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an evidence chain had made the trip seem almost necessary.
Inside the plane, however, with the credit card receipts for hotel, car, and
airplane ticket weighing heavily in her pocket, it was a different matter. She
nearly got off before the attendants shut the door; probably the only thing
that kept her in her seat was the knowledge of how difficult and unlikely a
refund would be.
How much had she spent on this fruitless quest? With something approaching
horror, she counted up the charges put on her credit card in the last two
months, beginning with the waterproof shoes she had bought Jules in Berkeley
the day they headed out. Where were those shoes now? she wondered. God, the
card must be nearly at the max now. How would she ever pay for it? And what
good had it done anyone? In the end, Jules would still be gone, and she would
be working to pay off an expensive wild goose.
The plane lumbered and rose, and three hours later dropped into Los Angeles. A
remembered figure, wearing a much prettier hat, stood at the gate, manila
envelope in her right hand and a large boyfriend at her left. She held out the
envelope tentatively.
"Kate Martinelli?"
Kate took the envelope and held out her right hand, first to the woman, then
to the man. "BJ. Montero? Good to meet you. I'm Kate Martinelli," she said to
the boyfriend.
"This is Johnny," Montero said by way of introduction. He grunted and crushed
Kate's hand a bit, in warning perhaps, or revenge for all the disturbance she
had caused, or maybe just because he was a poor judge of his own strength.
"Good to meet you, Johnny." Kate extracted her hand. "Want to go for some
coffee? I have half an hour before my return flight." The last flight to San
Francisco, she thought, wondering why no one had written a song with that
title. She then wondered if she wasn't getting a little light-headed. "A
drink, maybe?"
"Sure," B.J. said, without so much as a glance at her companion. The top of
her head was in line with the center of his biceps, but she handled him with
all the ease of a mother.
Kate paid for two coffees and a beer for Johnny ("I'm driving," said B.J.)
and, once at the table, opened the envelope. There were nine photographs, not
eight. Middle-class gypsies in Afghan hats were caught in motion; the elderly
fisherman stood in the frigid water, looking like a frost-rimed sculpture;
Kate and Jules stood on opposite sides of the car, taking a last glance at the
scene. Kate's door was open, as was the girl's mouth. Jules had been saying
something about Montero's sheepskin coat, Kate thought, and remembered the
blast of cold air against her nearly shaven scalp when she took off her hat
before getting into the car, a jolt that seemed to have set off the headache.
The five remaining pictures were snapshots, hastily composed, though well
focused. The focal points, however, were on the young people close to the
lens, not on the cars parked in the slots or on the ordinary people walking to
and from them. Kate glanced through them, not knowing what she thought she
might see, but they were only pictures, memories of someone else's good times.
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"You see anything?" B.J. asked. Kate tore her gaze from the picture and
reached for her coffee. She shook her head.
"I didn't really expect to."
"You mean the man isn't there? Lavalle?" B.J. sounded both disappointed and
relieved.
"I don't know what he looks like."
"You don't?"
Kate, seeing her astonishment, pulled herself together and gave a laugh. "I
haven't been in on the interviews yet, and I wasn't there when he was
arrested. A case like this, there're hundreds of people working on it. I'm
only one." She glanced at her watch. "I better get moving. Let me give you a
receipt, and if you'd just sign the backs of those photographs, so we know
whose they are." A chain of evidence, as if anyone would ever look at them in
a court of law. Would ever look at them, period.
Kate could feel herself beginning to run down. The brief push of zeal that had
been set off by Peter Franklin at the bus company and the photographs taken by
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