She didn’t have a broken leg or sprained ankle, she didn’t run away, there was no stranger.

The captive worms in Mrs. Cunningham’s lap still struggled to escape.

“I’ve started to fibrillate, Peter,” she said. “Feel my pulse if you don’t believe me. Fibrillation can be very dangerous.”

“So stop doing it.”

“I’m not doing it deliberately. I can’t help it. I’ve always had this tendency—”

“I know all about your tendencies,” Peter said.

“Why are you so cruel to me, Peter? I’m hyperventilating and I’m fibrillating and you won’t even let me have a Valium. I could be cruel myself if I wanted to.”

“Try it.”

“There are some things you think I don’t know about. But I do. And I could tell people if I wanted to. I could tell a great deal.”

“Go ahead.”

“Of course I won’t. I’m not capable of cruelty. I just don’t have it in me.”

“What you have in you,” Peter said, “is enough booze to float an oil tanker and enough pills to choke a herd of whales.”

“You shouldn’t speak like that to your mother. No son should speak like that to his mother.”

“Maybe I’ll start a trend.”

“You made me leave the house with only one tiny drink.”

“Two.”

“Both seemed very weak.”

“They were doubles.”

“You contradict me all the time.”

“No,” Peter said. “Only when you lie.”

Benjamin turned and said, “Sssh,” not loudly, but directly into Mrs. Cunningham’s left ear.

Shrinking away from him as if he’d blown poison gas at her she clasped her son’s arm. “Peter, that man told me to ssssh.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“I consider it very rude for a stranger to address me in such a manner, especially when I’m fibrillating.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know you’re fibrillating. Let him feel your pulse. He’s not, by the way, a stranger.”

“I’ve never seen him before. He must be one of your friends.”

Peter raised one carefully trimmed eyebrow. “No. No, I think not.”

Benjamin had met the Cunninghams casually at a number of social functions. Mother and son always arrived together, both elegantly and rather formally attired, Peter in dark vested suits or dinner jackets, Mrs. Cunningham in silks and brocades and velvets, jeweled and perfumed and elaborately coiffed. Their arrival usually created a stir. Peter at fifty was a handsome man, with his silver wig and deep bronze tan, and Mrs. Cunningham still showed traces of beauty. Throughout any social affair Peter remained the same but Mrs. Cunningham seemed to be struck by a series of inner earthquakes and aftershocks that loosened her coiffure, dislodged hairpins and left little gold curls dangling helplessly by their gray roots. She staggered and clutched at people to retain her balance. (“Oh, I’m so sorry. This frightful migraine has made me quite dizzy.”) She bumped into furniture, dropped glasses and spilled food down the front of her dress. (“How clumsy of me. I seem to have lost my contact lenses.”) And she departed early, leaning heavily on the arm of her son. Peter never appeared embarrassed or angry, merely rather amused as though he’d been playing a walk-on role in some dreadfully amateur drama.

“If he’s not one of your friends,” Mrs. Cunningham said, “and he’s not one of mine, who is he?”

“An architect.”

“We don’t need an architect, do we?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t have to pay any attention to him when he tells me to ssssssh, do I?”

“No. So I’ll tell you. Shut up.”

The music stopped and the Reverend Michael Dunlop began to speak. His training and years of experience seemed to be forgotten. His voice was not the one he used in Sunday sermons to teach, exhort, inspire or downright terrify. This voice was uncertain and so soft it was barely audible in the back rows. He had officiated at hundreds of burials but the deceased had been old or ill or had died in accidents or by their own hands. Annamay Rebecca Hyatt was eight years old and she had, in the words of the coroner’s jury, died at the hands of another.

He was angry, baffled. He questioned his faith and the wisdom of God, the competence of the police and the motives and veracity of his audience. He paused between sentences, almost as if he expected someone might stand up and confess to the crime or at least to the suppression of evidence.

“And we entrust to Your loving care the soul of this beautiful child who eight years ago was christened at this very altar, Annamay Rebecca Hyatt.”

He paused again. There were coughs, sobs, sniffles, but no confession. He wanted to accuse, to threaten someone with the wrath of God, the fires of hell and eternal damnation. But he didn’t believe in hell, and he had no power or right to threaten anyone, no reason to believe there was a murderer in the audience, or a murderer’s friend. But he had an almost overpowering feeling that there was: One of you did something, knows something, and by God, I’d like to force it out of you—

His wife, Lorna, sitting in her usual place on the aisle in the middle row, was sending him her special Look which indicated he was making mistakes, saying things he should have omitted and omitting things he shouldn’t have. Lorna was a good Christian and an even better critic. She was paying careful attention so she could tell him afterward what mistakes he had made in delivery, content and demeanor. Lorna was always eager to help people improve, especially him.

He would hear about it all later, probably just before dinner which was his lowest point in the day and, maybe not coincidentally, Lorna’s highest. “What’s the use of speaking, Michael, if you cannot be heard by everyone in the church?”… “Goodness me, you sounded emotional. You can’t afford to have feelings, you’re a minister.”… “And those long pauses when you seemed to be trying to establish eye contact with somebody. It says in the book you’re never to do that. Why did you?”

Why? he thought. Why indeed?

Lorna wouldn’t understand that he was looking for a murderer or a murderer’s friend. She would consult her book and find that it was against the rules.

Lorna had a valuable book which was unknown and inaccessible to anyone else. She consulted this book frequently and, like a good friend, it offered words of wisdom which exactly matched her own opinions. Many people were puzzled by her references to the book, thinking she meant the Bible. And in a sense she did. It was her bible, anyway.

He was certain that Lorna’s book would have murderers listed in the index:

By now he must have broken every rule in Lorna’s book but he no longer cared. He paused between sentences, his voice trembled with emotion and he established eye contact with Annamay’s father, Howard Hyatt. They were the same age, thirty-seven, and had attended the same college. Even then they moved in different social circles. Howard was president of the students’ council and a business major who after graduating had joined an investment firm owned by his father and took over the management of the firm when his father retired. Howard was, in brief, a success.

Success was a big item in Lorna’s book.

The references would stretch as far as Lorna’s memory and imagination. Meanwhile, success notwithstanding, he and Howard remained friends. Howard came to church a dozen or so times a year, sent his daughter, Annamay, to Sunday School and contributed generously to the building fund. And it was to Michael that Howard came after Annamay disappeared, not seeking comfort, which was impossible, but seeking an explanation of how God could let such a thing happen. Michael didn’t know. He pulled out a few old saws like God writing straight with crooked lines, but he was unconvincing and unconvinced. There was no explanation.

Four months later Annamay’s bones were found a mile or so up the creek under a pile of forest litter covered by a tangle of poison oak. The poison oak was red with autumn by that time and very pretty.

“I’ve failed you, Howard,” Michael said. “I’m sorry. If I had enough faith I could give you—”

“No, you couldn’t give, I’m not taking. The time for praying and pleading and groveling, all that’s over. What I want now is action. And let’s leave God out of it, for Christ’s sake.”

“The police have done their best.”

“Their best isn’t necessarily my best.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Start over.”

“Maybe I can help.”

“Maybe you can.”

The eyes of the two men met and agreed: It was time to begin. Except for a few small bones missing from the left hand and probably carried away by some animal or bird, the bones were intact and offered no evidence of how the child had died. Various theories were advanced, some reasonable, some bizarre, all of them shot down:

She had tripped, hit her head on a boulder, become unconscious and unable to call for help. This was negated by the absence of fractures or indentations on the skull.

She had stumbled headfirst into the creek and drowned. But the creek was running very low by that time and at least twenty feet from where she was found, a distance not easily covered by a drowning victim.

She had been struck by a bolt of lightning. Electrical storms, however, were rare in the area at any time of the year, especially summer. None had been reported within a thousand miles on the day she disappeared.

She had wandered into a patch of poison oak and because she was highly susceptible to it she had died there on the spot. Chizzy shot down this last theory: “Why, she’d never go near the stuff. She knew how dangerous it was, and I’d taught her and her cousin Dru how to tell it from the wild blackberry vines. I composed a poem for the girls to memorize and made them say it over and over: Of shiny leaves in three, you must careful be.”

She hadn’t drowned, broken a leg, been overcome by poison oak or struck by lightning. She had, in the words of the coroner’s jury, died at the hands of another, a person or persons unknown.

Person or persons unknown. Michael’s eyes searched up and down the aisles, back and forth along the pews like feeble twin lights trying to probe too dark a forest.

Person or persons, you are unknown but you are here. I feel your presence. I’m going to find you.

He saw his wife, Lorna, waving a handkerchief in front of her face. Observers might think she was merely fanning herself because she was too warm but Michael recognized it as one of her more meaningful signals indicating that he was, according to the book, making a fool of himself.

He thought that she might be right and how little difference it would make one way or another. There had been a time for Lorna. Now there would be a time for Annamay.

When it was over, the family and Ben York went to the Hyatts’ house for some of Chizzy’s coffee and sandwiches and cake.

Dru and old Mr. Hyatt carried their plates down to the palace while Vicki took John to the garage to see the new car Howard had bought Kay to cheer her up. The car talked. The doors said, I’m open, the lights, I’m on, the gas tank, I’m getting empty. Even the speedometer issued a stern warning, Slow down.

