"Is there another L Street?"

"Not that I know of, and I've lived here all my life. You passed it on the way in."

I used his rest room, bought a cup of coffee, then followed his directions back out of town. L Street was at the three-mile marker, just as he told me. I turned left onto the northwest side and drove until I reached a county sign that said END. Two silver tanks stood quietly near the horizon, but they were the only structures I saw. Fields planted with brussels sprouts extended to the horizon in every direction. Mechanical irrigators rolled along on spindly wheels, mindlessly squirting water and chemicals on individual plants so as not to waste money on unused soil. No one lived there, and no one had likely been there for a very long time. The Burrito Man was right-the houses that once stood on L Street had long since been razed for agribusiness.

I worked my way back to the highway, and headed south to Imperial.

Edelle Reinnike lived in a simple stucco house just off the main highway at the southern edge of Imperial. The houses were white or beige, with white-rock roofs to reflect the heat. Most had trailers or trucks parked in their yards. Mrs. Reinnike opened her door as I got out of my car. It was eight-thirty that morning; still early, but hot.

"Mrs. Reinnike, I'm Elvis Cole. Thanks for seeing me."

"I know who you are. Don't mind this dog. She won't bite unless you get fancy."

Edelle Reinnike was eighty-six years old, with the dry desert skin of a golden raisin. Her dog was a fireplug-shaped pug with enormous eyes bulging on either side of its head. It looked like a goldfish. I couldn't tell what the dog was looking at, but it growled when I approached. Maybe it had radar.

Mrs. Reinnike said, "Margo, shush! You don't fool anyone."

She invited me in, showed me to her couch, then went into her kitchen for coffee. I didn't want more coffee, but it always pays to be friendly. Margo planted herself in front of me. Mrs. Reinnike called from the kitchen.

"She likes you."

"Did you have a chance to look through your mother's things?"

"I did. I found an old picture of George, but only the one. Mama couldn't stand Aunt Lita, and they had an awful falling-out. Lita was George's mother. She said Lita was loud. If Mama thought you were loud, well, that meant you were trash."

Mrs. Reinnike came back with two cups of coffee, and sat in a recliner at the end of the couch. She put on a pair of reading glasses, picked up a crumbling photo album from beside the chair, and opened the album to a page marked with a strip of tissue. She turned it so I could see.

"Here, this is Lita and Ray-Ray was Daddy's younger brother-and this is George. Look at the way Lita was carrying on even when her picture was being taken. They were nasty people."

Great. Just what you want to hear about people who might be your family.

The picture showed a man, a woman, and a boy with a triangular head in front of a Christmas tree. It was George. He was propped on crutches, and looking past the camera as if he was not expecting the picture to be taken. His father was a soft man with uncertain eyes, and his mother had close-set features that made her look irritated. I could see George's features in Ray. Like father, like son.

"This was before George had the operation. Lita wouldn't have sent a picture after. Ray asked Daddy for money to help with the operation, but Mama said we had our own family to feed. Well, Lita wrote the most awful letter you can imagine, and that was the last we saw of them."

I gave back the album.

"So you didn't stay in touch after that?"

"Lord, no. Mama would have had a fit. I haven't seen nor heard from George since, oh I had a family, so he would've been in high school. You never told me why you're looking for George."

"George is dead. He was murdered four days ago."

She stared at me with no expression for a moment, then dropped a hand down alongside the chair. Margo hobbled over and snuffled her fingers.

"Well, that's just terrible. What a terrible thing."

"How about your brothers and sisters? You think they stayed in touch with George?"

"Well, I can't know, but I doubt it. Both my sisters and my brother are gone. I was the youngest on my side."

"How about your children?"

She made a little snort, and Margo stopped snuffling.

"They don't even come to see me-they wouldn't bother with George. George had run off by the time they were old enough to give a damn."

"What do you mean, run oft?"

"George got some gal pregnant, and dropped out of school. Mama said the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, Lita being loud the way she was and Ray a drinker. Mama said that boy would come to no good, gettin' some girl pregnant, and now here he is murdered. I guess Mama was right."

I sipped the coffee and made a tiny scratch on my pad. A tiny black line that disrupted the perfect order of the blank yellow page.

"Pregnant."

"Low-class people will do that."

She arched her eyebrows and made a nasty smile. I made another mark on the pad.

"This girl, do you know who she was?"

My hands were damp when I asked. I rubbed them on my thighs, and tried not to be obvious.

"No. That all might have been just talk, anyway. If George had a girl, I sure never saw her and don't know anyone who did."

"That year when George ran off, did any of the local girls move away?"

Mrs. Reinnike laughed.

"Not for anything like that. That was 1953, son. When a girl had a problem like that, she bee-lined it down to Mexicali and was back the next day. We called it the one-night-stand shuttle."

She cackled again, as if she had known more than one or two who had taken the shuttle.

"Do you recall what people were saying about her? If she wasn't a local, was she a stranger? Maybe from out of town?"

"You sound like you know who she was."

"Just trying to help you remember."

She made a shrug like she couldn't be sure either way.

"What's all this have to do with finding his next of kin?"

So much for not being obvious.

"The child would be his next of kin, and the child's mother might know where George was living."

"Well, that's true. I wish I could help you with that, but I don't know, and I can't imagine anyone still living who might. George wasn't a likable boy. He took after Lita that way. I guess it might have been his legs, leaving him bitter and angry, but I don't remember anyone having anything good to say about him. He got in fights and was always in trouble and lorded his money. No one wanted to be around someone like that."

Lording money didn't jibe with the cheap furnishings in the Christmas picture, and Ray and Lita asking Edelle's parents for help to pay for George's operation. I asked her about it.

"Oh, George had plenty of money. That hospital botched up his operation, and had to do it again. Ray and Lita got some kind of fancy settlement. Well, they didn't get the money, but George did. He got a check every month, right on the dot."

"He got monthly payments?"

Mrs. Reinnike looked smug.

"That was the judge. The judge took one look at Ray and Lita, and gave the money straight to George. I guess he figured if George got the money little by little, Ray and Lita wouldn't be able to spend it."

"This was the hospital in San Diego?"

"Well, I guess. I don't really remember, but I guess it had to be."

If George had been getting a monthly payout, the hospital or their insurance company would have a record of his addresses. I checked the time. It was still before noon, and I could probably make it to San Diego in less than two hours.

I thanked Edelle Reinnike, and the two of us walked to the door. I wanted to ask another question, but had to work up my nerve. I stepped out into the heat, then turned back to face her.