“Including me,” Daisy said, offended that Tannie would offer him up without consulting her.

“Oh, right. Just what you need, another guy with an ax to grind. Wait till Kathy hits him up for alimony and child support. He’ll never get out from under.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“What choice does he have?” Tannie asked. “They’ve been married close to thirty years. She had a crush on him since eighth grade. Remember that? No, you wouldn’t. You were still in elementary school. But I’m telling you, even when I was ten, I’d see her moping around town. So pathetic. She’d find ways to bump into him and she’d be going, ‘Oh gee, Winston, I had no idea you’d be here.’ She’d sit behind him in church and stare at him like she could eat him alive. The guy never had a chance.”

I said, “I saw the wedding photo he keeps in his office. He was very trim.”

Tannie said, “True. And she was big as a tank.”

“How’d she lose the weight?”

“How do you think? She’s popping pills like after-dinner mints.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m not. Black-market speed. She’s got a source, from what I heard.”

“Now that I think about it, she did seem amped,” I said.

The busboy removed our plates and the waitress showed up again to offer us dessert, which all three of us declined.

I watched as a man leaving the bar did a detour toward our table. From across the room, I placed him in his midforties, but by the time he’d reached us, I’d added thirty years. His wavy hair was dark, but the color was a shade I imagined Grecian Formula would produce. His eyes were blue behind heavy black-frame glasses that had hearing aids built into the stems. He was roughly my height, five-six, but the heels on his boots gave him another couple of inches. He wore jeans, a red plaid shirt with a string tie, over which he’d buttoned a powder blue western-cut sport coat, nipped in at the waist.

He greeted Daisy and Tannie with familiarity, taking each by the hand. When all the air-kissing was over, Tannie introduced us. “This is Kinsey Millhone. Tom Padgett. He owns Padgett Construction and the A-Okay Heavy Equipment yard in Santa Maria. Daisy bought her old house from him.”

“Nice meeting you,” I said.

We made polite noises at each other and then he and Tannie chatted while Daisy excused herself.

Tannie gestured toward the empty chair. “Join us for a drink.”

“I don’t want to barge in.”

“Don’t be silly. I’ve been meaning to call you anyway to pick your brain.”

“What’s left of it,” he said.

He treated us to a round of after-dinner drinks, and the conversation moved from the general to the specific, that being the Tanner house and the debate about rehabilitation. Padgett’s expression was pained. “House hasn’t been lived in since 1948. You forget I did a lot of work for Hairl Tanner, and he showed me around. Plumbing and wiring were both a mess even back then. Recent fire aside, the house looks good from the outside, but once you go in, you got a real disaster on your hands. Hell, I don’t have to tell you. You know what I’m talking about.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Let a house like that sit empty and first the raccoons move in. Then the termites, then the bums. It was grand once upon a time, but try bringing it back and you’ll go broke. You’re looking at well over a million bucks.”

“So I take it you’re oppose,” she said, and then laughed. “I know it’s bad, but that’s a piece of my childhood. I can’t see knocking it down. Besides, we do make some money from the property, between the oil and gas leases.”

“Well, you asked and I’m giving you my opinion. You know the rumors about rezoning. You want to save the house, you’re better off selling to developers and letting them do the work. They could turn it into offices or a party center in the middle of a housing tract.”

“Steve’s point exactly. Don’t tell me you’re in league with him.”

“I got no stake in the matter one way or the other. You ought to get a contractor out there and have him take a look.”

“Why not you?”

“You already know what I think. You need to hear it from someone else. You’ll be happier that way. I’d be willing to meet with anyone you want and throw in my two cents.”

“You’d poison the well.”

“I wouldn’t open my mouth until you heard what he had to say.”

“Who do you recommend?”

“Billy Boynton or Dade Ray. Both are good men.”

“I guess I better do that. I know I’m only postponing the inevitable. I keep thinking, one step at a time, but who am I trying to kid? It’s like having to put a dog down. You know the mutt’s too sick to go on, but it’s just that you don’t want to do it today.”

“I understand. You have to do it in your own time.”

“Enough said. I got it and I appreciate your input.”

“Anytime,” he said. His attention shifted to me. “Pardon my bad manners. Jake was just telling me about you. You’ve got quite a job on your hands.”

“Well, it’s a challenge at any rate. At first the idea seemed absurd, but now I’m enjoying myself. Me against Violet. It’s like playing hide-and-seek.”

“So what’s your theory?”

“I don’t have a theory. Right now I’m talking to anyone and everyone, filling in the blanks. The questions don’t change, but sometimes I get an answer I don’t expect. One of these days, I’m going to pick up a thread and then I’ll see where it goes. From what I’ve heard about Violet, she might have been devious, but she wasn’t good at keeping secrets. Somebody knows where she is.”

“You really think so?”

“I do. Either the guy she ran off with or the guy who did her in. It’s really just a matter of tracking him down.”

He shook his head, his tone skeptical. “I have to hand it to you, you’re an optimist.”

“That’s what keeps me on my toes. What about you? Where do you weigh in on the debate?”

“What, whether she’s dead or alive? Personally, I think she ran off and I said it from the get-go. I spent more than one night listening to Violet bitch. I promise, it was only a matter of time before she found a way out.”

“But where would she have gone; have you ever asked yourself?”

“Sure, I’ve thought about that. She was young and in her own way she was innocent. A small-town kind of girl. She had experience with men, but she didn’t know anything about the world at large. I can’t picture her in a big town like San Francisco or LA. I can’t even picture her in the state. California’s as expensive now as it was back then, relative to income. Given the cash she had-which probably didn’t amount to much-I’m guessing she’d go someplace she could afford. Midwest, the South-someplace like that.”

“You heard about her money?”

“Half a dozen times. She’d get on a tear and threaten to pull out if Foley didn’t straighten up and fly right.”

“Like that was ever going to happen,” Tannie put in.

The subject shifted. There were only so many ideas you could bounce around with so little information. At 10:30, Padgett made his excuses and headed for the door.

Daisy, meanwhile, was feeling no pain. She’d had enough to drink that some merrier, more loquacious personality had taken over her ordinary self. She was flirting with some guy, laughing too loudly. From a distance, she appeared to be having fun. Up close, I was betting, she was out of control. It was the first indication I’d seen of the trouble she was capable of getting into. Tannie followed my gaze, and the two of us locked eyes briefly. “Once she reaches this point, it’s all over,” Tannie said. “He’ll end up in her bed and things will go downhill from there.”

“We can’t intervene?”

“This time, sure, but she’ll be in here again tomorrow night and the night after that. You want to take on that kind of responsibility? Because I sure don’t. After this round, at any rate. Tannie to the rescue. What an idiot. Wish me luck.”