A Santa Teresa housewife was bludgeoned to death during an apparent burglary in her west-side residence early last night. According to homicide detectives, Martha Renee Grice, 45, of 2095 Via Madrina, was struck repeatedly with a blunt instrument and doused with flammable liquid. The victim's body was discovered, badly burned, in the foyer of the partially destroyed single-family dwelling after Santa Teresa fire fighters battled the blaze for thirty minutes. The fire was first spotted by neighbors at 9:55 P.M. Two adjacent homes were evacuated, but no other injuries were reported. Details of the arson were withheld pending further investigation.

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The crime seemed pretty spectacular to get such small play. Maybe the cops hadn't had much to go on and had tried to minimize the coverage. That might explain Dolan's attitude. Maybe he wasn't being uncooperative. Maybe he had no evidence. Nothing makes a cop any tighter than that. I took down the pertinent information in my notebook and then I walked over to the public library and checked the Santa Teresa city directory that had come out last spring. Martha Grice was listed at 2095 Via Madrina along with a Leonard Grice, bldg. contrctr. I assumed he was the husband. The newspaper account had made no mention of him and I wondered where he'd been when the whole thing went down. The directory listed the neighbors next door at 2093 as Orris and May Snyder. His occupation was "retired" but the directory didn't say from what. I jotted down the names and the telephone number. It might be interesting to see if I could find what went on and whether Elaine might have seen something she didn't want to talk about. The more I thought about it, the better I liked that idea. It gave me a whole new line to pursue.

I retrieved my car from the lot behind my office and circled back around to Via Madrina. It was now twelve o'clock straight up and high-school students were spilling out onto the streets; girls in jeans, short white socks and high heels, guys in chinos and flannel shirts. The wholesome California sorts outnumbered the punkers about three to one, but most of them looked like they'd been dressed out of ragbags. Some kids were wearing outrageous designer jumpsuits and some wore whole outfits in camouflage fabric as though prepared for an air attack. About half the girls sported three to four earrings per ear. In hairstyles, they seemed to fancy the wet look, or ponytails sticking up out of the sides of their heads like waterspouts.

As I pulled up in front of the condominium, a cluster of six girls were clumping down the sidewalk, smoking clove-scented cigarettes. Shoulder pads and green nail polish, dark red lipstick. They looked like they were on their way to a USO dance in 1943.

I caught just a fragment of their conversation.