Kay wasn’t cheered. She turned away from the car as though it were a bribe, and went on driving the old station wagon she’d used to take Annamay and her friends on outings to the beach and zoo, to Disneyland, Sea World and Marineland. People talked at her, told her the new car was marvelous and she ought to be grateful and why didn’t she drive it to Carmel or La Jolla for a weekend. She paid no more attention to them than to the synthesized voices that came from the car.

Vicki thought the voices were really neat though she was quick to point out one disadvantage as she and John sat in the front seat:

“What if we were making love and we heard someone say, that’s illegal? What would you do?”

“I’d finish making love,” John said. “And then I’d hire a lawyer.”

Vicki giggled and kissed him on the side of the neck. “Oh dear, I guess we’d better go back inside.”

“Why?”

“We’re supposed to be offering our condolences, saying all the correct things.”

“I can’t think of anything more to say than I’ve been saying for the past four months.”

“Still, it doesn’t seem right that we’re out here together like this, happy and everything. Does it seem right to you?”

“Nothing’s a hundred percent right in a fifty percent world.”

“You don’t think we should be… well, suffering more?” “It wouldn’t help them any.”

“Oh, John, you’re so sensible.”

“I’m learning from Dru,” John said with some truth.

Howard’s move into the guest cottage was accomplished quickly and without fuss. The cottage was always kept ready for occupancy, its cupboards and refrigerator well-stocked, even its medicine chest equipped with toothbrushes and paste, aspirin and throwaway razors. The only real change was the telephone which was now a private line with an unlisted number. Besides Michael, only two people were given this number — Kay, and Howard’s confidential secretary.

During the move Howard’s father stood around watching dolefully. He made no attempt to help Howard carry his personal effects over from the main house, and when asked to do so he refused with a sad little shake of his head.

“No, son, I cannot be a party to an act which I consider morally wrong.”

“It surely isn’t morally wrong to move from one section of my house to another.”

“But what is the purpose of such an act?”

“I’ve already explained to you that I’m going to be very busy and I don’t want to disturb Kay… Here, hang this up for me, will you?”

The old man put his hands behind his back to prevent them from honoring the request without his approval. “You’ve always been very busy and Kay has never minded being disturbed. Throughout these many years she’s been quite cheerfully keeping the hours necessary to people in the financial business like us, getting up at four-thirty so you could be at the office by six when the New York Stock Exchange opens.”

“I don’t want to argue with you, Dad, so I’ll simply tell you for the last time that I’m going through with this project.”

“Is this project so secret you can’t even divulge it to me?”

“There’s nothing to divulge yet. Perhaps there never will be. Now why don’t you go work in the garden, Dad? Pick some mandarins. I noticed that one tree is loaded this year, dozens of them have fallen off.”

“I picked ninety-three mandarins yesterday. Chizzy told me she didn’t know what to do with ninety-three mandarins, and I wasn’t to pick any more. You can’t make pie or sauce out of them the way you can with apples, or juice them like oranges.”

“Isn’t it about time to prune the roses?”

“Ah, Howard, you’ve always been a good son to me. Don’t start treating me like a foolish old fellow who must be kept busy. If you wish me not to bother you, you have only to say so in a clear direct manner. Would you prefer that I leave?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will leave immediately. If you need me for anything I’ll be up in the lighthouse logging ships.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“No, it really isn’t a good idea, Howard. You know it serves no purpose whatsoever, my keeping track of ships when no one ever reads my logs. If there’s ever a war, of course, such logs might be of use, so perhaps I had better keep in practice.”

The lighthouse was a thirty-foot tower built on the highest knoll on the property. It had a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the sea, the coastline and the mountains behind the city that separated it from the rest of the world.

The tower contained a powerful telescope mounted on a tripod. Through it Mr. Hyatt could watch the stars by night and the ships by day. During the long dry season he kept the mountains under close observation for the first signs of a forest fire. During the wet season he often watched the freeway, the hundreds and thousands of cars and trucks and vans and campers driving north and south, all of them in a great hurry as if they feared the places they were going to wouldn’t wait for them to get there.

He could also train the telescope on people but he seldom did because he considered spying an ungentlemanly pursuit. Only after Annamay disappeared did he use it for this purpose, scanning every part of the neighborhood that wasn’t obscured by trees and hedges, fences and walls.

He was frequently astonished by what he saw. The maid next door, Ernestina, threw dishes into the garbage cans when she didn’t feel like washing them. Her employers, who were traveling in Europe, were in for a shock when they came home, not merely at the reduction in their stock of dishes and cookware but also at the number of rats who’d developed a taste for Mexican food and lay hidden in the ivy and the crowns of palm trees awaiting their share.

The telescope also offered him a view farther on down the hill of the vine-covered pergola that connected the Cunninghams’ house with the garage. Mrs. Cunningham could frequently be seen using this pergola. Her visits to the garage were quite puzzling since she didn’t drive, and Mr. Hyatt reluctantly conceded that Chizzy had been right all along and Mrs. Cunningham had a great thirst.

Through the feathery leaves of a pepper tree, a section of the Cunninghams’ pool area was also visible. Here Mrs. Cunningham’s son, Peter, gave frequent pool parties which were unusual because the leaves of the pepper tree seemed to be all his guests ever wore. In contrast Mrs. Cunningham moved among the naked young men in her long billowy caftans and huge straw hats.

On a hill across the canyon was the Mediterranean villa of a mad old madam who kept a flock of white-coated attendants fluttering around her like trained doves. She came out on one of the balconies now and then to wave to the world. Mr. Hyatt always waved back though he doubted that he could be seen.

Mr. Hyatt wasn’t aware of her previous occupation until some time after she took over the villa. To him she appeared to be an ordinary elderly woman who dressed in long black robes rather like a nun’s habit and employed a great many servants who didn’t do much of anything except follow her around. In spite of the gardeners who came and went sporadically, the grounds were neglected. Fruit fell off trees and rotted, the oaks were alive with moths, the garden paths overgrown with devil grass. Mr. Hyatt brought the subject up one day when he and Chizzy were having lunch in the kitchen.

“I see we have a new neighbor.”

“You see? How?”

“Through the telescope.”

“That’s all right then. Just so’s you didn’t go charging over to welcome her to the neighborhood. And if she ever approaches you take my advice and shun her like a rattlesnake.”

“Why?”

“She is not,” Chizzy said, “a woman of quality.”

“She must be rich to have so many servants.”

“Keepers, not servants. She came here from up north only one jump ahead of the cops and the butterfly nets.”

“She may only be a trifle eccentric.”

“She’s mad as a hatter.”

Mr. Hyatt swallowed this with a spoonful of soup. “Perhaps you would be interested in the origin of that phrase, mad as a hatter. In nineteenth-century England hatters did in fact go mad because the mercury compound they used to soften pelts affected their brains.”

“Well, this old biddy didn’t get that way by working on any hats, I can tell you.”

“Of course not. The use of mercury was stopped some time ago.”

“She is suffering,” Chizzy said impatiently, “from an occupational disease. Now do you understand?”

“Dear me. Perhaps you should warn Annamay to keep away from there.”

“You warn her. I’ve warned her about so many things it just goes in one ear and out the other.”

Mr. Hyatt found Annamay in the palace bandaging Luella Lu who was somewhat the worse from another round of Shep’s and Newf’s toothy devotion. In the big house on the adjoining hill, Mr. Hyatt explained, lived a wicked witch who could cast evil spells on beautiful princesses, and must be avoided.

“I know,” Annamay said. “Dru told me.”

“Did she tell you the woman was a witch?”

“Sort of-ish.” Dru’s explanation had been rather unsettling since Annamay didn’t understand what bad things people did to get bad diseases. She was grateful for her grandfather’s reasonable alternative. Witches appeared in many of Annamay’s storybooks, and while they were often fearsome they never got away with much in the long run.

The lure of having a spell cast on her proved irresistible. She persuaded Dru to accompany her. Leaving the dogs at home because they might attract attention by barking, the two girls ran through the avocado grove, jumped the creek and crept up the hill to the white stucco wall that surrounded the villa. Standing on Dru’s shoulders Annamay peered into the courtyard. There was no witch in sight, only a young man in a white coat who was sitting reading a book.

He told her to get the hell out and she got the hell out.

“He’s probably into dope,” Dru said on the way back, “and suspects us of being narcs.”

Dru’s explanations had a life cycle of their own. Each one spawned a question which in turn had to hatch another explanation.

“What’s a narc?”

“A narcotics investigator.”

Annamay might have been flattered by this if Dru hadn’t almost immediately added, “He doesn’t know you’re a child. All he saw of you was the top of your head and your eyes. Your eyes look a lot more grown-up and sensible than the rest of your face. It would have been a dead giveaway if he’d seen your teeth. Your teeth are positively childish.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want to be suspected of being a narc anyway.”

“I do.”

“I don’t.”

“You,” Dru said flatly, “are going to remain a child the rest of your life.”

Among the materials Miss Garrison had copied and put in Michael’s briefcase was a complete file of newspaper clippings covering a period of nearly four months.

Most of the clippings were from the local newspaper which ordinarily downplayed violent crimes but had assigned a full-time reporter to this one because of the prominence of the people involved and the overwhelming public interest in the little girl’s disappearance. Everyone who had a child, knew a child or indeed had ever been a child, everyone in the city, county, state followed each step of the investigation.

It was discussed in bars and classrooms, at private clubs and public meetings.

