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Chapters (49)
  1. From Wikipedia
  2. Other Books by This Author
  3. Title Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. Contents
  7. Chapter One
  8. Chapter Two
  9. Chapter Three
  10. Chapter Four
  11. Chapter Five
  12. Chapter Six
  13. Chapter Seven
  14. Chapter Eight
  15. Chapter Nine
  16. Chapter Ten
  17. Chapter Eleven
  18. Chapter Twelve
  19. Chapter Thirteen
  20. Chapter Fourteen
  21. Chapter Fifteen
  22. Chapter Sixteen
  23. Chapter Seventeen
  24. Chapter Eighteen
  25. Chapter Nineteen
  26. Chapter Twenty
  27. Chapter Twenty-one
  28. Chapter Twenty-two
  29. Chapter Twenty-three
  30. Chapter Twenty-four
  31. Chapter Twenty-five
  32. Chapter Twenty-six
  33. Chapter Twenty-seven
  34. Chapter Twenty-eight
  35. Chapter Twenty-nine
  36. Chapter Thirty
  37. Chapter Thirty-one
  38. Chapter Thirty-two
  39. Chapter Thirty-three
  40. Chapter Thirty-four
  41. Chapter Thirty-five
  42. Chapter Thirty-six
  43. Chapter Thirty-seven
  44. Chapter Thirty-eight
  45. Chapter Thirty-nine
  46. Chapter Forty
  47. Chapter Forty-one
  48. About the Author
  49. Cover

I gave the woman at the desk a hopeful smile. She was in her late twenties and wore a bright green top under a tweed suit jacket and a little too much makeup. A name plate on her desk said JOYCE STEUBEN. I said, “Excuse me. I’m here to see Karen Lloyd.”

Joyce Steuben said, “Karen isn’t in right now. She has a couple of property appraisals, but she should be back around three. Of course, she might come in before then. That’s always possible.”

“Of course.”

I left the bank and walked across the street to a pay phone outside the grocery. In L.A., they put phone books three inches thick with the pay phones, but most of the books are stolen and the ones that aren’t are defaced. The Chelam book represented something called The Five-Town Area. Chelam, Oak Lakes, Armonk, Brunly, and Tooley’s Mill. It was complete and immaculate and was this year’s edition, and altogether it was maybe a quarter-inch thick. Karen Lloyd was listed on page 38. Number Fourteen Rural Route Twelve, Chelam. There were six Lloyds. Three in Tooley’s Mill and two in Brunly. Karen was the only Lloyd in Chelam. No Mr. Lloyd. I copied her address along with her phone number and put the book back in its case, still complete, still immaculate. Jim Rockford would’ve ripped out the page, but Jim Rockford was an asshole.

I sat on the bench outside Milt’s Barber Stylings and wondered at my good fortune. If Karen Lloyd was in fact Karen Shipley, maybe I could get this thing wrapped up and be on an evening flight back to L.A. In L.A., I wouldn’t have to sit outside Milt’s Barber Stylings with two sweaters under the G-2 and still be cold. Of course, maybe Karen Lloyd wasn’t Karen Shipley. Maybe they just looked alike and May Erdich was wrong. Stranger things have been known to happen. All I had to do was hang around and wait for Karen Lloyd and ferret out the truth.

Portrait of the Big City Detective sitting on a smalltown bench, ferreting. In the cold. People passed on the sidewalk, and when they did they nodded and smiled and said hello. I said hello back to them. They didn’t look as cold as me, but perhaps that was my imagination. You get used to the weather where you live. When I was in Ranger School in the Army, they sent us to northern Canada to learn to ski and to climb ice and to live in the snow with very few clothes. We got used to it. Then they sent us to Vietnam. That’s the Army.