He said, "Leaving so soon?"

"Hey, how are you? What are you doing here?"

He tilted his head. "I live next door."

I followed his gaze to the house, another two-story Victorian that appeared to be a twin of the one I'd just left. Not many cops can afford the tab on a Santa Teresa residence of that size and vintage. "I thought you lived in Perdido."

"I did. That's where I grew up. My uncle died, leaving me a great whack of dough so I decided to invest it in real estate." He was probably thirty-four, three years younger than I, with a lean face and a mop of dark curly hair, five-eight or so, and slim. He'd told me that his mother sold high-end real estate and his father was X. Phillips who owned the Bank of X. Phillips in Perdido, a town thirty miles to the south. He'd clearly been raised in an atmosphere of privilege.

"Nice house," I said.

"Thanks. I'm still getting settled or I'd offer you a tour."

"Maybe another time," I said, wondering about his wife.

"What are you up to these days?"

"Nothing much. A little this and that."

"Why don't you return to the party and have a drink with me? We should talk."

I said, "Can't. I have to be someplace and I'm late as it is."

"Rain check?"

"Of course."

I waved, walking backward for a moment before I turned and headed to my car. Now why had I said that? I could have stayed for a drink, but I couldn't face another minute in that crowd. Too many people and too much chitchat.

I was home again by 6:15, relieved to be alone but feeling let down nonetheless. Given that I hadn't wanted to meet Vera's brother-in-law in the first place, I was disappointed – the blind date had turned out to be a bland date. Nice guy, no sparks, which was probably just as well. Sort of. It was entirely possible the regrets were attached to Cheney Phillips instead of Owen Hess, but I didn't want to deal with that. What was the point?

Chapter 4

I left for the prison at 6:00 Monday morning. The drive was boring and hot, my route taking me from Santa Teresa down the 101 as far as Highway 126, which cuts inland at Perdido. The road runs between the Santa Clara River on the right and a fencework of power lines on the left, skirting the southern reaches of the Los Padres National Forest. I'd seen contour maps of the area, which detailed numerous hiking trails through that bleak and mountainous terrain. Dozens of creeks are threaded along the canyon floors. There are a surprising number of public campgrounds distributed throughout the 219,700 acres that constitute the wilderness. If I weren't preternaturally opposed to bugs, black bears, rattlesnakes, coyotes, heat, stinging nettles, and dirt, I might enjoy seeing the rumored sandstone cliffs and pines growing at odd angles along the boulder-strewn hills. In years past, even from the safety of the highway, I sometimes spotted one of the last of the California condors circling in the sky, its ten-foot wingspan stretched out as gracefully as a soaring kite.

I passed countless avocado orchards and citrus groves laden with ripening oranges, with produce stands set up every two to three miles. I caught a red light in each of three small communities of newly constructed housing and lavish shopping malls. An hour and a half later, I reached the junction of the 125 and Highway 5, which I followed to the south. It took me another hour to reach Corona. The incarceration-prone family couldn't do much better than to serve their separate bids in this area, which has the California Youth Authority, the California Institution for Men, and the California Institution for Women all within shooting range of one another. The land was flat and dusty, interrupted by power lines and water towers, parcels separated by low barbed-wire fences. A thin line of trees appeared at intervals, but it was hard to see the point. They provided no shade and only the sparsest screening from the cars speeding by. The houses had flat roofs and looked shabby, with dilapidated outbuildings. There were thick, knobby trees, whose amputated branches were, if not dead, devoid of foliage. As is true of most raw acreage in California, housing developments were taking root like a slew of weeds.

By 8:30 I found myself sitting in my car in the parking lot adjacent to the Processing Center at the California Institution for Women. For years, the CIW was known as Frontera, the feminine derivative of the word frontier. The 120-acre campus (as they referred to it back then) opened in 1952, and until this year, 1987, it was the only facility in California housing female felons. I'd already been inside the building where I showed the officer my photo ID and told him I was there to pick up Reba Lafferty, whose CDC number was, by an amusing coincidence, the same as my birthdate. The officer checked his roster, found her name, and then called Receiving and Release.