Money was contributed to the original reward of fifty thousand dollars offered by the Hyatts. When the fund reached one hundred thousand Howard requested that it remain at that figure. If there was no legitimate claimant to the hundred thousand dollars, more dollars wouldn’t make any difference and contributors’ money could be put to better use elsewhere.

The ad appeared in every edition of the local paper. At first it had read:

There was a large picture of Annamay, the time and place she was last seen and a complete description of her. Height, four feet four, weight sixty-one pounds. Blue eyes, blond straight shoulder-length hair, fair skin slightly sunburned, mole on right wrist. Wearing faded blue denim shorts, blue sandals, striped T-shirt stamped with her initials, ARH.

After the bones were found the entire wording of the ad was altered.

The local television station also carried four sixty-second spots of the offer every twenty-four hours. These included a close-up of the child and a short segment of a movie Kay had taken of Annamay with the two dogs.

The ads failed to bring forward anyone with a reasonable claim or even a plausible story, but the police dutifully made a report of each one. Howard and Michael read them all through at their first meeting in the guest cottage.

Mrs. Edwina Pascal, thirty-two, of 2003 Estero Gordo Street, Santa Felicia, claimed that her husband, Geronimo’ had molested their daughter and his stepdaughter, had probably done the same thing to the Hyatt girl and should be put in the gas chamber.

Truman Wilson, forty-five, no fixed address, charged that his best friend had disappeared on the same day that Annamay did and he was positive there was a connection. The friend owed him ninety-three dollars and was no damn good. Wilson planned to use the reward money to buy a racehorse but he couldn’t remember his friend’s last name, and the money remained in the bank.

A female psychic offered to pay her own fare from Connecticut if she would be allowed to stay in the princess’s palace for a week to absorb the atmosphere and possibly establish contact with Annamay’s spirit. The reward money would be used not for her personal gain but to found a center for the study of parapsychology. Her letter included a phone number.

Howard got in touch with her.

“I was like a terminally ill cancer patient reaching for laetrile,” he told Michael. “So I called her.”

“What did she say?”

“Nothing. She was too stoned to talk.”

Small blond girls sprang up like mushrooms all over town: alone, with a young man, an old man, a black man and woman, three teenagers, and an entire Mexican family. One of the reports came from a Mrs. Jeanette Orchard who claimed she saw a middle-aged man at a gas station with a blond child who was crying. A follow-up by a sheriff’s deputy revealed that the middle-aged man owned the gas station and the child, a short fat ten-year-old, was crying because he wouldn’t let her have any more candy bars. Mrs. Orchard was extremely disappointed since she’d put a down payment on a mobile home in anticipation of the reward money.

“At least she didn’t want to buy a racehorse,” Howard said, laying aside the reward file. “What’s next?”

“Pictures,” Michael said. “Hundreds, from publications throughout the country. There’s not much point in looking at all of them.”

“I think there is. We decided in the beginning that we’d examine all the police files in the hope of finding an area they failed to cover. Wasn’t that our mutual decision?”

“Yes.”

“So, let’s go.”

There were literally hundreds, carefully labeled, each subject identified and each photographer credited, with the date and place taken and the initials of the deputy who had filed the picture.

There were formal poses of Annamay intended for Christmas gifts, and snapshots of her at play and at school; of the school itself; of the house Annamay lived in and the palace and even of the man who’d designed them both, Benjamin York. There were pictures of Kay and Howard together and separately; of Chizzy coming out of the coroner’s inquest; Dru in the hall of the courthouse standing between her mother and stepfather, looking small and scared. Even Mitsu and Suki, who normally smiled a great deal, stared somberly into the camera as if it were a judge.

There were also pictures of nearly everyone who lived, worked, or visited in the neighborhood, from Ernestina, the maid next door to the Hyatts, caught throwing a plate into the garbage can, to the old madam waving to the world from one of the balconies of her villa. The madam lent a sinister air to the case as bits and pieces of her past came out in the newspaper accounts.

It was hinted in one of these accounts that the madam had supplied children to some of her special customers, but a disclaimer was printed in the next edition. Many people missed seeing the disclaimer and others regarded it simply as a ploy to avoid a possible libel suit. The madam received crank letters she wasn’t allowed to read and crank phone calls that weren’t relayed to her. The upshot of the matter was that her conservators found it expedient to double the wages of her household staff.

All the members of the staff had been interviewed by sheriff’s deputies, some briefly, some at length, depending on the verbosity of both parties involved. But the madam herself had not been questioned.

The file listed her real name as Rosa Firenze: Born in Chicago, raised in a succession of foster homes until her first arrest at age thirteen for aggravated assault. After a series of arrests she drifted westward and finally discovered her destiny. In San Francisco at the beginning of World War II Rosa found the fleet and the fleet found her.

Michael said, “Why wasn’t Miss Firenze questioned?”

“Since she has been declared incompetent by the court her lawyer’s permission was necessary and he refused to give it. So officially the police could do nothing.”

“And unofficially?”

“Miss Firenze sometimes escapes from the grounds. On one of these occasions a deputy found her wandering around the neighborhood and exchanged words with her. The exchange didn’t last very long. An attendant arrived and whisked her away. But according to my informant she was coherent and eager to talk to an outsider. There is even a rumor,” Howard added, “that she is writing her memoirs and the whole crazy lady bit is a ploy to keep her under observation. There are undoubtedly a certain number of bigwigs in the armed services and politics who would prefer to keep Miss Firenze out of print and circulation. I’m inclined to doubt the memoirs story. She’s the kind of woman who inspires such stories, maybe starts a few of them herself.”

“If the rumor is true,” Michael said, “Miss Firenze might be interested in seeing a publisher.”

“You.”

“Me.”

“You could be pretty convincing, I’m sure. But if the rumor is false you blow your chance of ever seeing her. Better stick to your own profession.”

“What makes you think she might want to see a minister?”

“I have a hunch. My dad, who’s spotted her through the telescope in the lighthouse, says she wears clothes that look like a nun’s habit. That could indicate some sort of penitence on her part.”

“Maybe. I’ll give it a try anyway.”

Rosa Firenze’s name was added to the list of subjects needing further attention. More interviews were read aloud, first by one man, then by the other, until it was almost midnight and they were both tired, and Howard was depressed as well. Although more than a dozen names were added to the list, no really promising leads emerged from the mass of material, no glaring omissions on the part of the police.

What had started out as a serious project with a chance of succeeding now seemed hardly more than a child’s game Annamay and Dru might have played after finding one of the goldfish dead in the lily pond or coming across the body of a bird or butterfly. Throughout the gardens the graves of many small creatures were marked by miniature crosses made of twigs or popsicle sticks. We are two grown men playing with twigs, Howard thought.

He sat by the window which had a view of the main house. His father’s quarters were dark, but lights were still on in the kitchen and Chizzy’s room downstairs and in Kay’s bedroom upstairs. He was surprised at how little time it had taken him to think of it as Kay’s bedroom although the closets and drawers still contained most of his clothes.

He opened the window. The smells of autumn drifted in, damp earth, eucalyptus wood burning in someone’s fireplace, lemon blossoms. But the most teasing and pervasive of all was the scent of bread baking. Chizzy was cooking again to bake away her blues. And while Chizzy cooked, he and Michael were playing a child’s game for the same reason.

“What if we’re only wasting our time?” Howard said. “We can’t bring her back anyway.”

“No, but we might prevent another child from suffering the same fate.”

“Face it, Mike. We’re dreamers, that’s all. Dreamers.”

“Okay, so I’m a dreamer,” Michael said. “Wake me when the world is over.”

“I wish I had your kind of faith.”

“And what kind is that?”

“Whatever it is that keeps you going.”

“What would keep me going right now is a slice of Chizzy’s homemade bread. Let’s go over and beg some from her.”

“Good idea.”

The villa was surrounded by a white stucco wall and its entrance guarded by an eight-foot iron-grillwork gate. On one side of the gate there was a voice box connected to the main house but Michael saw little point in trying to use it. No human voice could have been heard over the noise of the gasoline-powered blower being operated by one of the gardeners. He wore the gas tank on his back like a hump, a strange new mutation in a strange new world of splitting atoms and eardrums.

The blower was scattering leaves and dirt from one side of the driveway to the other and back again. The operator, wearing earphones to protect his hearing, seemed to be enjoying the game. He looked disappointed when he had to acknowledge Michael’s presence, turn off the motor and remove his earphones.

“Good morning,” Michael said.

The man’s perfunctory nod indicated that this might or might not be true.

“I’d like to see Miss Firenze.”

“She don’t see a whole bunch of people but you can try if you want. Press the button on the voice box and wait for someone to answer, then tell them who you are and what you’re after. I see you’re a man of the cloth.”

“Yes.”

“First one to come here that I can recall. Is the old lady dying?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Must be close to it. Ninety if she’s a day.”

“Seventy-three.”

“She’d had more than ninety years of experience judging from the stories I hear.”

Michael pressed the button on the gate and when there was no response pressed it again. Another half minute passed before a woman’s voice said brusquely, “Ms. Leigh here. Who’s there?”

“I am the Reverend Michael Dunlop.”

“The who?”

“The Reverend Michael Dunlop. I’d like to see Miss Firenze if I may.”

“Is this some kind of gag?”

“No. Every month or so I try to get around to making a few community calls on people whose names are presented to me.”

“Well, whoever presented Firenze’s name must have a weird sense of humor. Anyway she’s still in bed eating her breakfast. Do you reverend people pay social calls on ladies in bed?”

