Don't have one. Its not my job. But it was that sheriff's job. What was his name? Barrett? Yeah, Barrett. He took the easy way out. He had an obvious crime with an obvious perp. He closed his case even though his solution doesn't make a whole lot of sense."

"Even though Barrett couldn't really explain what really happened inside, or why. That's your point?"

"That's my point." "Interesting," I said, still unconvinced by Sam's argument. I excused myself to the bathroom, and stopped at a nearby pay phone to make sure Lauren was home safely. I got the answering machine. My watch told me it was only 8:30. I decided to forgo panic until at least 9:30.

Back at the table, without preamble, I said, "That reporter from the Washington Post? The one I told you about who wanted to talk with me about Raymond Welle's fundraising?"

"Yeah?" I could tell he was disinterested in the new topic. I also knew that his disinterest would evaporate as I leaked out more details.

"I was up in Steamboat earlier today on that Locard thing. I was actually up there with two other Locard people. A forensic specialist and a pathologist.

While we were there, Dorothy Levin-the reporter-disappeared from her hotel room. The room showed evidence of a major struggle. I saw it; there was a lot of blood."

"Was she murdered? I didn't hear there was a homicide up there."

"They haven't found a body."

"Witnesses?"

"Not really"

"Suspect?"

"They're looking at her husband. They're separated. He's a jerk. Some violence in the history."

"But the local cops aren't sure?" "No," I said.

"They're not sure."

"She's the one who was in the line of fire with you at the Welle fund-raiser, wasn't she?"

"Yes"

"Nothing new on that, though?"

"I've been checking the papers, haven't seen anything."

"But this reporter friend of yours? She's been both shot at and kidnapped within a forty-eight-hour period?"

"I guess."

He slowly moved his eyes away from the two young women who had just been seated at the next table and froze me with his glare.

"What the hell are you messed up in this time, Alan?"

Nine o'clock had come and gone by the time I'd finished regaling Sam with the details of my visit to Steamboat to be a supplicant in Ray Welle's regal court at the Silky Road Ranch. Nine-thirty had finally rolled around when I was done adding the fine points to the story of Dorothy Levin's disappearance. I traipsed back to the pay phone, where I had to wait in line while a drunken man named Lou-"Come on, babe, it's me, Lou"-tried to lure a recalcitrant woman named Jessica to join him for a pitcher of beer and a game of pool. Jessica wisely wanted none of it. Lou finally hung up, or at least gave up. The receiver never quite made it back into the cradle.

I called home and got the machine again. Worried, I tried Lauren's cell phone and heard an out-of-service recording. I walked back to the dining room with as much calm as I could muster.

"I can't reach Lauren, Sam."

He spotted the concern in my eyes, wisely searching the edges for telltale signs of paranoia.

"She should be home?"

"She should have been home over an hour ago. She was at some committee meeting."

"It wouldn't have run late?"

"Unlikely. If it did she would have called."

I watched as his mind ticked through some mental checklist. Calmly he asked, "Is she on call for the DA tonight?"

"You know, I didn't even think about that. I don't have her call schedule with me."

"But it's possible?"

"Sure."

"Do you know the number of the pager she carries when she's on call?"

"No, I don't have it memorized. It's in my appointment book."

"Which you don't have with you, right?"

"Right. He successfully refrained from criticizing me. I was grateful for the effort.

"I can get it from the department dispatchers. I'll be back in a minute.

Do you have any quarters?"

I handed him all my change and watched him stride from the room. I waited at the table for about three minutes before my anxiety rose to a level that my false patience couldn't arrest. I followed Sams trail to the pay phone and ran into him outside the men's room.

He held up his hand like a traffic cop controlling an intersection.

"Its cool.

She got called in on a rape. She's right down the street at Community. Said she just left you a message on the home machine. She's fine. Said to tell you she loves you but that she'll probably be a while." Sam showed absolutely no discomfort passing along the message about my wife's affection.

"Thank God. Thanks."

He put his arm around my shoulder and said, "Let's you and me go home. You haven't had a very good day."

Better than Dorothy's, I thought.

I wasn't ready to sleep when I got home, so I parked myself in front of the computer and continued my narrative report to A. J. Simes. I wrote about my summons to Steamboat. My meeting with Ray Welle at his ranch about his treatment records. Dorothy Levin's disappearance.

By the time I printed the report and faxed it to D.C. the clock told me it was almost eleven-thirty. I waited up until after midnight for Lauren to get home.

We had both witnessed a lot of misery that day and talked for at least another hour before we fell asleep.

The phone woke me up at 6:45 the next morning. After I identified the noise as emanating from the telephone, my first thought was that they had found Dorothy Levin's body. I managed a pasty-mouthed

"Hello."

A wrong number. Someone wanted to speak to Patricia.