“Boy, was he proud,” Marge told her.

“Yes, he was.” She wiped her eyes. “Our first grandchild. How do you take your coffee?”

“Black,” Decker said.

“Same,” Marge answered.

“You two are easy.” She disappeared and came back a few minutes later with a tray and three mugs of coffee. She placed it on the sofa table and handed out the mugs, then sat down on the love seat, taking off her shoes and placing them neatly under the end table. Finally she curled her toes under her legs and picked up her mug. “Wow! That tastes good!”

“It does indeed,” Decker said. “You don’t look old enough to have four grandchildren.”

“Five, actually. That picture is old. And thank you for the compliment. People tell me I wear my age well. I think it’s because I had a good marriage. Jack was an airline pilot. We both loved to travel. Even when the kids were little, we’d schlep them everywhere. One of my sons inherited the wanderlust. My daughters are much more rooted.”

“Do they live near you?” Marge asked.

“The girls both married computer guys and live in nice houses in a great school district. My son and his wife live outside of Sitka, Alaska, and work for the Fish and Game Department.”

“There’s a switch,” Decker said.

“He definitely followed his own muse.” Leslie took a sip of coffee. “I understand from my boss that you wanted to talk to me about Roseanne Dresden. How can I help you?”

“So WestAir knows you’re talking to us?” Marge said.

“Oh yes. They’ve asked me to cooperate fully, which I would do without their orders, but it seems important to them that I appear helpful…beyond making coffee.”

Decker smiled. “Hey, sometimes that’s enough. Anyway let me give you some details. Roseanne Dresden has not been seen or heard since the accident. So, at first, it seemed logical that Roseanne had jumped the plane without a ticket and had perished along with everyone else. Our problem is we can’t find any verification of that. No body, no personal effects, no ticket, no work order…absolutely nothing.”

“We’re treating it as a missing-persons case,” Marge said. “We’re trying now to retrace Roseanne’s last movements before she disappeared. We found a phone call on her cell, around midnight on the night before the accident. It came from a San Jose tower. Would you know anything about that?”

“No, nothing.” Leslie shook her head. “But I think I can help you in a big way. I saw Roseanne the morning of the accident.” Again, pools formed in her eyes. “I was working the ticket counter.” She smacked her lips shut. “I knew the entire crew. It’s everyone’s worst nightmare…oh my, here come the faucets again.” Tears erupted and trailed down her cheeks. She pulled a tissue and dabbed her eyes. “Every time I think about it, I just can’t stop crying.”

“I’m sure it’s still raw for you,” Decker said.

“That’s a good word…raw. That’s exactly it.”

Decker waited a few minutes for her to get the emotion out and for his racing heart to slow. Then he said, “You saw Roseanne the morning of the accident?”

“I saw her and I talked to her.”

Marge tried to appear calm. She flipped the cover on her notepad. “And when was this?”

“Very early in the morning…around four-fifteen maybe. She was hitching a ride to Burbank.”

“Was she in uniform?” Marge asked.

Leslie shook her head. “No, she was in civilian clothing. I was surprised to see her. She hadn’t worked San Jose for a while. She said she had come up from Burbank the day before to talk to management about being transferred…specifically to be based in San Jose.” She looked down. “She was very frank. She was unhappy in her marriage and she wanted to move and be closer to her parents.”

“She came into San Jose the day before the accident?” Decker asked.

“That’s what she said.”

“Did she say what time she arrived in San Jose?” Decker said.

“No, but that wouldn’t be too hard to find out. She probably came in on a WestAir flight. And I imagine that if she wanted to speak to management, it would have to be before five. That’s when the offices close.”

Marge’s brain took note. When she and Oliver interviewed Ivan Dresden, the stockbroker had said that his wife had stormed out of the condo around four in the afternoon. That would make it very hard to meet with management before the company closed.

Someone was fibbing.

The look on Pete’s face told her that he was thinking the same thing.

Decker said, “Okay…so we have you seeing her the morning of the crash, around four-fifteen A.M. Are you positive that she took the early flight back to Burbank? Is it possible that she changed her mind?”

“I can’t answer that because I don’t know, but I wouldn’t think so.”

“Did you actually see her board the aircraft?”

“Oh, boy.” Leslie thought for a moment. “I can’t swear to that, either, but I can’t imagine her not being on the flight since she told me she was on her way back home.” She took another sip of coffee. “I suppose it’s possible that she got a call from management…but at that hour of the morning?”

“Nothing on her cell,” Marge told her.

Decker said, “If Roseanne was in civilian clothing, does that mean she wasn’t working on the early-morning flight to Burbank…what was the flight number?”

“That would have been 1325, but we changed the numbers…obviously.”

“Okay, so say Roseanne boarded 1325 in civilian clothing. Does that mean she wasn’t working the flight?”

“I would say yes to that.”

“So if she wasn’t working 1325, do you have any idea why she would have jumped back onto flight 1324?”

“Maybe she was substituting at the last minute,” Leslie said. “Or by that time, maybe someone from management had called and asked her to come back up for another interview.”

“Nothing on her phone records indicated that,” Marge said.

“Maybe she called management on an office phone to save long-distance minutes,” Leslie said.

“Do you think she did that?” Decker asked.

“I don’t know, Lieutenant, I’m just throwing out possibilities.”

“We appreciate that,” Decker answered. “So she told you she had come up to San Jose to try to get a job based in the city.”

“Yes.”

“Any idea where she stayed?”

Leslie shrugged and averted her eyes. Marge said, “We’ve talked to Raymond Holmes, Ms. Bracco.”

“Please call me Leslie.” She smiled. “So you know about him.”

“Yes, we do,” Marge said. “Did Roseanne mention Mr. Holmes to you?”

She thought for several moments. “Not specifically to me, but it was common knowledge that they knew each other.”

“Do you know Raymond Holmes?” Decker asked.

“Oh yes. He used to travel WestAir quite a bit…not lately, though. Maybe Roseanne soured him on the airline.”

“And you know they had an affair.”

“He’d occasionally talk about Roseanne…where they went, what they did. I thought it was very tacky, but Roseanne was open, so I suppose he figured why not be open as well. Ray isn’t the most…modest of men. He used to brag about his financial prowess…trying to impress. It never impressed me.”

Marge said, “Mr. Holmes told us that he hadn’t seen Roseanne for about six months prior to the accident.”

Leslie said, “I wouldn’t know.”

“He also mentioned a girlfriend of Roseanne’s in San Jose…two of them actually.” Marge checked her notes, not because she forgot the names but to look official. “Christie and Janet or Janice.”

“Christie Peterson and Janice Valley. They’re both working as flight attendants for WestAir. Janice is based in Reno now…has been for the last four months, I believe. Christie lives in the area.”

“So it’s possible that Roseanne could have stayed with Christie?” Decker said.

“Certainly. Would you like me to call her for you? I feel better about that than my giving you her home phone number.”

“That would be great,” Decker said.