“Frequently. I make regular hospital rounds.”

“She’s not sick. She simply stays in her room a lot because that’s where we work. I’m her ghost-writer, collaborator, amanuensis, you name it.”

“It sounds like interesting work,” Michael said. “I’d like to hear about it.”

“I don’t buy that. But it’s been a dull week so come on in.”

The gate opened almost immediately and Michael went inside. When he heard the gate close behind him he suffered the same feeling he always had when he visited the jail, that the electrical system would fail some day and he would be trapped inside, a prisoner no better than the others.

Walking up the driveway he passed two gardeners clipping a privet hedge, an Oasis Pool Service truck and a white-coated attendant carrying a stack of magazines. No greetings were exchanged. The power blower had started up again, monopolizing the air like the manic roar of a new world tyrant.

The intricately carved front door was opened by Ms. Leigh herself, a tall young Chinese woman with short geometrically cut black hair. She wore steel-rimmed glasses and a green-plaid skirt and green sweater with white collar and cuffs. She looked so efficient that Michael suspected she wasn’t.

She proved it immediately. “What did you say your name was?”

“Is. It was Michael Dunlop when you asked me before and it still is.”

Ms. Leigh looked slightly annoyed. “Oh, you’re one of those grammar freaks, are you? You’ll have a field day with Firenze. It’s my job to correct her grammar.”

“Am I going to be permitted to see her?”

“Why not? She perked up when I told her there was a minister here for a visit. Maybe she’s all ready to be converted, but don’t bet the rent on it. She’s having, by the way, a lucid day. Which is to say she’s not as nutty as she was yesterday.” Ms. Leigh looked him up and down carefully before she closed the door. “I presume you’re aware she’s not playing with a full deck.”

“Yes, but I’m not sure how many cards are missing.”

“It varies from moon to moon. Also from man to man. You may get lucky.” Not a mucle moved on Ms. Leigh’s smooth impassive face but she seemed to be amused. “Depending on your idea of luck and what’s on your mind.”

The hall was almost as large as a ballroom. Its polished tile floor reflected the lights of two crystal chandeliers. Along one wall was a trio of pink velvet chairs that looked as if they had come from Miss Firenze’s past and their gold-braid trim belonged on some officer’s uniform. The rest of the furniture was in the Spanish tradition of old Santa Felicia, dark wood and stiff-backed benches and chairs that made no concessions to the human frame.

The floor was so slippery Michael could hardly walk on it. This explained Ms. Leigh’s jogging shoes and the peculiar gait of the maid who was carrying a breakfast tray down the hall.

“We’d better give Firenze a few minutes to primp,” Ms. Leigh said. “There’s a nice little solarium off the library. It’s the only cheerful room in the place so I often use it as an office… Do you like plants?”

“Should I?”

“I see we understand each other,” Ms. Leigh said. “Yes, you should. They’re Firenze’s hobby. What’s your favorite?”

“Roses.”

“Firenze hates roses. She says they’re too much like women, always demanding to be admired and then turning around and scratching you when you come near them.”

“Miss Firenze evidently doesn’t think much of women.”

“No. Odd, isn’t it? Or perhaps not so odd. She doesn’t think much of men either.”

The solarium was a glass-walled room filled with plants of various sizes and shapes in all kinds of containers. The tile floor slanted down to a drain in the center of the room and the air was heavy with moisture. The only furniture was a desk in one corner and two white wicker settees with yellow vinyl cushions.

Ms. Leigh examined the underside of a red-leafed plant, then pulled a leaf off and showed it to Michael. “Notice that fine webbing? You can’t see the nasty little beast responsible for it but he’s there all right, and so are all his relatives. Red spider mites. Hard to get rid of. Sit down.”

Michael sat down on one of the wicker settees. It crackled and creaked in protest under his weight. “I’d like to hear about your job, Ms. Leigh.”

“Why?”

“I’ve never met a ghost-writer before.”

“Actually I’m not a ghost-writer, I’m a real writer. At least I think I am. Anyway, I’m only ghosting until my husband gets a break in Hollywood. He’s an actor.”

“Meanwhile, what do you do for Miss Firenze?”

“Listen. Change tapes. Transcribe what’s transcribable. Sometimes it’s fairly sensible and interesting. Other times it’s profanity or gibberish and I have to clean it up or make sense out of it or ignore it. I do a lot of ignoring.”

“Then the rumor is true, that she’s writing her memoirs?”

“They can’t really be called memoirs because she gets mixed up about names and dates and places. But I suppose it all happened one way or another at one time or another. Her language is often quite picturesque, probably because she’s not inhibited by rules of grammar or by common sense or discipline of any kind. None of it will ever be published, of course, but as long as she keeps talking, Larry and I keep eating and paying for his drama lessons. The money isn’t the only reason I’m staying, though. Her book will never be published but maybe mine will.”

“And what’s yours?”

“Mine will be a book about trying to write her book. It could be quite funny. I’ve kept notes on some of the things she does and says, so I have plenty of material. I also have a title. Madam. Oh, I know Madam has been used in dozens of titles, Madame Bovary, Madame X, and so on. But this is different, don’t you think? I mean, it’s provocative. Isn’t it?”

“I find the whole idea provocative.”

“You do? Really?”

“Yes indeed,” Michael said. “You have a day-to-day chronicle on what’s happened around the villa?”

“Chronicle is too big a word. It’s a collection of haphazard notes, some of her reminiscences, her fits and foibles.”

“What causes her fits?”

“Practically everything, even the weather. Fog is a good example. It depresses her so badly she shuts herself up in her room and mopes for hours. That leaves the staff with considerable time to kill. The attendants read or play cards or watch television. I work on the diary. I can’t simply go home because she might snap out of it at any minute if the fog lifts. She equates fog,” Ms. Leigh explained, “with ectoplasm, the spirit world trying to get in touch with her, ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night. San Francisco was her place of business so I’m sure there was a lot of fog in her life. Also a lot of things that went bump in the night.”

Michael had another opportunity to admire the way Ms. Leigh could look amused without moving a single facial muscle. “How do other kinds of weather affect her?”

“Fortunately we don’t have much thunder and lightning around here because that’s what really drives her batty. The santanas do too, these dry dirty winds that blow in from the desert. She’s scared to death of them. She tears around the house closing all the windows and drapes and screaming that they’re out to get her.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

“I wish I knew. I’d invite them in and say, take her, she’s yours. Mostly though, it’s not a bad job. We even get a little excitement now and then when Firenze escapes. We usually let her stay out for an hour or so and have her fun, then send someone after her. It’s a change for all of us.”

“Where does she go when she escapes?”

“Down to the creek. She plays in the water like a kid and brings back little bouquets of flowers, or what she pretends are flowers. Sometimes, it’s only a handful of grass or foxtails, once even poison oak. We all thought she’d be a real mess afterward but she fooled us again. It turned out that she’s immune to it. There wasn’t a blister or red mark on her. She could probably make a salad of the stuff and it wouldn’t do her any harm.”

The young maid Michael had seen carrying the breakfast tray down the hall appeared in the doorway. “Madam just buzzed that she’s ready.”

“Thanks, Miriam. We’ll go right up.”

The visitor settled back in the lounge chair, feeling comfortable and relaxed. The room was pleasant, his host polite and soft-voiced, and the food the old biddy had brought over smelled enticing. Since no one had offered him any he decided a hint or two was in order.

“I haven’t had a square meal in a while,” he told Howard. “November’s a bad month for tourists, and they’re my main source of income.”

“You can eat later,” Howard said. He glanced at the sheet of paper Michael handed him. “Cassius Cassandra. Is that your real name?”

“It’s the name I’m known by. You come down to my end of town and ask for Cassius or Mr. Cassandra, everybody knows who you mean. Ask for Desmond Walsh and they never heard of him. That’s the name on my birth certificate, Desmond Thomas Walsh.”

“Do you know why you’re here, Mr. Walsh?”

“Sure do. I was paid. Some in advance from him” — he indicated Michael sitting at the table — “and the rest to come from you.”

“What are you being paid to do?”

“Tell the truth. Which is a funny thing when you come to think about it. The Cassandra in Greek legend always told the truth, only nobody ever believed it.”

“Cassandra predicted the future,” Howard said. “All I want from you is the past.”

“What if I don’t say what you want to hear? Do I get paid anyway?”

“Yes.”

“Fair enough. Let’s get started.”

“Mr. Dunlop and I have obtained a copy of the statement you gave to the police in August. I’d like to see how it compares with what you remember now.”

The prospect of being caught in a lie didn’t seem to bother Walsh. “There’ll be differences here and there. Truth is relative. And when the cops questioned me I was scared as hell of a possible child-molesting charge. That can be rough. Even in the holding tank before you get a chance to enter a plea, if the word goes out that you may be a child molester, you’re in for a bad time from the other prisoners. Short eyes, that’s what molesters are called. Among other things.”

“Has such a charge ever been brought against you, Mr. Walsh?”

“No, sir. I don’t deny I’ve seen the inside of a few holding tanks over the years, what with one thing and another. Booze mainly, nothing heavy.”

“Do you know who I am and where you are?”

“Mr. Dunlop told me on the way over from my hotel.”

“Have you been on this property before?”

“Once. That was when the little fat lady chased me with a broom.”

“What brought you here?”

