Stacey let that remark pass, still fixating on his original point about where the girl had come from. "Another possibility is she bummed a ride to Lompoc with a friend, someone she stayed with 'til she hit the road again."

Dolan made a sour face. "Would you quit obsessing? We went over that before. If she'd had friends in the area, they'd have wondered what happened as soon as she disappeared."

"Not if she'd told 'em she was on her way north. Suppose she stays in Lompoc a couple nights and then leaves for San Francisco. She goes out the door, has a run-in with the Devil, and ends up dead."

"They'd still put two and two together as soon as the story broke." Stacey stirred irritably. "We're not going to find answers to every question we ask."

"So far we haven't found answers to anything," I remarked.

Stacey waved that aside. "Maybe our mistake is assuming she's from somewhere else. Suppose she's local? Someone kills her and then makes up a story explaining where she's gone. That's why she wasn't reported missing. It's part of the cover-up."

Dolan was shaking his head.

"What's wrong with that?" Dolan sat back in the booth. "No one exists in a vacuum. She must've had family and friends. She worked, went to school. She did some damn thing. Somebody must have wondered. Essentially, this girl dropped off the face of the earth and you're telling me no one noticed? There's something off about that."

I said, "But, Dolan, think of all the kids who disappeared in those days. There must be dozens unaccounted for. Families probably still fantasize they'll show up one day."

Stacey said, "Why don't we forget that angle and come at it from the other direction?"

"Which is what?" I asked.

"What we talked about before, assume Frankie killed her and see if we can find a way to make it stick."

"Based on what? Make that leap and we could end up spinning our wheels," I said.

"We're doing that anyway. The exercise is only pointless if it turns out we're wrong. What do you say, Con?"

"I'm with you on that one. We'd be no worse off. I've always thought Frankie had a hand in it."

Stacey turned to me. I said, "You're the boss."

"My thought exactly. Let me show you what I got."

He opened a manila folder and removed two connected sheets of computer paper with perforated edges. I peered at the pale print. There, in abbreviated form, was Frankie Miracle's criminal history, starting with his first arrest in Venice, California, in January of 1964. Stacey picked up the paper and began to rattle off the long string of his offenses. "I love this guy. Look at this. 1964. Kid's twenty-one years old, arrested for drunkenness and resisting arrest. Fined twenty-five bucks and put on a year's probation. Well, okay. No problem. His first contact with the law..."

"That we know of," Dolan said.