“What kind of problems?”

“Two kids. A boy and a girl. And she’s only seventeen.”

“Have you ever seen her in pink sneakers?”

Anna touched a finger to her mouth. Rocky stirred again and she bounced him gently on her knees, smoothed sweaty hair off his little brow.

“No,” she said, “I never noticed that. But Jacqui doesn’t come around here no more. I told Bonnie I didn’t want her here.”

“Bad influence,” said Petra.

“You bet.”

“I have a picture of the unidentified victim, ma’am, but I need to warn you it’s not pretty.”

“A dead picture?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I seen dead people, saw my Rudy dead, go ahead.”

Petra produced the least deathly of the morgue shots and handed it to her. Anna said, “That’s not Jacqui, I never seen this girl.”

The address Sandra Leon had given wasn’t far from the Ramirez home, but when they got there, Petra knew she’d been had.

The numbers matched a boarded-up bodega on a run-down stretch of abandoned homes backed by weed-choked alleys. Graffiti everywhere. Angry young men with shaved heads and eye-filling tattoos cruised the rutted streets, bopping, staring, sneering.

Petra got out of there fast, drove to Soto Avenue, not far from the county morgue, and into the lot of a busy-looking gas station where she bought coffee for herself and a Coke for Isaac. He tried to pay her back but she wouldn’t hear it. As they drank, she got the number for Western Pediatrics Hospital, asked for Oncology, and waited a long time to be connected.

The secretary on the other end said “That’s confidential” when she asked for Sandra Leon’s address.

Petra lied easily. “I have reason to believe that Ms. Leon is in danger.”

“Because of her illness?”

“Because of a crime. A multiple murder that she witnessed.”

Long pause. “You need to speak to her physician.”

“Please connect me.”

“The last name is… Leon… okay, here it is, Sandra no-middle-name. That would be Dr. Katzman. I’ll put you through.”

What Petra got on the other end of the line was a soft, male voice on tape. “This is Dr. Bob Katzman. I’ll be traveling for the next two weeks, but I will be picking up messages. If this is a medical emergency, the Oncology on-call extension is…”

Petra hung up and reconnected to the secretary. “Dr. Katzman’s gone for two weeks. All I need is Sandra Leon’s address.”

“You’re with the police?”

I am the police, honey. “Detective Connor.” Petra spelled it. “Hollywood Division, here’s my badge number and you can call to verify- ”

“No, that’s okay, I’ll give you Medical Records.”

Five minutes later, Petra had the address Sandra Leon had listed on her intake form.

The girl had signed herself into care.

“Is she an emancipated minor?”

“I wouldn’t know,” said the records clerk.

“Is there any adult’s name on the form?”

“Um… doesn’t seem to be, Detective.”

“Who pays her bills?”

“CCS- Children’s Cancer Service, it’s a county fund.”

“No family members,” said Petra.

“She’s not the only one,” said the clerk. “We get runaways all the time. This is Hollywood.”

The other address Sandra had used was on Gower north of Hollywood. Minutes from the station. If you were in an energetic mood, you could walk.

Petra got back on the freeway. “See what I mean,” she told Isaac. “Tedious.”

“I think it’s interesting,” he said.

“What is?”

“The process. How you go about putting it all together.”

Petra didn’t believe she’d put anything together. She glanced over at Isaac. Not a trace of irony on his face.

He said, “I also find it interesting the way people relate to you. Bonnie’s mother, for example. She clearly saw you as an authority figure and that caused her to be respectful. She’s a conventional woman, proud of her husband’s military service, takes her responsibilities seriously.”

“As opposed to her daughter.”

“Yes.”

“Generation gap,” said Petra.

“Generational breakdown,” he said. “People in Bonnie’s generation see themselves as free from convention and regulation.”

“You think that’s bad?”

Isaac smiled. “I’ve been instructed by my dissertation committee not to make value judgments until the data are all in.”

“We ain’t in school. Go a little crazy.”

He fingered his tie. “I think an extremely open society is a double-edged sword. Some people take advantage of freedom in a healthy way, others can’t cope. On balance, I’d opt for too much freedom. Sometimes, when I can get my father to talk, he tells us about El Salvador. I know the difference between democracy and the alternatives. There’s no country as great as America in the twenty-first century.”

“Except for people who can’t cope with too much freedom.”

“And they,” said Isaac, “have you to contend with.”

Gower Street. Unit eleven of a twenty-unit apartment complex the color of honeydew melon set midway between Hollywood Boulevard and Franklin Avenue.

“Okay,” said Petra, getting out of the car. “Let’s see what our little fibber has to say for herself.”

When she scanned the mailboxes near the front door, unit eleven was registered to Hawkins, A.

No Leon on any of the slots.

The front door was unlocked. They climbed the stairs and walked to the rear of the hallway where number eleven was tucked. Petra rang the bell and a very tall, black man in a green sweater and brown slacks answered the door. White snowflakes were printed at the neck and cuffs of the sweater, a ski-thing in June. An intricate zigzag cornrow sheathed his high-domed head- one of those architectural masterpieces NBA pros liked to sport. Rapidograph pen in one hand, ink stains on his fingertips. What Petra could see of the apartment was spare and well-kept. Drafting table pushed up against a window. A cloud of incense drifted out to the hall.

“Yes?” said the man, twirling the pen.

“Afternoon, sir,” said Petra, flashing the badge. “I’m looking for Sandra Leon.”

“Who?”

Petra repeated the name. “She listed this apartment as her address.”

“Maybe she lived here once upon a time, but not for at least a year, because that’s how long I’ve been here.”

“A year,” said Petra.

“Twelve months and two weeks to be exact.” Twirl, twirl. Big grin. “I promise you, my name’s not Sandra.”

Petra smiled back. “What would it be, sir?”

“Alexander Hawkins.”

“Artist?”

“When I’m allowed to be. Mostly I work at a travel agency- Serenity Tours, over at Crossroads of the World.” Another grin. “If that matters.”

“It doesn’t,” said Petra, “unless you know Sandra Leon.”

“Is she an attractive young lady who appreciates art?” said Hawkins.

“She’s a sixteen-year-old girl who may have witnessed a murder.”

Hawkins turned serious. “No, I don’t know any Sandra Leon.”

“Is there an in-house landlord or manager?”

“I wish. These luxury accommodations are shepherded by Franchise Realty headquartered in the golden city of Downey. I was just on the phone with their answering machine. Little insect problem. I can give you the number, know it by heart.”

Back in the car, Petra called the company. The previous occupant of unit eleven had been a family named Kim and they’d been there for five years. No Leons had rented any apartments in the building during the seven years Franchise had managed the place.

She hung up, told Isaac. “Sandra lied twice. And that makes me real interested in her.”

Back on the phone, she left a detailed message for Dr. Bob Katzman.

Isaac said, “Now what?”

Petra said, “Now we return to the station and I try to locate little Ms. Leon. When I hit a wall, which will probably be sooner rather than later, I’ll take a closer look at those files of yours.”

“I’ve been looking into June 28 to see if there’s some sort of historical significance. The best criminal link I’ve come up with is that John Dillinger was born on that day. I suppose that could be inspirational to a sociopath. But Dillinger was a bank robber, a grandstander, very dramatic, the epitome of a conspicuous felon. From what I can tell, this killer’s just the opposite. He’s been picking a variety of victims in order to embed his pattern.”