"Mrs. Reinnike, do I look familiar to you?"

"Nope. Should you?"

The sun burned bright in the clean desert sky, and bounced off the white dust as if it were snow.

The Andrew Watts Children's Hospital looked like a grim Iberian citadel perched in the El Cajon foothills, one of those imposing stone and cast-cement fortresses that architects built when they hoped their buildings would last forever. I paid five dollars for visitor parking, then entered the main lobby and wandered around for ten minutes trying to find the reception desk. If the outside looked like a citadel, the inside looked like Grand Central Station.

A nursing aide gave me directions, but I got lost and had to ask someone else. On my third try, I found the right hall, and stepped through double glass doors to another receptionist.

I said, "Hi. Elvis Cole to see Mr. Brasher. He's expecting me."

"You can have a seat if you like. I'll let him know."

After two hours in the car I didn't want to sit. I drifted back to the glass doors and stared out into the hall. Chairs and padded benches lined the wall, but no one was sitting in them. Two women walked by, laughing. One of them glanced at me, and I smiled, but she went about her business without smiling back. I imagined a little boy on crutches hobbling into the building. The boy's father smelled of whiskey and his mother was loud. I wondered if he had been scared. I would have been scared.

Behind me, a man said, "Mr. Cole, I'm Ken Brasher. C'mon back to my office and I'll show you what we have."

Ken Brasher was a neat, balding man in his midthirties with dark-framed glasses and a businesslike handshake. I had phoned ahead from the car, figuring it would be a smart use of the two-hour drive. I had been in the middle of nowhere just a few miles north of the Mexican border, but my cell reception was flawless. Maybe I should move to the desert.

After we shook hands, Brasher glanced at the receptionist.

"Would you tell Marjorie he's here and ask her to come down, please."

The receptionist touched her phone as I followed Brasher into another hall.

"Our legal-affairs people want to be in on this. I hope you don't mind."

"Not a problem. Were you able to reach the medical examiner?"

"Yes. He faxed down the death certificate."

"Is there going to be a problem with me getting the addresses?"

"I don't think so, no, but I'll let Marjorie handle that. Marjorie is our legal-affairs officer."

When we spoke on the phone, Brasher confirmed that the hospital had a legal agreement with Reinnike, but wouldn't divulge the details until he had confirmation of Reinnike's death and discussed it with their attorneys. I gave him Beckett's number at the coroner's office, and asked that he call. Apparently, he called. Apparently, Beckett told him that I was for real.

Brasher made an abrupt right turn into a small, windowless office and went behind the desk. A small square of construction paper was pushpinned to the wall facing me. The paper was filled with yellow and blue lines that might have been a cat or a tree, and a red message written in a child's hand: I LUV U DADY.

He smiled at me nicely.

"Do you mind if I make a copy of your identification? Marjorie will want it for our records."

I gave him my DL and investigator's license. He placed them on a copy machine behind his desk, and pushed a button. He smiled at me some more as the machine made its copies. The smile made him look like a guy who wanted to sell me aluminum siding. I didn't like all the smiling.

I said, "Is everything all right, Mr. Brasher?"

"Marjorie will be right down."

That wasn't the answer I wanted to hear, and I suddenly had the feeling Marjorie wasn't anxious to share her information.

"You spoke with Beckett. I'm sure he told you he's trying to locate the next of kin."

"Oh, yes. Marjorie spoke with him, too."

"The man was murdered. He was living in a motel under an assumed name with no way to trace him until now. You guys were sending him checks. If the police can find out why he was using an assumed name and why he came to Los Angeles, it might give them a line back to who murdered him. Someone at the receiving end of his checks might know those things."

Brasher glanced at the door, but Marjorie still hadn't arrived. The smile faltered as if he wouldn't be able to hold out much longer without her.

"We intend to cooperate to the full extent of our legal responsibility, but there are issues to be resolved."

"What issues?"

He glanced at the door again, and suddenly looked relieved. The aluminum-siding smile returned.

"C'mon in, Marjorie. This is Mr. Cole. Mr. Cole, this is Marjorie Lawrence from our legal department."

Marjorie Lawrence was a short, humorless woman in a blue business suit. She nodded politely, shook my hand, then pulled a chair as far from me as possible before she sat. She was carrying a thick file that looked dingy and old.

She said, "We were told Mr. Reinnike made a dying declaration that you were his son. Are you?"

She stared into my eyes, and I let her. I felt awkward and surprised, but I didn't want her to know it. I hadn't mentioned that part of the business to Brasher because I didn't know and it didn't seem relevant. Beckett must have told them.

He did, but I have no reason to believe I am. I never mot the man."

She nodded, and everything in her body language said that all the power in the room was hers.

"Regardless. I'm sure you can understand our position, you possibly being an heir."

They thought I had come to chisel. I looked from her to Brasher, then shook my head. An heir.

"All I want is to know where the checks were going. I'd like to get that information from you now because that will speed things up, but if you don't share it with me, you know you'll have to give it to the police, and I'll see it then. If you'd like me to sign something releasing you from any claim by me, I'll sign it."

She glanced at Brasher, and Brasher shrugged.

Marjorie had already prepared the paper. She slipped it out of the file, and I signed it on Brasher's desk. While I was signing, he gave back my licenses. When I finished, we went back to our seats. Easy come, easy go.

She opened the file again, studied the top page, then looked up at me.

"In 1948, this hospital-through our insurance supplier at that time-entered into a settlement agreement with Ray and Lita Reinnike-George Reinnike's parents-in their son's name. Rather than a lump-sum payment, we agreed upon a monthly payment in the patient's name that would span thirty years. The payments would have ended in nineteen seventy-eight."

"Seventy-eight."

"Yes."

I felt a dull sense of defeat. If the payments had ended in nineteen seventy-eight, then the most recent address they had would be almost thirty years old.

"Just because I'm curious-why did I have to sign a release? Any money would have been long gone."

"Mr. Cole, it's a bit more complicated than that."

She opened the file again, fingered out another sheet, and handed it to me. It was a payment record for George L. Reinnike showing addresses, check numbers, and dates of payment. It was cut-and-dried bean-counting except for a stamp affixed at the bottom that didn't seem part of an accountancy record: EXHIBIT 54.

"You can see for yourself that checks were sent to Mr. Reinnike at three addresses, the first being the original home address with his parents in Anson, California- "

She leaned closer to point out the Anson address at the top of the sheet. I was still thinking about the exhibit number.

"Why is there an exhibit number here?"

"Checks were sent to Mr. Reinnike at the Anson address until 1953 when he filed a change of address to Calexico, California, where he received checks for five years and seven months before moving to-"