"Why was that?"

"She had a baby once. They just took him away."

Hunt still sat parked within the bounds of the Presidio by the side of the street in his Cooper. He had one more stop to make on this bleak road if he wanted rock-solid certainty, and he had to have it. He consoled himself that he was actually performing a service for Juhle as well-locating Staci Rosalier's next of kin. The Keillys, too, were listed in Pasadena, and two minutes after he'd hung up with Caitlin Rosalier, he was speaking through the cacophony in the background-television, music, screaming children-to Kitty Keilly.

"I'm sorry. Who is this again, please?"

Hunt told her, then waited while she told him she had to get to someplace a little less noisy. Listening to her progress through her home-"Turn that thing down!" "Jason, put that away!" "No more food. I mean it, you!" "Damn damn damn!"-he got a decent sense of the environment from which Staci had fled and never looked back. A door slammed, and she was back with him. "There," she said at last. "I couldn't hear myself think in there. Now, Mr. Hunt, is it? You said you were a private investigator, calling about Staci?"

"I think so. Although I believe she changed her last name."

"Is she in trouble again? That girl was made for trouble. But I don't know how I can help you. We haven't seen hide nor hair of her for years now, since a few weeks after she graduated by some miracle. Not that that's not what you expect, of course, you been at this as long as we have. I mean, they have their own lives, and there's certainly no such thing as gratitude for the people who raised you. We've seen that enough, God knows. If she needs money, you best tell her she's barking up the wrong tree. But all right, what's she done now?"

"Before we get to that, ma'am,"-and the pain that Hunt would much rather avoid bringing to her-"I wonder if you would mind telling me about her baby."

The hesitation gave the lie away. "She didn't have no baby. Who are you working for?"

"At this point, I'm working for Staci, ma'am."

"Then why didn't she tell you about the baby, she wants to talk about it?"

"I thought you just said that she never had one."

A silence.

"She had a boy eight years ago, didn't she? The father was Cameron Manion."

"I'm not supposed to talk about this."

"Did the Manions pay you not to talk about it?"

She didn't respond.

"Mrs. Keilly?"

"She never had a baby. I told you."

"I think you've just told me she did."

"I don't want to hear any more about this." But she didn't hang up. Hunt waited. Finally, she spoke in a different, smaller voice. "Oh, God, what's happened?"

"It's not good, ma'am. I think you want to be sitting down." He gave her the news as delicately as he could. Envisioning her as ill-tempered, self-pitying, selfish, and ignorant, he nevertheless felt his heart go out to her when he heard the emptiness in her voice as she exhaled, "Oh."

When he finished, silence engulfed the line.

When Mrs. Keilly finally spoke, it was barely a whisper: "That rich old woman thought her boy was so great, so perfect. They were so far above all of us. And that my girl was trash. All of us were trash. She thought Staci got pregnant on purpose to get her hooks into them and their money."

"So what did they do?"

"Well, first, of course, they denied Cameron was the father. They said everybody knew that Staci was a slut and was sleeping with every boy in the camp."

"She was at Cameron's water-ski camp?"

A brittle laugh. "Are you kidding? We couldn't afford anything like that. She was a lifeguard at Berryessa, that was all. It was her summer job. Maybe we shouldn't have let her go up there alone, but it was supposedly an excellent camp for rich kids, and we trusted her. We didn't think…well, it doesn't matter what we thought."

"So then what?"

"Well, say this for the boy, he fessed up. Wouldn't hear no talk about Staci being with somebody else. That was his baby, their love child, and he was going to be a man and take care of it, and marry her, too. He loved her. Sixteen years old. The fool."

"So you-"

"Hold it. We didn't do anything. Nothing wrong, anyway. If this was their precious boy's child, then the baby was her grandchild…"

"You mean Carol Manion's?"

"That's who we're talking about, isn't it? Carol rich bitch fucking Manion. Her son wasn't likely marrying any white trash. And she wasn't allowing no grandson of hers being raised in some trailer park. Oh, and the scandal. Don't forget the scandal. You know they never even came to see us, talk to us? Just sent their doctors and lawyers. Cutting their deal."

"With who? With Staci?"

She'd found her voice again, snappish, whining. "Staci didn't get to choose. She was fourteen years old, for God's sake. When she wouldn't sign the papers, we signed them for her. It was our decision and best for the child, for everybody. There wasn't anything wrong with what we did."

"How much did they pay you?" Hunt asked. To leave your daughter's child with them so they could raise it as their own. And then to move your fourteen-year-old Staci-no doubt without any warning and perhaps with a deception tantamount to kidnapping-to another far-distant part of the state.

"It wasn't the money," she said.

But he knew that, of course, that's exactly what it had been.

Case or no case, Juhle had learned the hard way that you didn't take your cell phone to your kid's ball game if you didn't want to be disturbed. And tonight, since he was actually functioning as the Hornets' manager, the rule applied even more strictly. So he was truly unreachable, his pager and cell phone in his glove box.

Then, after the team's win and pizza with the family, his conscience got the better of him, and he drove them all over to the Malinoffs' place in Saint Francis Wood to visit Doug. He was still in bed, his leg encased to his thigh. Everybody signed the cast-Juhle wrote "Slide, dammit, slide!" and Connie had added under it, "But not on grass where the spikes can catch." And everybody had a chuckle. Then Juhle and Connie each had a couple of beers and hung out in the bedroom with the invalid and his wife, Liz, until the Giants game on the big screen was over while the six kids sat mesmerized by some animated feature film in the playroom.

Now it was a bit after ten, the kids were down in their own beds at home, and Juhle took off his sling and laid it over the bedpost, rotated his shoulder in a tight circle.

"Any progress at all?" Connie asked as she came in from the hallway.

"At least it's not frozen. I think I'm going to stop with the sling. And it's getting so I can pick up small objects in the other hand. It's slow, but every time it gets me down, I think of poor Doug stuck in his bed for the next few weeks with a spiral fracture and, call me cruel, but somehow I feel better."

"You are cruel."

"True. But in a friendly, kind of touchy-feely way. Was it just me or did you get the impression Doug was surprised we won tonight with me managing?"

"Surprised? His worldview went out of whack. Did you see his face when you told him you let the kids do their own batting order? With everybody in a position they'd never played before? I thought he'd have a heart attack."

"I probably set the team back a couple of years."

"No doubt about it." Without breaking stride, Connie walked up to him and put a finger on his chest. "I see you looking at your phone, inspector, and I must admonish you-do not turn it on. Don't even pick it up. I'm going to retire to the powder room for a minute and return in a state of natural splendor for which you should prepare yourself. You will need all of your energy, I warn you."