Stacey had worked the case at various times during the following years. He’d consolidated the list of witnesses, and it looked as though he’d arranged them in order of their importance, at least from his perspective. Many had been eliminated because the information they’d provided was too vague or their suggestions too far-fetched. In some cases, it was clear from later file entries that their questions and concerns were not relevant to the investigation. He’d followed up on every call in which a missing girl had been reported. In one instance, dental records were not a match for Jane Doe’s. In another, the police advised the Sheriff’s Department that the girl in question was a chronic runaway and had returned home within days. In a third case, the mother of the subject called and informed investigating officers her daughter was alive and well. Stacey had even tried using telephone numbers listed in the reports in hopes of contacting persons whose information seemed pertinent, but many numbers were out of service or had been reassigned to other parties. Having reached the last of the reports, I went through again, consigning the pertinent dates to a stack of blank index cards, converting the facts from their narrative form to disconnected bits of information that I’d analyze later.

When I finally closed the file and looked at my watch, it was only 7:15—still early enough to catch up with Dolan at CC’s. I pulled on my shoes, grabbed my jacket and shoulder bag, and headed out to my car.

The Caliente Café—or CC’s, as it’s known—is a neighborhood bar that offers an extensive menu of American dishes with Spanish surnames. The food was probably the management’sattempt to keep the patrons sufficiently sober to drive home without incurring any DUIs. The surrounding property had undergone a transformation since my last visit two years before. The restaurant is housed in an abandoned service station. The gasoline pumps and below-ground storage tanks had been removed at the time of the conversion, but the contaminated soil had simply been blacktopped over and the resulting quarter acre of tarmac was used to provide patron parking. As time went on, the neighbors had begun to complain about the virulent seepage coming up from the ground—a chemical molasses fierce enough to darken the soles of your shoes. In the thick of summer heat, the asphalt became viscous and smelled like oolong tea—which is to say, smoldering tires. In winter, the surface seized up, buckling and cracking to reveal a mealy substance so caustic it generated nosebleeds. Stray cats were subject to wracking coughs on contact. Wandering dogs would suddenly stagger in circles as though in the grip of neurological dismay. Naturally, the owner of the property wasn’t interested in paying the hundreds of thousands of dollars required to excavate this hellishly befouled soil, but the EPA had finally stepped in, and now the parking lot had been uprooted in an effort to remove all the contaminated dirt. In the process, numerous Chumash Indian artifacts had been uncovered, and the site was suddenly embroiled in a dispute among several parties: the tribe, the landowner, the city, and the archaeologists. So complex was this litigation that it was impossible to tell who was siding with whom.

It was a testimony to loyal patrons that for months they’d continued to tromp across this malodorous earth, endured delays and inconveniences, suffered picketers, public warnings, posted notices, fumes, muddy shoes, and the occasional pratfall just to get to their daily drinks. The parking lot was now fenced off and the path to the front door consisted of a narrow walkway of two-by-four planks laid out end to end. Approaching the establishment, I felt like a gymnast teetering on the balance beam before an ill-timed dismount.

The red neon sign that hung above the entrance still hissed and sizzled like a backyard bug light, and the air wafting out smelled of cigarette smoke and corn tortillas fried in last week’s lard. A shrieking duet of blender motors was accompaniedby castanets of clattering ice cubes being whirled together with tequila and margarita mix. The Caliente Café opens at 6:00 every morning and doesn’t shut down until 2:00 A.M. Its further virtue is that it’s located just outside the city limits and thus provides an ever-present refuge for off-duty police officers who need to unwind at the end of a hard day— or after lunch, or after breakfast.

As I crossed the threshold, I confess I was hoping to run into a Santa Teresa vice cop named Cheney Phillips. Our long acquaintance had never progressed as far as romance—he had a girlfriend, for one thing—but one could always hope. Rumor had it the two of them had split up, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to put in an appearance.

Part of what sparked my interest was the fact I hadn’t heard from Robert Dietz in months. He’s a semiretired private eye who worked as my bodyguard in 1983 when a cut-rate hit man was hired to rub me out. Our connection since then has been intense and sporadic, with long, inexplicable intervals between visits. Only two weeks before, I’d called him in Carson City, Nevada, and left a message on his machine. So far, he hadn’t bothered to call me back, which meant he was either out of the country or had moved on to someone new. Though I was crazy about Dietz, I’d never thought of him as my beau, my steady, my significant other, or my main squeeze (whatever the hell that is). Oh sure, Dietz and I had fooled around some over the past four years, but there was no commitment between us and no promises on either part. Naturally, I was irked at his neglect, even though I was equally at fault.