"I promise."

Reluctantly she put the cassette on the table and pushed it over to me. "But I want to know where to call in case I need it back," she said.

"You're a doll," I said. I took out a business card and made a note of my home phone and my home address. "I gave you this before, but here it is again. Oh, and one more thing."

Sounding crabby, she said, "What?"

Every time I manipulate people, it seems to make them so cross. "Has J.D. come into any money in the last few months?"

"J.D. doesn't have money. If he does, he never told me. You want me to ask when he gets in?"

"It's not important," I said. "Anyway, if you mention it, you might have to tell him what we were talking about, and I don't think you want to do that."

From the expression on her face, I thought maybe I could trust her discretion.

I stopped at a minimart on the way back to my place. Somewhere I had a tape recorder, but the batteries were probably dead. While I was at it, I bought myself a king-size cup of coffee and a nasty-looking meat sandwich wrapped in cellophane. From the pink stuff peeking out the side, it was hard to imagine what cow part this was thin slivers of. I ate driving home, feeling too starved to wait. It was not quite eight o'clock, but this was probably lunch.

Home again, I spent some time getting organized. The tape recorder was right where it was supposed to be, in the bottom drawer of my desk. I changed the batteries and found the headphones, a pencil, and a legal pad. I played the tape through, listening with my eyes closed, the headphones pressed against my ears. I played the tape back again, taking notes this time. I transcribed what I could hear clearly and left a series of dots, dashes, and question marks where the sound was garbled or inaudible. It was slow going, but I finally reached a point where I'd gleaned as much as I could.

As Leda had indicated, toward the end of the tape, after sixty minutes of boring talk, her machine had gone dead, leaving a fragment from the first taping she'd done. The one voice was Lorna's. The other voice was male, but not J.D.'s as far as I could tell. There was a segment of country music playing on the radio. Lorna must have turned it off because the silence was abrupt and punctuated by static. The guy spoke up sharply, saying, "Hey…"

Lorna sounded annoyed. "I hate that stuff… xxxxxxx. xxxxxxxxx…"

"Oh, come on. I'm just kidding. But you have to admit, it's xxxxxxxxxx. She goes in xxxxxxxxxxxxx day… xxxxxx…"

"Goddamn it! Would you stop saying that? You're really sick.

"People shouldn't xxxxxxxx… [clatter… clink]…"

Sound of water… squeaking…

"… xxxxxxxx …"

Thump, thump…

"I'm serious… by -"

"xxxxx…"

Laughter… chair scrape… rustle… murmur…

There was something quarrelsome in the tone, an edginess in Lorna's voice. I played the tape twice more, writing down everything I heard clearly, but the subject of the conversation never made any sense. I took the headphones off. I pinched the bridge of my nose and rubbed my hands across my face. I wondered if the guys in the forensics lab had a way to amplify sound on a tape like this. As a private investigator, I was not exactly into high-tech equipment. A portable typewriter was about as state-of-the-art as I could boast. The problem was, I didn't see how I could ask for police assistance without an explanation of some kind. Despite my assurances to Leda, she was guilty of withholding, if not evidence, then information that might have been relevant to the police investigation. Cops get very surly when you least expect it, and I didn't want them to take an interest in something that wasn't mine to begin with.

Who else did I know? I tried the Yellow Pages in the telephone book under "Audio." The businesses listed offered laser home theaters, giant-screen TVs, custom design and installation of audio systems, and presentation graphics, followed by the ads for hearing aids, hearing evaluations, and speech therapists. I tried the section entitled "Sound," which was devoted in large part to designing wireless drive-through intercoms and residential and commercial sound systems. Oh.

I checked my watch: quarter after nine. I flipped back to the White Pages under K-SPL and called Hector Moreno at the local FM station. It was probably too early to reach him, but I could at least leave a message. The phone was picked up after three rings. "K-SPELL. This is Hector Moreno."

"Hector? I can't believe it's you. This is Kinsey Millhone. Aren't you there awfully early?"