I thanked her, and she said as I turned to leave, “He belongs in jail. I mean it, that man really should be in jail.”

  Sooner or later, Mrs. Lupinski.

  Sooner or later.

  The Duboce address was a rundown apartment hotel a couple of blocks west of Market Street, within hailing distance of the massive and deserted U.S. Mint building—the kind of place that you know as soon as you walk in has rodent, roach, and heating problems. It was also a dead end. I had conversations with a beady-eyed little guy who called himself “the day man,” and an elderly tenant who was hanging around the lobby because “I ain’t got nothing better to do.” They both knew Dingo; they didn’t like him any more than Mrs. Lupinski had. He’d lived in the building for close to two years, alone in a single room, and moved out ten months ago. No forwarding address, naturally, since he hadn’t bothered to notify Viselli Van and Storage of his change of residence. Kept to himself, hardly spoke to the other tenants—“Snotty son of a bitch when he did say something,” the elderly gent volunteered—and seemed not to have spent much time on the premises. Friends: none. Visitors: none that either of them could recall.

  You’d think that somebody with an uncommon name like Harold Manganaris would be easy enough to run a background check on, but that’s not necessarily the case. Variables, any number of them, make every BG check different. Some take a few hours; others take days, even weeks. There may be an unlimited amount of of data available on what Tamara calls “the information superhighway,” but finding it, accessing it, cross-examining it, and fitting it together can be a chore even for a computer hacker with her skills.

  I’d called her as soon as I left Viselli Van and Storage, so when I got back to the agency at 3:50 she’d been running Manganaris for about an hour and a half. That was enough time to pull together a workable preliminary package—if the variables were few and favorable. But they weren’t. When you want something badly enough, the universe being the perverse place it is, that’s often the way things shake out.

  Tamara wagged her head and said, “No luck so far. I accessed public and CJIS records and most of the Bay Area phone directories. Nobody named Manganaris listed anywhere, no record of birth or marriage, no county, state or federal criminal record or outstanding warrants. Man’s never been arrested, at least in California.”

  “Lucky until now. What about the DMV?”

  “Our contact’s gone for the day and I can’t get into their files on my own. Well, maybe I could but it’d take a while, and my daddy’d kick my ass if I got arrested for illegal hacking.”

  “Try checking with the INS, see if Manganaris is a resident alien. They’ll have family history if he is.”

  “Already thought of that. Next up.”

  She called the local Immigration and Naturalization Service office, went through a glib piece of rigmarole in which she claimed to be personnel director of the agency and needed to know if Harold Manganaris, who had applied for a job with us, had a valid green card and to verify certain information he’d given on his application. Wasted effort. No green card. So he was either a citizen by birth or adoption, or an unregistered alien.

  Tamara contacted the Australian embassy, to determine if he had or had ever had a valid Australian passport. They said they’d get back to her, but when five o’clock rolled around they hadn’t called. Tamara hadn’t found out anything from any other source by then, either.

  Which left me with a decision to make. Hanging around, waiting for something to turn up, was playing hell with my nerves, and it would be worse tomorrow. I craved movement, activity. One thing I could do was to drive up to Woodland and have a talk with Grant Johnson, find out if he was in fact hiding useful information about Annette Byers. Fine, but should I make the drive tonight or wait until first thing in the morning? If I left now I’d have to fight commute traffic through the city, across the Bay Bridge, and most of the way on Highway 80 as far as Vacaville—a two-hour trip stretched out into a three-hour-plus one. I just wasn’t up to it. Tired from all the running around today, not much sleep the past three nights, still stiff and sore ... I needed rest more than anything else. The drive would be much easier in the morning, going against the commute. And if Tamara turned up a lead that demanded immediate attention, I could always reverse direction without losing too much time.

  Tomorrow, then. Push myself too hard, and I wouldn’t be in shape to deal with Manganaris when I finally found him.