“I was going to help myself to a couple of avocados. Not pick any, you understand, just gather up some windfalls. Also I like to get out in the country once in a while and this is as close to country as you can get without a car or bike. So I came here.”

“And after gathering up a few windfalls you left the property?”

“I intended to. Then through the trees I saw that cute little house and I thought maybe a midget lived there. I used to know a midget when I was traveling with a carnival. He called himself Paul Bunyan, Junior. Cranky little bastard, always bitching that the world was too big for him. I used to cool him down with doses of philosophy. Listen man, I’d tell him, the world is too big for any of us. He liked that kind of talk. He was a deep thinker.”

“Did you enter the small house?”

“No. The fat lady showed up with two ferocious-looking dogs. I wasn’t scared of the dogs because they were both wagging their tails. But the old girl meant business. Women have a violent streak in them.”

“Are you married, Mr. Walsh?”

Walsh thought about it. “What did I tell the police?”

“Let’s hear what you have to say now.”

“Not much of anything, actually. I’m not sure if I’m married or not. My last wife took off for Mexico with some guy she met at a bingo game. Maybe she got a divorce, maybe not.”

“After you were chased off this property, did you return?”

“I think I told the police I never came to the premises again. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t come near the premises again.”

“Did you?”

“Sure. I must have walked along the creek half a dozen times, cooling my feet and thinking. All kinds of people go there. Flowing water has a fascination for nearly everyone. Maybe it’s because, as Heraclitus wrote, all things are in a state of flux.”

“Are you still in the habit of walking along the creek?”

“No. Sitting here in this room, this is the closest I’ve come in a long time.”

“Why?”

“The little girl disappeared. After that everything changed. It wasn’t good clean country anymore. The water looked dirty and I felt like there was a cop behind every tree.”

“Did you ever talk to my daughter, Annamay?”

“I talked to a little blond girl. I didn’t know her name until I saw her picture in the paper after she disappeared. She was a nice friendly little girl, full of questions. All kids are curious about my tambourine. I told her I bang on it to attract attention. It’s part of my professional equipment. You can’t make prophecies without an audience and that’s my way of gathering an audience. Prophesying is my business, though the cops may call it panhandling or even extortion. It’s certainly not extortion. If I’m standing in front of a shop making prophecies and the shop owner pays me to move along, that’s not extortion. It’s common sense on his part and a way of staying off the welfare rolls on mine. Or maybe I follow a couple of tourists down the street announcing the world will self-destruct tomorrow or something else they don’t want to hear because they still have a week’s vacation left. They may slip me a little change to go away. Now I don’t claim this is a high-class way of making a living but it’s just as honest as some, not excluding yours, Mr. Hyatt. Financial predictions often have no more basis than my prophecies. As for you, sir” — he pointed a finger at Michael. The tip of it was missing, as though it had been chopped off by some unhappy recipient of his prophecies — “you and your kind carry on about heaven and hell and then take up a collection. You know why people put money on a collection plate? Fear. The same reason why the shop owner and the tourist pay me. But nobody calls your racket extortion.”

“You might be surprised,” Michael said wryly.

“Some do, eh?”

“Some do.”

“So we are all three of us, relatively speaking, in the same boat. Mr. Hyatt occupies the best seat. But if the boat springs a leak he’s going to get just as wet as the rest of us.”

“Is that one of your prophecies, Mr. Walsh?”

“No, sir. It’s the simple truth.”

“As you pointed out a few minutes ago, truth is relative.”

“There are a few basic facts we must all confront.”

“All right, let’s see you confront one,” Howard said. “In the early afternoon on the day my daughter disappeared, you were observed by one of the homeowners in the area as you walked along the north side of the creek. Mr. Cunningham was on the edge of his property looking for his cat.”

“Maybe he was looking for his cat, maybe he was looking for one of his chickens who’d flown the coop. And I don’t mean the kind with feathers. Anyway, he was shouting the name Randy. Not loud, kind of coaxing-like. As soon as he spotted me he went back up the hill toward his house.”

“And what did you do, Mr. Walsh?”

“I sat on the bank and watched the water flowing past me. It’s better than watching the waves break on shore because there you get the impression it’s always the same water, over and over, day after day. But water flowing down a river or a creek is always different. Every drop that passes you is different. I bet Heraclitus sat on a lot of riverbanks.”

“How long were you there?”

“I can’t recall exactly but it wasn’t long because suddenly it got very still and quiet. Then it started up, the desert wind like a blast from some hell on the other side of the mountain. You never can tell about those devil winds. Sometimes they stop pretty quick, sometimes they keep blowing for hours. I waited around for a while, then I could feel my throat drying up and my sinuses clogging, so I wet my handkerchief and wrapped it around my face and got out of there. I went back to my hotel room and closed the windows and blinds and watched the soaps. You can’t fight a devil wind. It’ll blow the skin right off you if you give it a chance.”

“Were you wearing your so-called professional costume at the time?”

“Yes. That’s how the cops found me so easy after Cunningham told them about seeing me. Not many men in town wear a white robe and carry a tambourine. In the long run though, it proved to my advantage. If I was planning any mischief would I have worn something that could identify me like that? The newspapers made out that it was real detective work on the part of the cops to find me so fast. I don’t mind giving credit where credit is due, but the fact is, a one-eyed drunken imbecile could have found me. And maybe one did.” Walsh’s moustache moved up and down at the corners in what appeared to be a smile.

“You don’t get along with the police, Mr. Walsh?”

“Sure I do. I get along with everybody. It’s just that I resent them treating me like a lunatic when I’m actually a legitimate businessman like yourself. My way of making a living may be somewhat eccentric but then look at you, playing around with paper money. And him” — Walsh pointed his mutilated finger at Michael again — “Look at you rattling the cages of people’s souls. If one among us must be considered a lunatic, then I would be the obvious choice. But would I be the real one? Think about it.”

There was a silence while everybody presumably thought about it. But Walsh didn’t like silences, especially his own. He said, “That stuff the little fat lady brought over is beginning to smell better and better. Would it be presumptuous of me to ask for a small helping?”

“I’m going to call a taxi to take you home,” Howard said. “You’ll have time to eat while you’re waiting for it.”

“I can’t be seen arriving back at my hotel in a taxi. Most people there think I own my own car. I let them think so. It gives me a little more clout.”

“You can tell the driver to let you off a block away.”

“All right.”

Howard opened a bottle of wine and Michael took the casserole out of the oven, using a couple of towels as pot-holders. Then the table was cleared of papers and the three men sat down to eat.

It was more truth than prophecy.

He waited for her on the south patio which was sheltered from the wind by a six-foot fence of redwood half-rounds. The fence had been built by Vicki’s first husband and it was the only reference she ever made to him. (“That damn fence is beginning to list. Wilbur said it would last forever.” “Don’t blame Wilbur,” John said. “The trunk of the elephant’s-foot yucca is pressing against the fence. It will have to be replaced eventually.”)

John glanced now at the fence and saw that it was listing another two or three degrees. Replacing it would be an expensive project because the cost of redwood half-rounds had risen astronomically.

He sat down on the glider and began rocking back and forth until the movement made him a little dizzy. In spite of his confident manner in front of Vicki he felt uneasy, not sure how to approach the problem of Dru’s report card. He’d had considerable experience with children of all ages but it was in a professional way. Children were mostly on their best behavior when they were taking part in field trips to the museum itself or to the beaches to observe tide pools or the sloughs to observe sea- and shorebirds. His first close contact with a child was with Dru when he married her mother. She was only nine years old at the time but she treated him like an equal and he found himself treating her the same way. Serious opinions were exchanged, especially at breakfast which they took turns making because Vicki liked to sleep late and the cook didn’t arrive until eleven. They were, John believed, friends.

It was nearly three o’clock when he heard the school bus shriek to a stop at the end of the driveway and unload more of its wild cargo.

She didn’t look wild. She wore the neat school uniform, dark green jumper with matching sweater and white blouse, and her long brown hair was tied back with a green ribbon. She was carrying a backpack on her shoulder and a striped orange kitten in her arms.

“Hi,” John said.

“Hi.”

“Who’s your friend?”

“A cat.”

“Boy or girl?”

“Girl, I think. It’s hard to tell with kittens. Do you think you could tell?”

“I can try.”

The kitten, not without protest, changed hands.

“It’s a boy,” John said. “And he’s hungry. Better get some milk out of the refrigerator and add a little warm water.”

It didn’t seem the proper way to begin a discussion of report cards but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He held the kitten against his shoulder until Dru returned with a bowl of milk. They both watched as the kitten lapped at the milk with his tiny pink tongue.

“He’s very cute,” Dru said. “Don’t you think?”

“Very. But you shouldn’t pick up strays.”

“I didn’t. I won him, fair and square.”

“Where?”

“At school.”

“Do they hold raffles there these days?”

“No. Kristy Dougherty’s mother brought them to school in a basket and she offered them to the students who thought of the cleverest names. So I suggested Marmalady and I won first choice. Now I can’t use it being as he’s not a lady. Would you like me to call him John after you?”

“Maybe you’d better not name him at all until you make certain he’s going to be staying.”

“He’s got to stay. He’s mine. I won him.”

“What if your mother—?”

“She can’t take him away from me. He’s mine. I won him fair and square.”

What wasn’t fair and square, in John’s opinion, was Mrs. Dougherty’s method of getting rid of a litter of kittens, but this was hardly the time for a discussion of ethics. Dru was crouched protectively over the kitten while it continued to drink.

