She nodded, and I caught a glimpse of tears in her eyes. "I hope you remember Lorna really wasn't like what you see."

"I'll remember," I said. "I'll get back to you as soon as I know anything, and we'll work out a game plan."

"All right."

"One more thing. You're going to have to tell Mace about the tape. He doesn't have to see it, but he should know it exists. I want complete honesty among the three of us."

"All right. Anyway, I've never been good at keeping secrets from him."

We parted company in the little twelve-car parking lot behind the building, after which I drove home.

Once in my neighborhood, I had to circle the block before I snagged a semilegal spot half a block away. I locked my car and walked to my place, toting the paper sack like a load of groceries. The night was downy and soft. The street was darkened by trees, the bare branches woven overhead in a loose canopy. The few stars I saw were as bright as ice chips flung across the sky. The ocean rumbled along the winter beach half a block away. I could smell salt, like woodsmoke, on the still night air. Ahead of me, a light glowed in the window of my second-story loft, and I could see the wind-tossed pine boughs tapping at the glass. A man on a bicycle passed me, dressed in dark clothes, moving quickly, the heels of his cycling shoes marked by strips of reflector tape. He made no sound except for the soft hum of air through his spokes. I found myself staring after him, as if he were an apparition.

I pushed through the gate, which swung shut behind me with a comforting squeak. When I reached the backyard, I glanced at my landlord's kitchen window automatically, though I knew it would be dark. Henry had gone back to Michigan to see his family and wouldn't return for another couple of weeks. I was keeping an eye on his place, bringing in his newspaper and sorting through his mail, sending on anything that seemed critical.

As usual, I found myself surprised at how much I missed him. I'd first met Henry Pitts four years ago when I was looking for a studio apartment. I'd been raised primarily in trailer parks, where I lived with my maiden aunt after the death of my parents when I was five years old. In my twenties, two brief marriages did little to promote my sense of permanence. After Aunt Gin's death, I moved back into her rented trailer, retreating into the solace of that compact space. I had by then left the Santa Teresa Police Department, and I was working for the man who taught me much of what I know now about private investigation. Once I was licensed and had set up an office of my own, I occupied a series of single- and double-wides in various Santa Teresa trailer parks, the last of these being the Mountain View Mobile Home Estates out in the suburb of Colgate. I probably would have gone on living there indefinitely except that I'd been evicted along with a number of my neighbors. Several parks in the area, the Mountain View among them, had converted to "seniors, 55 and older only," and the courts were in the process of reviewing all the discrimination suits that had been filed as a result. I didn't have the patience to wait for an outcome, so I began to make the rounds of the available studio rentals.

Armed with newspaper ads and a map of the city, I drove from one sorry listing to the next. The search was discouraging. Anything in my price range (which ran all the way from very cheap to extremely modest) was either badly located, filthy dirty, or in complete disrepair. Let's don't even talk about the issues of charm or character. I chanced on Henry's ad posted at the Laundromat and checked it out only because I was in the area.

I can still remember the day I first parked my VW and pushed my way through Henry's squeaking gate. It was March, and a light rain had varnished the streets, perfuming the air with the smell of wet grass and narcissus. The flowering cherry trees were in bloom, pink blossoms littering the sidewalk out in front. The studio had been a single-car garage converted into a tiny 'bachelorette,' which almost exactly duplicated the kind of quarters I was used to. From the outside the place was completely nondescript. The garage had been connected to the main house by means of an open breezeway that Henry had glassed in, most days using the space to proof mammoth batches of bread dough. He's a retired commercial baker and still rises early and bakes almost daily.

His kitchen window was open, and the smells of yeast, cinnamon, and simmering spaghetti sauce wafted out across the sill into the mild spring air. Before I knocked and introduced myself, I cupped my hands against the studio window and peered in at the space. At that time, there was really only one large room seventeen feet on a side, with a narrow bump-out for a small bath and a galley-style kitchenette. The space has been enlarged now to accommodate a sleeping loft and a second bathroom above. Even then, in its original state, one glance was all it took to know that I was home.

Henry had answered the door wearing a white T-shirt and shorts, flip-flops on his feet, a rag tied around his head. His hands were powdered with flour, and he had a smudge of white on his forehead. I took in the sight of his narrow, tanned face, his white hair, and his bright blue eyes, wondering if I'd known him in a life before this one. He invited me in, and while we talked, he fed me the first of the countless homemade cinnamon rolls I've consumed in his kitchen since.

Apparently he'd interviewed just about as many applicants as I had landlords. He was looking for a tenant without kids, vile personal habits, or an affinity for loud music. I was looking for a landlord who would mind his own business. I found Henry appealing because at his eighty-some years, I figured I was safe from unwanted attentions. I probably appealed to him because I was such a misanthrope. I'd spent two years as a cop and another two years amassing the four thousand hours required to apply for my private investigator's license. I'll been duly photographed, fingerprinted, bonded, and credentialed. Since my principal means of employment involved exposure to the underside of human nature, I tended even then to keep other people at a distance. I have since learned to be polite. I can even appear friendly when it suits my purposes, but I'm not really known for my cute girlish ways. Being a loner, I'm an ideal neighbor: quiet, reclusive, unobtrusive, and gone a lot.

I unlocked my door and flipped on the downstairs lights, shed my jacket, turned on the TV, pressed the power button for the VCR, and slid Lorna Kepler's video into the machine. I don't see any point in going into excruciating detail about the contents of the tape. Suffice it to say the story line was simple and there was no character development. In addition, the acting was atrocious and there was much simulated sex of a sort more ludicrous than lewd. Maybe it was only my discomfort at the subject that made the whole enterprise seem amateurish. It surprised me to see the credits, which I rewound and read again from the beginning. There was a producer, a director, and an editor whose names sounded real: Joseph Ayers, Morton Kasselbaum, and Chester Ellis. I put the tape on hold while I jotted them down, then reactivated the play button and let the tape roll again. I expected the actors to have monikers like Biff Mandate, Cherry Ravish, and Randi Bottoms, but Lorna Kepler was listed, along with two others-Russell Turpin and Nancy Dobbs, whose quite ordinary names I made note of in passing. There didn't seem to be a writer, but then I suppose pornographic sex really doesn't require much in the way of scripting. The narrative would make bizarre reading in any event.

I wondered where the film had been shot. Given what I imagined to be a pornographic film budget, no one was going to rent the locations or apply for any permits. For the most part, scenes took place in interiors that could have been anywhere. The lead actor, Russell Turpin, must have been hired solely on the basis of certain personal attributes that he displayed fore and aft. He and Nancy, ostensibly husband and wife, were sprawled naked on their living room couch, exchanging bad dialogue and subjecting each other to various sexual indignities. Nancy was awkward, her gaze straying to a spot at the left of camera where someone was clearly mouthing the lines she was supposed to say. I've seen elementary school pageants with more talent in evidence. Whatever passion she conjured up looked like something she'd learned from watching other pornographic film clips, the chief gesture being a lascivious lip licking more likely to cause chapping than arousal, in my opinion. I suspect she was actually hired because she was the only one who owned a real garter belt in this age of panty hose.