  Kerry had to work late—I phoned her before I left the office—so I picked up Emily at the Simpsons. They were Diamond Heights neighbors, the Simpsons, whose daughter went to the same school and was the same age. Emily had never had many friends, but she seemed to be slowly forming a bond with Carla Simpson. Encouraging. So was the fact that she seemed to be coping better since our talk Saturday night, no longer quite so frightened or withdrawn.

  I made an effort to spend quality time with her this night. She was good with computers, as most kids are these days, and I let her show me some things on her PC. Simple, basic stuff, but I had to admit that I found it of mild interest. Resistance waning a bit? Maybe. I was never going to be a full-fledged convert to modern technology, but even technophobes can get to know the enemy without compromising their principles. I said as much to Emily, and she laughed. That in itself made the computer lesson worthwhile.

  I suggested we make dinner and surprise Kerry. She liked the idea, so we put together a meat lasagna and a green salad, messing up the kitchen and then giving it a good cleaning afterward. She was animated the whole time; I heard her laugh again, several times. The way she looked at me tonight, with more love than fear and uncertainty, led me to remember that she’d called me Daddy in that house in Daly City. She hadn’t done it again since, but I found myself hoping she would. I wanted to hear her use that word more than I would have thought possible a year or so ago.

  Kerry was surprised and pleased when she came home. The good domestic mood lasted through dinner and afterward—all surface cheer, the kind that can be shattered by the wrong word or action, but that didn’t happen. On our way back to normal.

  Later, when Kerry and I were in bed, I drew her close and said, “I’ve shut you out the past few days and I feel bad about it. I’m sorry, babe.”

  “I understand what you’re going through.”

  “I know you do, but you’re hurting, too. Selfish and stupid of me not to confide in you. My God, I talked to Emily about what happened. And Tamara knows more than you about what I’ve been doing since.”

  “Do you want to talk about it now?”

  “Yes,” I said, and I told her about Harold Manganaris, how I’d found out about him and what I believed he and Annette Byers had done. Two things I didn’t tell her, because I still did not have the right words to express them: the sense of internal bleeding and the constant reminder of the clicks.

  She said, “Have you told all of that to the police?”

  “Not yet. Not until I get closer to Manganaris.”

  “How close? You feel you have to confront him?”

  “At some point, yes. But not in any physical way—none of that revenge crap. Just to let him know to his face that I helped nail him. And it doesn’t have to be before he’s arrested. In jail afterward is good enough.”

  “Then why—?”

  “I need to feel I’ve done everything I possibly can before I step aside. Manganaris and Byers heaped chaos on me, my client, you and Emily by association. The job of bringing them down is as much mine as the system’s. It’s the only way I’ll ever have any peace of mind.”

  “Closure,” Kerry said.

  “That’s as good a word for it as any.”

  “And the sooner the better.”

  “Exactly.”

  We lay in silence then, holding each other, warmed by each other. I felt that I could sleep tonight, without evil dreams or night sweats. The clicks were there, but they did not seem to be quite as loud. No, not quite as loud.

  EIGHTEEN

  WOODLAND. OLD GOLD RUSH TOWN ON Highway 5 a dozen miles northeast of Davis and twenty miles or so from Sacramento, population around forty thousand, supported these days by light industry and agriculture. Quiet, tree-shaded streets; a premium on Victorian and two-story frame houses on large lots. Sweltering hot in the summer months, but the Sacramento River ran its twisting course a few miles away and offered recreational ways to beat the heat.

  It was warm there even for this time of year when I rolled in at ten o’clock. I stopped at a Shell station off the freeway to fuel up and ask directions to Benson Avenue. Fifteen minutes after that I was parked in front of RiteClean Plumbing and Heating and on my way into a sprawling showroom packed with kitchen and bathroom displays and appliances.

  I had a story ready to explain my request for an audience with Grant Johnson, but I didn’t need to use it. The elderly woman on office duty told me he was taking the day off work.