“Dru, listen a minute.”

“I won him fair and square,” she repeated. “If he can’t stay I won’t either. I’ll run away like Annamay and everyone will think I’m dead and have a funeral for me and they’ll all be crying and I’ll be laughing.”

“Is this what you really think, that Annamay is alive somewhere and laughing?”

She gave no indication that she had heard the question.

“You went to her funeral, Dru. You saw Annamay’s coffin.”

“Maybe she wasn’t in it. There were just a bunch of bones. One of the girls at school said they could have been animal bones.”

“They weren’t animal bones, they were Annamay’s.”

“No one ever proved it. They didn’t have her name printed on them and there were no distinguished marks.”

“There were no distinguishing marks, no. But the coroner’s jury—”

“They were only people. People make mistakes all the time.”

He knelt on the flagstones beside her and began stroking her hair the way she was stroking the kitten. “Listen to me, Dru. It would be nice to think that Annamay is alive somewhere but it simply isn’t so.”

“One of the girls in Bible study said that only very good people die young. Annamay wasn’t that good. She just wasn’t that good.”

“You’re going to be hearing many things throughout your life. You’ll have to decide what’s reasonable and what isn’t. I have no doubt you can do it. You’re a bright girl.”

“No one else thinks so.”

“Everyone thinks so.”

“No, they don’t. I got a bad report card this semester. I know because when they were handing out the reports on Wednesday only two of us didn’t get ours, me and Mary Jo, and Mary Jo is the class ass.”

“I have your report card in my pocket,” John said. “Want to see it?”

She shook her head.

“Oh, come on, have a look. It’s not so bad. I’ve seen worse. In fact, I’ve had worse.”

“Not really.”

“Scout’s honor. Now let’s sit down at the table, you and I and the marmalade man, and study the report card and see what’s the matter.”

“What’s the matter is the teacher doesn’t like me.”

“That could be a factor but probably not a very big one.”

“If the good die young she’s going to live forever,” Dru said. “The kids all call her Dragon Lady.”

“What do you call her?”

“In front of her or behind her?”

“In front of her will do for starters.”

“Isabelle.”

“You address her as Isabelle?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I like to see her face get all red. It’s very interesting. The red begins at the neck and climbs up until even the tip of her nose is as pink as a bunny’s.”

“Oh Lord,” John said. “Holy cats.”

“It’s a good clean scientific experiment, I think.”

“Obviously Miss Thomson doesn’t agree.”

“She has no sense of humor.”

“I’m losing mine in a hurry. Come on.” He helped her to her feet and they sat down at the round glass table with the report card and the kitten in front of them.

“You’re an excellent reader,” John said. “Why the C in English?”

“Isabelle—”

“Miss Thomson.”

“Miss Thomson wants me to read what she wants me to read and I want to read what I want to read.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to take Miss Thomson’s side on that one. It’s her job to educate the students, not vice versa.”

“A little vice versa doesn’t hurt.”

“Not every teacher appreciates vice versas, Miss Thomson being one of them. And frankly, I’m beginning to have considerable sympathy for the woman.”

“Grown-ups always take each other’s side.”

“Look at the facts, Dru. You haven’t done the required reading and you’ve been behaving toward the teachers in an insolent manner. Is that a fair statement?”

“It’s true but it’s not fair because it doesn’t include how funny she looks when her face gets red, and also how she has no sense of humor.”

“It includes your being a pain in the neck in class. You’ve been deliberately causing trouble, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess because it’s fun.”

“For a girl who’s having fun you don’t appear very happy.”

“What does everyone expect me to do, go around laughing all the time and getting A’s on my report card and looking like a movie star?”

“I don’t expect—”

“Mom does. She expects me to be even perfecter than Annamay.” She took the ribbon out of her hair and tied it around the kitten’s neck. He was too drowsy to protest and went to sleep in the crook of her arm. “If she doesn’t let me keep him I’m going to tell on her. There are plenty of things you don’t know.”

“And don’t want to hear.”

“Like how she was so disappointed when I was born that she had herself fixed so she wouldn’t have any more children.”

“That’s not the reason she did it. What gave you that idea?”

“I figured it out.”

“You figured wrong. The doctors advised her against any more pregnancies.”

“Oh bull. She just didn’t want any more like me. Well, I don’t care. Little brothers and sisters are a nuisance anyway. I’d rather have a cat.” She pressed her cheek against the kitten’s head. “Do you suppose when he wakes up and finds himself wearing a ribbon he’ll feel silly?”

“More likely he’ll be frightened.”

“And maybe run away?”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll take it right off.” She removed the ribbon so gently the kitten barely stirred. “You like him too, don’t you, John?”

“Oh yes. Very much.”

“Then it’s you and me against her if she says no. And two yeses count more than one no. That’s simple arithmetic. So we win. Say it, John. We win. Please.”

“It won’t do much good to say it. We’ve got to try a little psychology. How about telling her you won a horse? Then she might be quite happy to settle for a kitten.”

“That’s awfully clever.”

“Thank you.”

“A grown-up horse or a pony?”

“A grown-up might have greater shock value.”

She let out a small giggle, then immediately became sober again. “John, do you think a person’s true character shows in her face?”

“No.”

“It could be true anyway. And if it is, which do you suppose causes which? Is the character there first and then you get your face from that? Or is your face first and that causes your character?”

“Physical features are inherited. Character is also inherited but is more subject to environmental influences. That’s my opinion.”

Dru thought this over carefully, then closed her eyes. “What color are my eyes?”

“Is this a new game?”

“What color?”

“Blue,” he said. “Blue-ish.”

“They’re green. Ugly mean green with brown specks in them. Also they’re small.”

“No, they’re not.”

“I have small mean green eyes,” Dru said grimly. “Now what if you met two girls and one of them had big blue eyes and the other had small ugly greens, which one would you want for a daughter?”

“The heck with both of them. I pick you.”

“Not really.”

“Scout’s honor. Gaze into my small ugly browns and see if I’m telling the truth.”

“You can be terribly silly sometimes. You don’t have brown eyes. They’re blue.”

“That’s to fool people so they won’t suspect I have an ugly brown character.”

“You don’t have an ugly brown character either.”

“Sure I do. Brown with a spot of black here and there, traces of purple, a few patches of gray. Boy, am I a mess.”

She looked at him severely. “I think you should treat me more like an adult.”

“Okay, Miss Adult. Here’s your report card. Take it and study it. And this semester cut out the smartassing and get down to business.”

Vicki had come out of the house and was crossing the patio, her heels making peevish little taps on the flagstones. She was obviously perturbed because she didn’t even notice the kitten, or at least pretended she didn’t.

“Mr. Hyatt, Howard’s father, is here and wants to see Dru. I’m not sure what he has in mind but it might be connected with Annamay’s palace.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” Dru said.

“Tell him that.”

“He won’t believe me.”

“Go and talk to him anyway, dammit. I can’t have him parked outside the front door for the rest of the day.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Go. You hear me?”

The kitten, disturbed by the noise, woke up and meowed. Dru quickly transferred him to John’s arms, whispered, “Two against one,” and ran around the side of the house.

As soon as she opened the door Michael recognized her as the overweight overdressed woman he’d noticed at Annamay’s funeral services. She had sat in the back row between Ben York and a handsome middle-aged man with bronze skin and silvery hair. The strangers were later identified to him as Mrs. Cunningham and her son, Peter.

She wore the same kind of costume she’d worn at the funeral services, layers of a gauzy material that drew attention to her weight instead of camouflaging it, just as the heavy makeup drew attention to her wrinkles instead of hiding them. She was, Michael guessed, about seventy. In the police file Cunningham was listed as fifty-one. His mother had not revealed her age.

Michael said, “Mrs. Cunningham?”

“Yes.” She peered up at him, blinking her eyes rapidly to clarify his image and her memory. “Do I know you?”

“We haven’t met formally. I’m Michael Dunlop.”

“Oh dear me. The minister?”

“Yes.”

“How odd.” She leaned heavily against one side of the doorframe as if she needed help in supporting the weight of heaven as well as her own. “Unless of course you’re collecting for something?”

“No. At least not money. Let’s consider this a social call.”

“I can’t imagine why a minister would pay a social call on me. Unless Peter put you up to it. He has quite a nasty sense of humor like his father.”

“I’m not acquainted with your son.”

“Oh.”

“May I come in?”

“I suppose. If you’re quite sure you’re not an impostor.”

“I’m quite sure.” Not entirely, he thought, and wondered if Mrs. Cunningham was especially perceptive or a good guesser.

Everything in the massive old house seemed to be made of wood, paneled walls, beamed ceiling, parquet floor. In the living room where she led him, the most imposing piece of furniture was a concert-sized grand piano made of rosewood which was no longer used for pianos, and bearing the name of a manufacturer who had gone out of business years ago. The lid was open and the keyboard exposed as if someone might have been interrupted while playing it. But the bench and keys were dusty and there was no music in sight.

She saw him looking at the piano and said with a sigh, “My son, Peter, is the musician of the family. Not a very good one, I’m afraid. He plays extra loudly to cover his mistakes but somehow one hears them anyway. The house is what Peter’s friends call live.”

“Because of all the wood.”

“Yes. Sounds travel to every nook and cranny. There’s no escaping Peter’s mistakes.” She let out a small snort of amusement but suppressed it so quickly Michael wasn’t positive he’d heard it. “When Peter played Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavichord my late husband used to call it the Ill-Tempered Clavichord… Will you sit down?”

