I started the engine and ran the heater for a while, fogging up the windows until I could barely see. I rubbed a clear spot in the middle of the windshield and then sat and stared. Streetlights came on. At 5:45, I ate my sandwich just for something to do. At 6:15, I drank some coffee and flipped on my car radio, listening to a talk-show host interview a psychic. Fifteen minutes later, right after the 6:30 news, a car approached and slowed, turning into the Christophers' driveway.

A woman got out, dimly illuminated by the street light. She paused as if to raise her umbrella and then apparently decided to make a dash for it. I watched her scuttle up the driveway and around toward the back of the house. Moments later, the lights went on in sequence... first the rear left room, probably a kitchen, then the living room, and finally the front porch light. I gave her a few minutes to get her coat hung up and then I returned to her front door.

I knocked again. I could see her peer into the hallway from the rear of the house and then approach the front door. She stared at me blankly, then leaned her head close to the glass for a better look.

She appeared to be in her fifties, with a sallow complexion and a deeply creased face. Her hair was too uniform a shade to be a natural brown. She wore it parted on the side with big puffy bangs across her lined forehead. Her eyes were the size and color of old pennies and her makeup looked like it needed renewing at this hour of the day. She wore a uniform I'd seen before, brown pants and a brown-and-yellow-checked tunic. I couldn't place the outfit offhand.

"Yes?" she called through the glass.

I raised my voice against the sound of the rain. "I'm looking for Billy. Is he back yet?"

"He don't live here, hon, but he said he'd be by at eight o'clock. Who are you?"

I picked a name at random. "Charlene. Are you his mother?"

"Charlene who?"

"A friend of his said I should look him up if I was ever in Santa Teresa. Is he at work?"

She gave me an odd look, as if the notion of Billy working had never crossed her mind. "He's out checking the used car lots for an automobile."

She had one of those faces that seemed tantalizingly familiar and it dawned on me, belatedly, that she was a checker at the supermarket where I shop now and then. We'd even chatted idly about the fact that I was a P.I. I eased back out of the porch light, hoping she hadn't recognized me at the same time I recognized her. I held the corner of the slicker up as though to shield my face from the wind.