  “What reason did he give?” I asked, making it sound casual.

  “Well, a personal matter.”

  “Nothing serious, I hope.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know.”

  “Did he call in today or arrange for the time off last night?”

  “He called this morning.”

  I asked the woman how to get to Rio Oso, saying that I would try to reach Johnson at home. She wasn’t the suspicious type; she not only obliged, she smiled and wished me a nice day.

  Outside in the car, I checked in with Tamara. She said, “Mostly spam this morning.”

  “Spam?”

  “Junk, useless stuff. Computer term.”

  “Nothing useful?”

  “Well, I got his DMV records. California driver’s license, renewed three years ago. Duboce address, so that’s a dead end. Height: six feet. Weight: two-twenty. Hair and eyes, both brown. Date of birth: June 16, 1959. Place still unknown.”

  “What kind of car’s registered to him?”

  “Olds Cutlass, five years old.” She read me the license plate number.

  “Might still be driving it, might not. One thing’s sure—he’s not using Byers’ MG.”

  “Uh-uh. Still hasn’t been found, by the way. I checked with Felicia. Also no word on Byers, and the cops haven’t turned up her connection to Manganaris yet.”

  “They will eventually,” I said. “How about other people with that name? Any in the state?”

  “Surprise there. Three—one in L.A., one in Hollister, one in Yreka.”

  “Could be they’re all related in some way.”

  “That’s what I’m digging on now.”

  “All right, but don’t phone any of them. We don’t want to alert a relative Manganaris might be in touch with. As far as he knows, no one’s ID’ed him as the shooter.”

  I had a little more difficulty finding Rio Oso than I had Benson Avenue. It was a one-block cul-de-sac that looped in behind another street in a solidly middle-class neighborhood of older homes. The Johnsons’ address was a two-story brown-shingled house with a porch that wrapped half around on one side. A gnarled old black walnut provided shade in front and on the porch side. The driveway and the curb in front were empty, but I could see a garage in back and the doors were shut.

  Nobody answered the doorbell. I thought about walking up the drive to check the garage, decided that wasn’t such a good idea in a neighborhood like this, and went back to the car. Wait awhile, see if anybody showed up? It was either that or talk to the neighbors, and I was not ready to try that yet. But waiting here, one man alone in a parked car, was a bad idea for the same reason as trespassing. Better to go away somewhere for a time and then come back.

  I drove around until I spotted a strip mall that had a cafe in it. Breakfast had been a cup of coffee and a glass of orange juice, so I sat in there and drank more coffee and ate eggs and toast that I didn’t particularly want. That used up half an hour. I made myself linger another ten minutes before I climbed back into the car and returned to Rio Oso.

  The Johnson driveway was occupied now, by a dark blue SUV that must have just pulled in. The driver’s door was open, and a blonde woman in Levi’s and a white shirt was balancing a baby in one arm and using the other to open one of those fold-up strollers they have nowadays. A little boy of about four skipped around beside her; from a distance it looked as though he was performing some sort of ritual dance.

  I parked, walked over there and up the drive. The woman looked startled when she saw me; the boy stopped his dance and stared with big round eyes like a kid in a Keane painting. I said through what I hoped was a disarming smile, “Mrs. Johnson?”

  “Yes? What is it?” She was about twenty-five, big-boned, and attractive. But the Levi’s were a mistake, pointing up the fact that she had heavy thighs and broad hips.

  “I need to talk to your husband. Can you tell me—”

  “What do you want with Grant?” Wary and nervous, both.

  In the detective business you learn to read people quickly and to make snap decisions in how to handle them. Game-playing would not get me anywhere with Melanie Johnson. A direct, straightforward approach was the one chance I had at cooperation from her. I unpocketed my wallet, doing it slowly so as not to alarm her, and flipped open to the photostat of my investigator’s license. I said my name at the same time I showed her the license.

  She went pale. Her mouth opened, closed, opened again, fishlike, before she said, “You ... you’re the detective who was almost....”

