"Neighbors don't notice everything. Pick someone up in a bar, bring them back in your car late at night, who's to know? Or she had liaisons away from home. That would fit with no prints except hers in the house.

"Stargill described her the same way everyone else has: nice but detached," I went on. "But there's one thing he did add: a touch of dominance. She moves into his house, takes over the office; he gets a desk in the bedroom. He shares his past, but she refuses to reciprocate. When she tires of him, she decides they're going to divorce. And what the settlement is going to be. The fact that Stargill didn't press her on anything tells us something about him."

"A submissive lawyer? That's a novel concept."

"Some people keep work and play separate. Think of the specifics of the settlement: Claire ends up with the house, gets him to carry the mortgage and the taxes, and he feels grateful because she didn't take more. Even their first meeting has that same lopsided feel: she's sober, he isn't. She's in control, he isn't. He spills his guts about his drunken father and brother, alcoholic tendencies of his own that he keeps in check. The guy's her polar opposite: turns every conversation into therapy. Some women might be put off. Claire goes upstairs with him and gives him the time of his life. Later on, whenever she wants to shut him up, she uses sex. She was clearly drawn to people with serious problems. Maybe she left County because she needed a bigger dose of pathology."

"So," he said, "Maybe she found a nutcase who'd gotten out of the hospital, tried to dominate him, pushed the wrong button. I've got to see if anyone was released from Starkweather during the last six months. But if nothing turns up, then what?"

He looked worn out. I said, "You ask me to theorize, I theorize. It could still turn out to be a carjacking gone really bad."

We walked to the Seville.

"Something else," he said. "The big taboo she had on talking about her family. To me that says rotten background. Only, unlike Stargill, she kept the bandage on."

"When are her parents coming out?"

"Couple of days. Why don't you meet them with me?"

"Sure." I got in the car.

He said, "She starts out as your basic nice lady, and now we're thinking of her as some kind of dominatrix.... So all I have to do is find some highly disturbed joker with sadistic tendencies who held on to her credit card. Speaking of which, better call Visa."

He looked back at the house. "Maybe she did have visitors no one saw. Or just one sicko loverboy ... Her living room woulda been a great playpen, wouldn't it? Plenty of space to roll around in-those floors are baby smooth. No body fluid traces on the wood, but who knows?"