“Craig said he stabbed somebody. The man I found was shot.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The dead man had a photograph of the woman you call Donata in his wallet. Another guy, Mr. Eddie Brock, gave me this picture today. He wanted to hire me to find her.”

Lola blinked rapidly three times.

“Craig liked her,” she began, “but only as a friend. She needed help.”

“What kind of help?”

“A boyfriend she had to get away from. Her and him liked rough sex but he had gotten too wild. She’d been to the emergency room twice.”

“You think she’d ever been out to Blood Grove in Orange County?”

“Craig took her out there a few times.”

“He took her?”

“Yeah. Of course. A long time ago, when Craig was a child, I had this boyfriend whose family once owned the orchard. He’d take us up there for picnics. I didn’t walk around much but Leonard showed Craig all over the place. That boy treated the whole property like it was his.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“I didn’t think it was important.”

“That’s where Craig said he stabbed the man named Alonzo.”

“He just told me that he’d gotten into a fight over a woman and that the man was stabbed. He didn’t mention Blood Grove or Donata. I would have said something if I knew.”

“Do you know how I can get in touch with her?”

“We weren’t friends or anything. Craig brought her by for dinner one day. I think he thought she’d like me because I did the circuit in my day like she is now.”

Life is one long side street with about a million crossroads, Sorry used to tell me when I was a boy. Every hour, sometimes every minute, you got to make the choice’a which way to go. Some of them turns don’t matter but don’t let that fool ya. The minute you start to think that one way is just like t’other, that’s when the shit come down.

The shit was definitely coming down. Somewhere I’d started to believe I could survive any path set before me. But right then Lola was that passway and she represented a journey filled with ruts and vipers and highwaymen too.

“Is Lola your real name?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “It’s Clementine.”

“Clemmie, do you want this dog?”

“I can’t take care of a dog. I know Craig loved that little beast, so me taking him would not be good. He’d escape through a hole in the screen on Tuesday and I wouldn’t remember to realize he was gone until the weekend. Maybe you know somebody with a kid would like it?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Pack up some stuff like you were going away for a week.”

“Why?”