“That’s my take on it. The problem is, I have no idea who or how.”

“Tell me what you’ve done and maybe we can figure it out.”

I filled him in on my interviews, starting with Foley Sullivan, saying, “I hate to admit it, but I thought Foley made a pretty good case for himself.”

“Sounding sincere is a specialty of his. What about the others?”

“Well, the people I’ve talked to fall into two categories: those who think Violet’s dead-you, me, and her brother, Calvin-and those who think she’s alive, namely Foley, Liza, and possibly Daisy. I’m not sure where Chet Cramer stands on the question. I forgot to ask.”

“Too bad we can’t just put it to a vote,” he said. “I can see how Liza and Daisy ended up in the same boat. Neither wants to entertain the idea that Violet’s gone for good.”

“Maybe we’re the cynics, assuming she’s dead when she might be alive and well and living in New York.”

“Can’t rule that out.”

I went on down the list, telling him what Winston had confessed about seeing Violet’s car.

Schaefer said, “I’ve been thinking about that car. Couple of us old retirees get together for dinner once a month and talk about the old days. I was telling them about you and what you’re up to. The one fellow worked Auto Theft, and he said if the Bel Air landed in a junk yard, the VIN might have been stripped off and switched to another vehicle. You want to make a stolen car disappear, that’s how you go about it. The beauty of it is it then allows you to register a stolen car as salvage. You claim you bought some old clunker and fixed it up and who’s going to be the wiser? They call ‘em ghost cars. Any rate, next day I phoned the SO and had one of the deputies read off the vehicle identification number from Violet’s Bel Air.”

“You had that?”

“Oh, sure. Chet Cramer gave it to us in one of the early interviews. I called up the Sacramento DMV and had them do a computer search. They show no record of the VIN. Dang. For a minute, I was hoping for a hit, but the car’s never surfaced, which sets me back to the notion it was shipped overseas.”

“You’re assuming the number Cramer gave you was correct,” I said. “All he had to do was alter one digit and the computer would spit it back as a no match.”

“That’s a troubling possibility. You’ll be careful?”

“I will.”

“And keep me in the loop.”

I assured him I’d be doing that as well.