“What do you think? ‘I’m scared, I need to change my appearance.’”

“Des Backer’s sister recognized her even with the nose.”

“So why didn’t she go for something that really worked? Like I said, hindsight’s twenty-ten. For all I know, she just wanted to look cuter and use our tax dollars to pay for it.”

I said, “Surgery, then recuperation. A few more months of delay.”

“By the time she got talking, over a year had passed. It started off promising, she spit out all sorts of horrendous stuff. Including nonsense about an interface between domestic eco-nuts and foreign terrorists, some major Armageddon conspiracy. But like I said, it all dead-ended.”

Milo said, “She give you anything righteous?”

“Like most liars she spiced up her bullshit with morsels of reality. Piddling stuff, but just enough to keep us going.”

“Like what?”

“False reports of endangered species sightings in order to halt public projects—phony DNA smeared on trees, that kind of thing. Nonviolent fish-huggers setting out in canoes and cutting up nets, greenies perched in old, venerable trees so they wouldn’t get chopped down for shopping centers. Which—off the record—I can’t say bothers me. Giant redwood gets that old, for God’s sake, let it live out its golden years in peace. And when I drive through miles of clear-cut dirt where a forest used to be, it doesn’t make me feel patriotic. In any event, Doreen snitched minor league, nothing came of it, but it took us a while to chase down all her bum leads.”

“Did you go back and question her about the dead kid in Bellevue?”

“You bet we did,” said Lindstrom. “She never wavered from her initial story: She was snugly bed-a-bye at Hope Lodge the night it happened, was sure none of her pals were involved, they’d never do something like that.”

“She did mention Backer being her travel companion,” I said.

“But she didn’t incriminate him in anything, Doctor. In fact, each time we brought his name up, she made him out to be Johnny Appleseed, not some maniac firebomber. Still, we checked him out and like you said, he was in architecture school, channeling his green impulses in a socially acceptable manner.”

Milo said, “How soon after you gave her deep cover did she split?”

“She’s been off our screen for thirty months, two weeks, and three days,” said Lindstrom. “You want hours and minutes, I’ll go back to my federal cubicle and use a calculator. I was assigned her file—and others—a little over a year ago, have been staring at her face with nowhere to go. All of a sudden, there she is on the evening news and I just about spew my Lean Cuisine. Your artist did a pretty good job.”

“My name was on the screen, too, Gayle. So instead of picking up the phone, you tell Hal to stonewall.”