The phone rang an hour later. He lifted the receiver, heard Mr. Wrigley say, “Your pet theory has been cut. I didn’t want you to find out when you opened the paper tomorrow, so there it is. Get some sleep.”

“I was,” O’Connor answered, and hung up.

He tried to resist falling asleep again, but could not.

At two that afternoon, he was dressed again and on his way out to his car. Just as he fished his keys out of his pocket, he heard the familiar whistle of a Helms Bakery truck. He stopped the light yellow van and bought a doughnut, which he ate as he drove to the hospital.

Jack was asleep. Helen motioned to O’Connor to step into the corridor.

“He sleeps most of the time,” she said, “and when he’s awake, he’s not coherent. Mostly he talks about that damned car.”

“Did they bring his clothes up? The ones he was wearing when he was admitted?”

Her eyes widened. “You’re not thinking of dressing him and taking him out of here?”

“No. I just need to see the clothes.”

They went back into the room, and she opened a cupboard. “Here, take them,” she said, handing him a large paper bag. “Hold your nose when you open it. They reek to high heaven.”

He moved back outside to the corridor, Helen following him. He opened the bag, caught a whiff of its contents, then said, “Have you got a coat with you? Better to do this outside. I’ll meet you on the patio.”

A few minutes later, they had spread a bloodied set of men’s clothing out on the patio.

“Good God,” Helen said, lighting a cigarette. “Do you think he’s got any blood left in him?”

“Sure. He took hits to the nose and mouth,” he said absently. “They bleed easily.” He had been looking at the soles of Jack’s shoes. He set the shoes down and began turning Jack’s pockets inside out. In the pocket of Jack’s suit coat, he found a long, thin, damp leaf.

“I’ll be damned,” he said.

“Don’t expect me to bet against the chance of that happening. What have you got?”

“A eucalyptus leaf.”

She took a drag on the cigarette. “I’m going to guess that you haven’t suddenly developed a mania for botany.”

“Jack saw the car being buried. He really saw it.”

“I should have known. Whenever anyone carries a leaf in his pocket, this is the sort of thing that happens. And all these years, drink has taken the blame for it.”

“He told me that when he came to from the beating, he was in a eucalyptus grove, a windbreak.” He thought back on what Jack had said. “A dairy nearby-I think he said it was across the road from the farm.”

He searched through Jack’s other pockets, but found nothing. He frowned. “His keys.”

“What?”

“The hospital staff found his wallet, his broken watch, but there aren’t any keys. Jack said his keys cut into him when someone kicked him.”

Helen paused halfway in the act of bringing the cigarette to her mouth and said, “Maybe they fell out of his pocket during the fight.”

“The beating, you mean. Jack didn’t get to counter any blows.”

“But his hands-”

“Stepped on.”

“Jesus.”

“I’ve got to find that farm.”

She stubbed out the cigarette and said, “Conn, it’s just one leaf. Eucalyptus trees are everywhere.”

“Not in newsrooms or swamps or even inside the mansion where the party-oh hell.” He ran a hand over his face. “Wrigley was right, I’m not thinking. Poor Lily. I haven’t even called to tell her how sorry I am.”

“For what?”

“About Katy. Don’t you know?”

She went very pale, and he suddenly realized how clumsy he had been, his mistake in not mentioning this to her as soon as he saw her. She had been here all day, with Jack, and didn’t know. Of course she didn’t know. And she thought the world of Katy.

“Tell me,” she said, in a hoarse voice. “Tell me.”

He stood. “They found the yacht. No one aboard. The Coast Guard is looking…”

“Katy…” Helen’s eyes filled with tears.

It shocked him. In over twenty years, he had never known her to cry.

“Oh, Swanie, I’m so sorry. That was no way to tell you. I’m such an oaf. I know you love her dearly and you deserve a better messenger than you got. Can you ever forgive me?”

The tears spilled over, and he put an arm around her shoulders. She cried harder, and he pulled her closer.

He thought of telling her that he didn’t think Katy had ever been on that yacht, but recalled the reactions of the Coast Guard and Mr. Wrigley. If they were right and he was wrong, it would be cruel to raise false hope.

And he wasn’t really sure that his ideas were ones that should provide hope. If Katy and the others didn’t get on the yacht, were they alive and missing? Or murdered?

He thought of those years of missing Maureen. He would wait, he decided. And talk to Dan Norton.

He gave Helen his handkerchief. He heard her murmur, “She should have left that fucking idiot Todd the Toad a long time ago. I kept telling her… Oh, damn the Ducanes! Because she married into a family of asinine show-offs, she’s dead.”

He was relieved. She was feeling better if she could swear like that.

She stood up straight, thanked him, and said she’d better get back to Jack. “Don’t tell him, Conn. Not yet.”

“I’ve no intention of doing so. I’m sorry I-”

“No, please, I’m glad you were the one to tell me.” She wiped her face with the handkerchief and said, “And if you ever tell any of those knuckle-walking simians in the newsroom that you saw me cry…”

“Never.”

“Thank you.” She sighed. “Who knows how long I’ll last there, anyway. I get tired of it every now and then and have to do something else.” Her eyes clouded again, but she took a resolute breath and shook her head. “We’ll see. For now, I want to be with Jack.”

“I’m going to take a look at the place where he was found, and then I’m going to try to find that farm. I know you don’t think I’ll succeed, but I’m going to look, anyway. I can’t just sit around.”

“No, I don’t suppose you’ve ever been able to do that.”

Dan Norton had given something more like directions rather than an address to the Mayhope egg ranch. As O’Connor drove out to it, he was struck by how different this world was, for all its closeness to downtown Las Piernas. Dairy farms, horse ranches, citrus groves, and long, low rows of plants. Mile after mile of roads lined with eucalyptus trees. He found himself curious about what might be growing in the fields he passed. In both Las Piernas and Orange Counties, these farms were becoming endangered. Subdivisions were beginning to merge. What would the people in those houses eat, he wondered, once all this rich farmland was covered in cul-de-sacs?

Ezra Mayhope was pleased to hear that Jack had regained consciousness. O’Connor found him to be a friendly man, eager to be of help. He learned that Mayhope was a widower, struggling but getting by.

Mayhope showed him about where along the road he had encountered the speeding car. When O’Connor asked him what kind of car it was, Ezra said he was sorry, he hadn’t had a very good look at it, but thought it was a big, fancy car-definitely a city car.

“Something new and dark-colored. Because of the fog, I didn’t see much of anything until he was just a few yards ahead of me, and then he about run me over. He was driving like a bat out of hell. Awfully fast for that road and the fog. I think I scared him as much as he scared me.”

“Driver a man?”

“Just caught a glimpse of him, too, but yes.”

“What race?”

“White. Had dark hair. But he could come up to me tomorrow and I doubt I’d know him. Didn’t really see much of him.”

“Alone?”

“I couldn’t swear to it, but I think so.”

Ezra showed him the intersection near the place where he found Jack, and pointed out the very spot where he had dragged Jack from the marsh-which wasn’t hard to see, because the reeds and grasses were flattened there.