While the car was being unloaded, Steve Ottweiler appeared and introduced himself. He was seven years Tannie’s senior, an age spread that seemed to favor him. According to social standards other than my own, a man, at fifty, is just starting to look good, while a fifty-year-old woman is someone the eye tends to slide right past. In California cosmetic surgery is the means by which women stop the clock before the sliding begins. Lately the push is to get the work done earlier and earlier-age thirty if you’re an actress-before the slippage sets in. I could see the strong family resemblance between Tannie’s brother and their father, Jake, whom I’d met the night before. Steve had the same height and body type, lean and muscular. His face was broader than his dad’s, but his complexion was the same sun-stained brown.

I purchased four new tires, taking his advice about which brand I should buy, that being the one he had in stock. We sat in his office while the mechanic put my car up on a rack and started loosening lug nuts. Currently Steve Ottweiler was the only person in the area I didn’t suspect of slashing my tires, primarily because this was the first opportunity I’d had to piss him off. Somewhere in the last two days, I’d stepped on some toes, but I hadn’t stepped on his-as far as I knew.

I said, “You were, what, sixteen in Violet Sullivan’s day?”

“I was a junior in high school.”

“Did you know Liza Mellincamp’s boyfriend?”

“Ty Eddings? Sure, though more by reputation than anything else. I knew his cousin, Kyle. They were both a year ahead of me so we didn’t have much occasion to interact. Actually, I’m not sure anyone knew Ty that well. He transferred in from East Bakersfield High School in March of that year. By the time July rolled around, he was gone again.”

“Somebody told me he left the same weekend Violet did.”

“No connection that I know of. They were both troublemakers, but that’s about it. He’d been kicked out of EBHS and sent to live with his aunt in hopes he’d mend his wicked ways. Guess that idea flopped.”

“Meaning what?”

“Word had it that he’d taken up with Liza Mellincamp, who was all of thirteen. The year before, he’d knocked up a thirteen-year-old girl and she ended up dead from a botched abortion. Ty was accorded outlaw status. Very cool in those days.”

“He wasn’t disliked or avoided?”

“Not a bit. We were all big on drama back then. Ty was regarded as a tragic hero because everyone thought he and the dead girl were deeply in love and her parents had forced them apart. He was Romeo to her Juliet, only he came out of the deal a lot better than she did.”