“Thanks.”

“Now what’s the protocol? Do I offer you a drink or something like that?”

“It’s not necessary.”

“I intend to have a drop or two myself so perhaps you will join me.”

She produced a bottle of cheap scotch and a yellow plastic tumbler from behind a boxed set of Shakespeare’s comedies. The set still wore the publisher’s transparent wrapping but the bottle was more than half empty.

“There’s only one glass so we shall have to take turns. Peter keeps all the good booze and crystal locked up when he’s away.”

Half a dozen questions rose to the surface of Michael’s mind: How far away is he? Out of town? Out of state? When did he leave? When will he be back? Who is Randy? But he said only, “Taking turns will be fine.”

“I could ring for another glass but the maid is watching television while she irons and even if she heard the bell she’d be terribly annoyed and pretend she doesn’t speak English. According to Peter, I don’t know how to handle the Mexican servants. His method is to use nouns and act out the verbs. What method do you use?”

“I speak Spanish.” It beats acting out the verbs. “I had a parish in East L.A. for a while. It’s now part of a shopping mall.”

“I have no trouble communicating with our houseboy. He’s an Indian, the kind from India who meditates. His English is perfect. He’s on vacation right now.” She poured a liberal amount of scotch into the plastic tumbler and handed it to him. “Here. You first.”

The liquid had the smell and sting of carbolic acid and the first mouthful was hard to swallow. The second was only a little easier.

Her snort this time was unmistakable. “Not very good, is it? But then one doesn’t drink the stuff for taste. One drinks it for anxiety, insomnia, high blood pressure, fibrillation, despair. Do you have any of those?”

“Not regularly.”

“But sometimes?”

“Yes.”

“Which one? I mean, which one do you have the often-est?”

“Despair, I suppose.”

“And you’re a minister?”

“Yes.”

“How odd.” She poured the rest of the bottle of scotch into the plastic tumbler. “One doesn’t expect ministers to suffer from despair. After all, they have a nice safe forever in store for them.”

“Do they?”

“If they don’t, who does?”

“That’s a question I can’t answer.”

She didn’t say, “How odd,” again but she looked as if she were thinking it. “I’m disappointed. I always thought if I managed to get through this life, something better was waiting for me. If there’s not, then this is all, this is it?”

“Perhaps.”

“What a dreadful prospect.”

“Sorry.”

“In fact I find the whole conversation extremely depressing.”

“Sorry about that too.”

“Ministers should say encouraging things like how everybody will get their reward in heaven. Don’t you believe that?”

“No.”

“You must have believed it once or you wouldn’t have become a minister.”

“I believed it once.”

“What happened?”

“A little girl died.”

“Is that all?”

“There were other things as well but that was the main one.”

The liquor was already having its effect. Mrs. Cunningham’s face seemed to be coming apart, melting like gelatin and held together only by the thick crust of makeup. One of her eyes had gone slightly out of focus, making her look a little like Annamay’s doll, Marietta, with her permanent strabismus.

“There must be a heaven,” she said. “There must be. Otherwise how could I endure all this… all this—”

She stared around the room with a kind of desperation, and Michael wondered what it was she couldn’t endure: the house? the furnishings? Peter’s mistakes on the piano?

“All this what, Mrs. Cunningham?”

“Sometimes it’s not nice living here,” she said vaguely. “But I have no other place to go. Peter says I wouldn’t be tolerated anywhere else. So he lets me stay here and he has promised never to leave me because then I would be alone. I couldn’t bear being alone. So like it or not, I must put up with his friends, smile at their stupid antics, pretend not to mind when they leave their smelly clothes all over the house, yes, sometimes even draped on my piano, my beloved piano.”

“It’s an antique, I see.”

“It belonged to my grandfather. He gave it to me when I was in my teens and studying music quite seriously. I don’t play anymore except at Christmas a few carols when I think no one is listening. ‘Silent Night,’ ‘Come, All Ye Faithful,’ ‘Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.’ ” She reached out suddenly and grabbed his coat sleeve. “There must be angels. Surely there must be angels.”

“If you want to believe—”

“No no. Tell me. Tell me there are angels.”

“All right,” he said heavily. “There are angels.”

“Who are looking out for me.”

“Who are looking out for you.”

“I can’t live without angels.”

She sat down on the piano bench and played the opening bars of “The First Noel,” singing the words in a thin sweet soprano. Listening to her Michael thought, She’s right, of course. There must be angels. People had to have them.

She played badly and she knew it. “I’ve lost my touch. Grandfather would be disappointed at hearing such sounds coming from his cherished piano. Thank God he can’t hear the way Peter’s friends bang on it. ‘Chopsticks.’ Isn’t it funny, children are still playing ‘Chopsticks’ the way they did in my youth.”

“You speak of Peter’s friends as children,” Michael said. “How old are they?”

“I don’t ask. In this house nobody dares to refer to age. Peter can’t stand the idea of growing old. When he started getting bald at an early age I often heard him sobbing in his room at night. You look surprised. Didn’t you know he is bald?”

“No.”

“Bald as an egg. All that lovely silvery hair, not a strand of it is real. He began buying wigs before he was thirty, brown at first, then each succeeding one a little grayer until they were entirely gray like those he wears now. He kept every one of them. They’re on wig stands in his bedroom. It’s spooky, all those rows of heads staring at you without eyes. Poor Peter, he likes to think his little friends don’t know he wears a wig. How silly. It’s almost impossible to fool a child. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes,” Michael said.

Yet someone had fooled Annamay. She and Dru had left the Hyatt house together and gone down to the creek in search of polliwogs. When they didn’t find any, Dru lost interest and went on home. What then? Where were the dogs?

“We left them at home,” Dru had told the coroner’s jury, “because they always waded in the water and scared creatures away.”

If the dogs had been present, what creatures might they have scared away? A con man with a tambourine? A mad old madam on one of her escapades? A chicken hawk looking for one of his chickens? Someone nobody had even thought of?

“Peter’s friends,” Michael said, “Who are they?”

“Nobody. Riffraff. He picks them up off the street and after they’ve eaten our food and drunk our booze and stolen whatever they can get their hands on, they return to the street.”

“Are any of them girls?”

“Girls?” She stood up, swaying slightly as if the floor had begun crumbling under her feet. “Of course not. Peter isn’t interested in girls. He promised me when he was in his early teens that he would never marry, never leave me alone.”

“I meant little girls.” He wondered how far he could go without pushing her over the brink. “Like Annamay Hyatt.”

“Are you implying—? Yes, I see you are. Well, you couldn’t be more mistaken. Peter hadn’t the faintest interest in little girls, especially the Hyatt child.”

“Why especially, Mrs. Cunningham?”

“She was a sneaky devil, always creeping up on him and spying. She and that friend of hers spied on nearly everyone in the neighborhood, peering over walls and through fences.” She had begun swaying again, rhythmically, like a distraught mother rocking a sick child. “My son was not interested in girls. Any girls, of any age. He promised me he would never get married and leave me here alone.”

“I’m sure he never will.”

“I— You’re very kind.” She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. They were as tearless as the wig stands in Peter’s bedroom. “Oh, I’m glad Peter isn’t here. He hates me to become emotional like this.”

“Where is he, Mrs. Cunningham?”

“San Francisco. He took Randy along to look after his clothes and things.”

“Randy is his special friend?”

“Oh no. He’s our houseboy. He’s an Indian. From India, I mean. He meditates.”

“The servants of all the families in the neighborhood were questioned by the police. No one by the name of Randy appears in the files.”

“His real name is Maharandhi Rau. He was questioned by the police several times but of course he didn’t know anything. On the afternoon the Hyatt girl disappeared Randy was down in the citrus grove meditating, and when he meditates he can’t see or hear anything at all. He’s on a different plane, in another dimension.” She sounded wistful, as if other places, other times were more appealing than here and now. “I wonder if meditation would do me any good.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to try it.”

“I suppose one has to select a subject to meditate about.”

“Probably.”

“Very well, I choose angels.”

“That’s an interesting choice.”

“I shall start immediately… That is, as soon as you leave.”

“I was on the point of leaving.”

“How nice of you to suggest meditating. When Randy gets home he’ll be terribly surprised to find he’s not the only one who can reach a different plane in another dimension. There I’ll be, waiting for him.”

“He’ll be surprised, all right.”

“What a joke on him. Ho ho ho.”

Santa Claus couldn’t have said it better.

Her mood had taken a sharp upswing and pulled her body along with it. She held herself erect and steady and the hand she offered him was firm, her smile gracious.

“I’ve enjoyed our little visit, Mr. Dunlop. Do come again.”

“I’ll try.” Ho ho ho.

Quinn had seen the house only once before, several nights previously. It was late and she and Ben had been drinking. The very size of the house had intimidated her and she wanted to turn around and go home. But Ben kept saying, “Come on, baby,” in the half coaxing, half bullying tone she usually responded to.

“I’m scared, Benjie. What if the dogs—”

“They won’t bother us. They sleep in the kitchen at the rear of the house.”

“My feet hurt.”

“Take your shoes off.”

“We should have brought the Porsche up.”

“Too noisy.”

So the Porsche remained on the street below.

Ben carried her shoes for her while she walked barefoot on the grass alongside the driveway. The grass was cold and wet and almost immediately she began to shiver.

