Lawrence roared away in the Trooper. The Expedition was just a plum-colored dot on the horizon.

The four men in mechanics’ overalls and the teenaged girl were looking at the spray pattern of blood on the white concrete.

“Jeeee-zus,” said the youngest. “That sure was a stupid thing.”

Dar dropped into the black leather of the heated NSX. “Not even in Larry’s top twenty,” he said, got the engine and the air-conditioning roaring, and pulled away, also headed west.

The mobile home park was in Riverside just off the 91, not far from the intersection with the 10 that Dar had driven west on from Banning. He found the proper surface street, pulled into the entrance of the mobile home park, and parked in the sparse shade of a cottonwood tree to read the rest of the file.

“Shit,” he whispered to himself. From Lawrence’s preliminary field report and the data from the insurer, the park had been around for a while before turning into a senior-citizen community. Now one had to be at least fifty-five to live there—although grandchildren and other youngsters were allowed to visit overnight—but the age of the average resident was probably closer to eighty. It looked from the data sheets as if many of the older residents had lived there even before the park had opened as a senior community about fifteen years earlier.

The mobile home park owner was carrying a high self-retention—which was relatively rare—carrying its own risk up to $100,000 before the insurance kicked in. Dar noted that this particular owner—a Mr. Gilley—owned several mobile home parks and maintained a high self-retention on all of them. This suggested to Dar that these parks were considered high-risk, that there had been a high volume of accidents in Mr. Gilley’s retirement mobile home parks over the years, and that the insurance companies had been unwilling to provide the usual full coverage because of the frequency of these accidents. Dar knew that this might indicate a careless attitude on the part of the owner, or just bad luck.

In this case, Gilley had been notified four days ago that there had been a serious accident in this park, and that one of his resident tenants had died—the park was called the Shady Rest, although Dar could see that most of the mature trees had died and there was little shade left. The owner had immediately contacted his business attorney, and the attorney had called Stewart Investigations to reconstruct the accident so that the attorney could evaluate the liability of his client. A fairly common case for Lawrence and Trudy’s company. Dar hated these cases—slip and falls, negligence cases, nursing home lawsuits. It was one reason why he worked under special contract for the Stewarts to reconstruct the more complicated accidents.

No one in the file’s chain of communication seemed to have any detailed facts about this accident, but the owner’s attorney had told Trudy there had been a witness—another resident by the name of Henry—and that Henry would be expecting an interviewer at the clubhouse around 11:00 A.M. Dar glanced at his watch. Ten to eleven.

Dar read through the few paragraphs of transcript from the attorney’s phone call. It seemed that one of the elderly residents, Mr. William J. Treehorn, seventy-eight, had driven his electric-powered cart over a curb outside the clubhouse, fallen from the cart, struck his head, and died instantly. The accident had occurred around 11:00 P.M., so the first thing Dar did was drive to the clubhouse—a single-story A-frame building that needed maintenance—to check the nearby lighting. He could see the security lights that would have illuminated the walkways directly in front of the clubhouse, and there were three low-pressure sodium streetlights on 35-foot poles visible around the curve of lane. Dar was a bit surprised by the low-pressure sodium lights; they were more common farther south near where he lived, near San Diego, because they were supposed to minimize light scatter for the Palomar Observatory. Still, if all the lights worked, there would have been more than adequate lighting in this accident area. A point in favor of the absentee owner.

Dar drove slowly past the front of the clubhouse. He made a note on his yellow legal pad that there was construction going on in front of the community building: part of the asphalt street had been repaved, there were delineators and cones still in place, yellow tape restricted access to several sections of sidewalk, and some repaving equipment remained parked in the roped-off part of the street. He drove around to a small parking lot at the rear of the clubhouse and walked in. There did not seem to be any air-conditioning in the building and the heat was stifling.

A group of older men was playing cards at a table near the rear window. The view out the window was of a pool and hot tub that looked as if they were rarely used—the cover to the hot tub was lashed down and mildewed, and the pool needed cleaning. Dar approached the game diffidently even though the four were watching him rather than their cards.

“Excuse me, don’t mean to interrupt the game,” said Dar, “but is one of you gentlemen named Henry?”

A man who looked to be in his late seventies sprang to his feet. He was short, perhaps five five, and could not have weighed more than 110 pounds. His skinny, white, oldman’s legs emerged from oversized shorts, but he wore an expensive polo shirt, brand-new running shoes, and a baseball cap with an emblem on it advertising a Las Vegas casino. His gold wristwatch was a Rolex.

“I’m Henry,” said the spry oldster, extending a mottled hand. “Henry Goldsmith. You the fella the insurance company sent around to hear about Bud’s accident?”

Dar introduced himself and said, “Bud was Mr. William J. Treehorn?”

One of the old men spoke without looking up from his cards. “Bud. Everybody called him Bud. Nobody never called him William or Bill. Bud.”

“That’s right,” said Henry Goldsmith. The man’s voice was soft and sad. “I knew Bud for—Jesus—almost thirty years, and he was always Bud.”

“Did you see the accident, Mr. Goldsmith?”

“Henry,” said the older man. “Call me Henry. And yeah…I was the only one that saw it. Hell, I probably caused it.” Henry’s voice had thickened so that the last few words were barely audible. “Let’s go find an empty table,” he added. “I’ll tell you all about it.”

They sat at the farthest table. Dar identified himself again, explained who he worked for and where the information would be going, and asked Henry if he was willing to give a recorded statement. “You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to,” said Dar. “I’m just gathering information for the adjuster who reports to the owner’s attorney.”

“Sure I want to talk to you,” said Henry, waving his hand and waiving all his legal rights. “Tell you just what happened.”

Dar nodded and turned on the recorder. The microphone was directional and highly sensitive.

The first ten minutes or so was unnecessary background. Henry and his wife lived across the street from Bud and his wife in the park, and had since before the trailer park had reopened as a senior-citizen community. The families had known each other in Chicago, and when all the kids were gone, they moved to California together.

“Bud, he had a stroke about two years ago,” said Henry. “No…no, it was three years ago. Just after those goddamned Atlanta Braves won the World Series.”

“David Justice hit the home run,” Dar said automatically. He was interested in no sport except baseball. Unless one considered chess a sport. Dar did not.

“Whatever,” said Henry. “That’s when Bud had his stroke. Just after that.”

“That’s why Mr. Treehorn had to use the electric cart to get around?”

“Pard,” said Henry.

“Pardon me?”

“Them carts, they’re made by a company named Pard and that’s what Bud called the cart—his pard. You know, like his buddy.”