“Thanks,” I said, pocketing the card. “I'll pass it along to Detective Sturgis.”

The door opened and Mary came in with the coffee.

Jean Jeffers thanked her and told her to tell someone named Amy that she'd be ready to see her in a minute.

When the door closed, she began stirring her coffee.

“Well,” she said, “it was nice talking to you. Sorry I couldn't do more.”

“Thanks for your time,” I said. “Is there anyone else I could talk to who might be able to help?”

“No one I can think of.”

“What about the woman he took hostage?”

“Adeline? Now there's a really sad story. She'd transferred over here a month before from a center in South Central because she had high blood pressure and wanted a safer environment.”

She threw up her hands again and gave a sour laugh.

“Any particular reason Hewitt grabbed her?” I said.

“You mean did she know him?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head. The hair flap obscured her eye and she left it there. “Just pure bad luck. She happened to be sitting at a desk in the hall, working, just as he was running out, and he grabbed her.”

She walked me to the door. People kept coming out of the psychiatrist's office. She looked at them.

“How can you ever know someone like that, anyway?” she said. “When you get down to it, how can you ever really know anyone?”

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER

12

I decided to drive to Andrew Coburg's office and tender an appeal to his human interest. Getting onto Pico, I drove to Lincoln and headed south into Venice.

The Human Interest Law Center turned out, indeed, to be a storefront—one of three set into an old mustard-colored, one-story building. The brick facade was chipped. Next door was a liquor store advertising screwtop wine on special. The other side was vacant. On the window was painted DELI *** LUNCH & DINNER.

The law office window was papered with wrinkled aluminum foil. An American flag hung over the doorway. Printed on one of the white stripes was KNOW YOUR RIGHTS.

The door was closed but unlocked. As I pushed it open a bell tinkled, but no one came out to greet me. In front of me was a particle-board partition. A black arrow pointed left and handpainted signs said WELCOME! and BIENVENIDOS! A mass of noise—voices, phone rings, clicking typewriter keys—came from the other side.

I followed the arrow around the partition to a single large room, long and narrow. The walls were gray-white and crowded with bulletin boards and posters, the ceiling a high, dark nest of ductwork, electrical wiring, and stammering fluorescent tubes.