Ben was very considerate. “Here, take my coat.”

“Then you’ll be cold.”

“No. I’m burning up.”

She knew from the way he put his coat around her shoulders that he was going to make love to her in the child’s playhouse that he called the palace.

She turned her head so her cheek brushed the back of his hand. “The bed will be too small, won’t it?”

“If we can make it in the Porsche we can make it anywhere.”

She giggled and hung on to his arm and everything seemed fun as it always did when Ben was in a good mood.

It didn’t last. Even before they reached the palace she sensed that his excitement was different this time, hardly connected with her at all.

There was a full moon and she could see the palace door quite clearly, carved with brightly painted figures, a little girl sitting on a throne with her hand on the head of a black dog, a king and queen dancing, a court jester, a tree with golden apples.

“Someone went to a lot of trouble for an ordinary playhouse.”

“Not someone. Me. And it’s not an ordinary playhouse. It’s the palace of a princess.”

“Did you do all that carving?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I told you.”

Ben opened the door and switched on an overhead light and a lamp. “Come in.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You said you did.”

“I was sort of drunk.”

“This is a hell of a time to sober up.”

“I wasn’t as drunk as you to begin with.”

“Jesus Christ, are we going to stand here arguing about which one of us was drunker?” He pulled her into the room and kicked the door shut.

Everything in the palace was built to scale, not for a child as young as Annamay, but for a rather small adult. Quinn could stand up straight but her head grazed the ceiling and she stooped instinctively the way she used to when she first started to grow faster than her peers.

“Why did you make the ceiling so low?”

“To remind adults that this is not their place, it belongs to the princess and her duke.”

“You’re kind of crazy, aren’t you?”

“Not kind of. Very.”

“I don’t believe it. I read in a magazine once that people who are really crazy don’t know it.”

“I’m an exception.”

“Stop talking like that. You’re making me nervous.”

“All grown-ups are supposed to feel nervous in the palace. It’s not their place.”

“Then why are we here?”

“I belong,” he said. “I belong.”

The tone of his voice, the musty smell in the room, the threatening touch of the ceiling against her head increased her anxiety. Trying not to show it she sat down on the small bird-and-flower print davenport. Ben stood looking down at her frowning, her sandals still in his hand.

“God, you have big feet.”

“What of it?”

“They’re as big as mine.”

“No, they’re not.”

“Want to bet?”

He sat down beside her on the davenport, slipped off the leather moccasins he was wearing and put on the high-heeled sandals. His hands shook as he buckled the straps and stood up.

“See? They fit exactly. You lose.”

“I didn’t bet. Now give me back my shoes.”

He pretended not to hear her. He was walking around the room, not awkwardly the way men in drag did on television or in the movies, but quite gracefully and naturally as if he’d been doing it all his life.

She watched him, first in disbelief, then in anger. “What are you, some kind of freako? Give me back my shoes. I want to go home.”

“Why? The fun’s only beginning.”

“I don’t think this is fun, watching some guy prance around in women’s shoes.”

“It’s a game.”

“I don’t care. I hate it.”

“Come on, baby, dance with me.”

“Leave me alone.”

“Okay, I’ll dance with the kiddies.” He picked up the two dolls from the bunk bed, Marietta with her half-bald head and Luella Lu with her glued-in eye. Holding them close against his chest he began circling the room. “They’re Annamay’s children so of course they love dancing as she did. The princess and I often danced. Round and round, just like this. Round and round—”

When he passed the davenport she reached out with one foot and caught him on the shin. He stumbled and fell to the floor, the dolls flying out of his arms like caged birds unexpectedly released. He winced as he picked himself up, holding his left elbow with his right hand.

“You tripped me, you bitch.”

“Open the door and let me out of here or I’ll scream.”

“Chances are you’re a good screamer. Right?”

“The best.”

“Give us a sample.”

“If I scream your fancy friends will come running and want to know why you busted into their kid’s playhouse.”

“It’s not a playhouse. It’s real, it’s a real palace.”

“This kinky stuff makes me sick. Let me out before I throw up all over the royal rug.”

He looked at her soberly, bitterly. “You’re not fit to be in this place anyway.”

“Good. Then I’ll leave.”

“Beat it, you tramp.”

He stepped away from the door and she darted outside without waiting for her shoes. She started down the driveway, running barefooted in the wet grass.

By the time she reached the Porsche parked on the street she was out of breath but quite calm. Ben had left the car unlocked so she opened the door and dropped into the single passenger seat and waited.

She didn’t have long to wait. About five minutes later Ben appeared and got into the car without saying anything or even looking at her. He was wearing his own leather moccasins.

She said, “Where are my shoes?”

“I put them someplace. I don’t remember.”

“But I want—”

“Forget it. I’ll pay you for them. How much?”

“They cost me a fortune.”

“You probably bought them at a garage sale. I’ll give you ten bucks.”

“Fifty.”

“Twenty-five.”

“What a cheapskate you are. You live in a dump, you never take me anyplace, you drive this broken-down hunk of tin that sounds like a truck.”

“Broken-down hunk of tin?” He sounded outraged. “Jeez, you’re ignorant. This is a classic three fifty-six Speedster.”

“Big deal.”

“If you don’t like it, get out and walk. Feel like walking?”

“No.” She leaned her head against the back of the seat and closed her eyes. “I’m tired, Benjie. Take me home.”

“Where’s home?”

“The apartment.”

“Why would you want to go back to a cheap little dump like that?”

“Because it’s our place, Benjie, yours and mine. And I don’t mind it being a dump, really. I mean, I never had things so great at home either.”

He released the hand brake and let the car roll halfway down the hill before starting the engine. It was hard to talk above the noise and neither of them tried. But when they pulled into the parking lot behind the apartment building Ben said quietly, “I’m sorry. I got drunk and did a lot of crazy things and I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t the real you, Benjie.”

“What if it was?”

“I wouldn’t care. I mean, I’d care, sure, but I’d still want to marry you.”

“Marry me?”

“Why not? I think that deep down inside what you really want is a child of your own. I can give you one. And maybe she’ll grow up to be like Annamay and you can build her a playhouse. And if you want to call it a palace, that’s okay with me.”

“Out,” he said. “Get out of the car.”

“Why? I thought we’d sit here and have a nice little talk.”

“This nice little talk is heap big crap.”

“I only wanted to cheer you up.”

“I am not cheered by references to marriage and related subjects. You know nothing, understand nothing. So shut up. I’ll pay you fifty bucks for the shoes.”

“I won’t take it.”

“Why not? It’s what you asked for to begin with.”

“I didn’t pick them up at a garage sale like you said but I bought them at that discount store on lower State Street for fourteen ninety-five.”

“All right, I’ll pay you fourteen ninety-five.”

“Plus tax.”

“Plus tax.”

“I never cheated anyone in my life. Since you lost my shoes it’s only fair you should pay for them but no more than I did.”

“Will you shut up about those goddam shoes?”

“Sure I will,” she said. For now.

The now didn’t last long.

Three days later she found herself at the Hyatts’ front door.

There was talk. From the sagging frame dwellings of the barrio to the mansions on the bluffs overlooking the sea.

When Howard went to work in the mornings a sudden hush fell over the office as if he had interrupted a secret session, a kangaroo court. When Kay’s friends called they said the right things but some of their voices carried half-tones of suppressed excitement, and others sounded tight as though questions were being swallowed.

There was talk.

Ernestina, the maid next door to the Hyatts, heard about it at La Casa de la Raza and came over to ask Chizzy for the real truth.

Chizzy was severe with her. “You mustn’t listen to gossip.”

“I no listen. My ears, they listen.”

“Okay, I’m talking to your ears, so pay attention. Benjamin York was a fine young man, pure as the driven snow.”

“Snow, huh? White stuff?”

“Don’t play dumb with me. You know what snow is. You Mexicans waste a lot of time pretending you don’t understand.”

“I understand good,” Ernestina said, and proved it that night at the Casa by informing her friends that Ben was a cocaine addict who could afford to buy the pure stuff which had then driven him to crime.

The first time Michael had seen the palace it had an abandoned look, with leaves and dust scattered over the floor and furniture, the cushions in disarray on the davenport, a teacup in the sink, the closet filled with toys and old clothes and the fateful pair of sandals. The sandals were gone now and so were the clothes. The closet contained only a neat row of Annamay’s dolls and stuffed toys. The leaves and dirt had been swept away, the cushions rearranged on the davenport, the teacup washed and put in the cupboard. Instead of looking abandoned the room appeared ready to receive a new royal princess or perhaps a visitor like the short fat woman who sat at the dining table. She wore an apron and a tea towel wrapped around her head to protect her hair from dust. She stared at Michael, unsmiling.

“Miss Kay and I were cleaning,” she said, as though an explanation had been demanded from her. “She took a box of clothes over to the house and I haven’t seen her since. I went ahead with the cleaning, thinking she’d be coming back any minute.”

“She and Howard went to search for Dru,” Michael said. “Dru didn’t arrive home from school. Has she been here?”

“Not for a long time. She doesn’t stop in for cookies anymore.”

“I think you should go back to the house now, Chizzy.”

Chizzy spread her plump little hands on the table in front of her as if she were counting her fingers to make sure they were all there. “Something’s happened.”

“I don’t know.”

“Something’s happened,” she repeated, and it was not a question but a simple statement of fact. She had ten fingers, something had happened.