"Sure," he said.

"What about instructions?"

"That's up to you. Carte blanche."

"Are you serious?"

"Of course. You can do anything you want. As long as you keep your nose clean," he added in haste. "Barney's attorney would love nothing better than to catch us with our pants down, so no dirty tricks."

"That's no fun."

"But it allows you to testify without being thrown out of court and that's critical."

He glanced at his watch. "I gotta fun." He grabbed his suit coat from a hanger and shrugged back into it. He straightened his tie and snapped his briefcase shut and was halfway out the door.

"Lonnie, wait a minute. Where do you want me to start?"

He smiled. "Find me a witness who can put the guy at the murder scene."

"Oh, right," I said to the empty room.

I sat down and read another five pounds of garbled information. Maybe I could sweet-talk Ida Ruth into helping me reconstruct the files. The first box seemed immaculate by comparison to the second. My first chore was going to be to stop by Morley Shine's house to see what files he had there. Before I left the office, I made a few preliminary calls. I had a pretty good sense of who I wanted to talk to and it was then a matter of setting up some appointments. I got through to Isabelle's sister, Simone, who agreed to talk to me around noon at her place. I also had a quick chat with a woman named Yolanda Weidmann, who was married to Isabelle's former boss. He was tied up in his home office and would be until three, so she suggested I stop by later in the afternoon. The third call I placed was to Isabelle's longtime best friend. Rhe Parsons wasn't in, but I left a message on her machine, giving her my name and telephone number, indicating that I'd try again.

3

Since the police station was only a block away, I decided to start with Lieutenant Dolan in Homicide. He was out with the flu, but Sergeant Cordero was there. I spotted Lieutenant Becker in the corner deep in conversation with someone I took to be a suspect, a white guy in his twenties, looking sullen and uncooperative. I knew Becker better than Cordero, but if I waited until he was free, he'd end up quizzing me about my relationship with Jonah Robb in Missing Persons. I hadn't seen Jonah in six or eight months and I didn't want to generate any contact at this point.

Sheri Cordero was an oddity in the department. Being a female and Hispanic, she managed to fill two minority slots simultaneously. She was twenty-nine, short, buxom, smart, tough, somewhat abrasive in ways that I could never quite define. She never said anything offensive, but the guys in the department were not entirely at ease with her. I understood what she was up against. The Santa Teresa Police Department is better than most, but it's never easy being a woman and a cop. If Sheri erred on the side of being humorless, it was no surprise. She was in the middle of a phone conversation, which she converted to Spanish the minute I arrived. I sat down in the Leatherette-and-metal chair beside her desk. She held up a finger, indicating she'd be with me momentarily. She had a little artificial Christmas tree on her desk. It was decorated with candy canes and I helped myself to one. The nice thing about being in the presence of someone on the telephone is that you can study the person at your leisure without being thought rude. I unwrapped the candy cane and tossed the cellophane in the trash. She was clearly engaged in the subject at hand, gesturing vigorously to make her point. She had a good face, rather plain, and she wore little makeup. One of her two front teeth had a corner clipped off and it added a whimsical note to an otherwise stern expression. While I watched, she began to doodle on a legal pad-a cowboy stabbed in the chest with a cartoon knife.

She finished her conversation and turned her attention to me without any visible transition. "Yes?"

"I was looking for Lieutenant Dolan, but Emerald tells me he's out sick."

"He's got that bug that's been going around. Have you had that thing? I was out for a week. It's the pits."

"So far I've been spared," I said. "How long's he been out?"

"Just two days. He'll come dragging back in looking like death. Is there something I can help you with?"

"Probably. I've been hired by Lonnie Kingman in a wrongful death suit. The defendant is David Barney. I was curious about the scuttlebutt. Were you here back then?"

"I was still a dispatcher, but I've heard ' em talk. Man, they were pissed when he walked. He looked good for the shooting, but the jury wasn't buying. Talk about frustrated. Lieutenant Dolan was mad enough to bite through nails."