  “Almost murdered in Daly City. That’s right.”

  “Oh, God. What do you ... why are you here?”

  “To see your husband, as I said.”

  “Why? Grant doesn’t know anything about that. He’s a good man; he never hurt anyone in his life.”

  “I don’t doubt that.”

  “Then what do you want with him? For Lord’s sake, we have a family, little children....”

  “I mean no harm to you or your husband or your family, Mrs. Johnson. Information is all I’m after.”

  “I told you, he doesn’t know—”

  “Annette Byers,” I said.

  She caught her breath. Made a little sound in her throat and said, “Oh, God,” again.

  “How long has it been since you’ve seen her?”

  “I’ve never seen her. That was all over before Grant and I met. I don’t know that bitch, I don’t want anything to do with her.”

  “How long since your husband saw her last?”

  The baby in the stroller set up a sudden wailing. The little boy moved over and hugged his mother’s leg. Melanie Johnson looked at the infant, at the boy, at the SUV, at the house, at the street—everywhere but at me. The beginnings of panic glistened in her eyes, created a twitch at one corner of her mouth.

  “I meant what I said about no harm to you. Finding Annette Byers and the man she’s with is the only reason I’m here. If you have any idea where they are, I’d advise you to tell me now. It might save you a visit from the police later on.”

  The baby yowled louder. Mrs. Johnson said almost desperately, “She needs changing. We can’t talk out here ... the neighbors ... I can’t think with her screaming like that.”

  “Inside would be better,” I agreed. “Were you just out shopping?”

  “What? Oh, shopping, yes....”

  I gestured at the SUV. “Groceries inside?”

  “Yes, but....”

  “You go ahead with your kids. I’ll bring the groceries.”

  My offer eased the panic in her; the look she flashed me was more stunned than frightened. She nodded, turned to push the stroller toward the front walk, the four-year-old clinging to her leg. I opened the SUV’s rear door, hauled out four large bags of food and paper products, and lugged them onto the porch. She had the front door open by then; I followed her inside.

  The house was cluttered with toys but otherwise reasonably well kept. She said, “The kitchen’s this way,” and led me out there. I put the groceries on the sink counter while she lifted the squalling infant from the stroller. “I have to change her right away. She gets a rash if she’s wet too long.”

  “All right.”

  We went back into the toy-strewn living room. She said distractedly, “Will you watch Michael while I change the baby?”

  “Sure.”

  She told the boy to sit down, took the infant into another room. I leaned a hip on the arm of a recliner and watched Michael watch me with his big round eyes. After a time, when the baby’s yowls subsided, I winked at him and made a rocking gesture with folded arms. All that got me was a pooch face. I treated him to one of my own in return. He stuck out his tongue; I did the same. He was giggling and mugging at me like Red Skelton when his mother returned.

  She said, “You’re good with him. Do you have children?”

  “One adopted daughter. She’s ten.”

  “My other son is adopted. He’s in kindergarten now.” Her mouth quirked. “Grant’s son by that bitch. But I guess you know that.”

  “Yes.”

  “I love Kevin like he’s my own, I really do. I’m the only mother he’s ever had. She never wanted anything to do with him. Or with Grant anymore until....”

  “Until when, Mrs. Johnson?”

  She sat heavily on a corduroy sofa. Michael ran over and hopped up beside her and laid his head in her lap. She stroked his dark-blond hair absently as she said, “I want to tell you, but I don’t know ... I shouldn’t say anything without Grant being here.”

  “Do you know where he is now?”

  “At work. I’d better call him....”

  “He’s not at work,” I said.

  “He ... what? He’s not?”

  “I stopped by RiteClean Plumbing before I came here. The woman in the office said he was taking the day off to attend to personal business. Called in about it this morning.”

  “Oh, God,” she said.

  “He didn’t say anything to you?”

  “No. He ... no, not a word.”

 

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