“Afraid not,” I said. So tedious. I didn’t relish having to go through this routine with every other call I made.

“You’re looking for Violet Sullivan after all these years?”

“That’s what I was hired to do. I’m hoping you can fill in some blanks.”

“Have you talked to Liza Mellincamp?”

“I see her tomorrow afternoon. If you could spare me half an hour, I’d be grateful.”

“I can probably manage that. Can we say tomorrow morning at eleven?”

“Sure thing.”

“What address do you have? We just moved.”

I recited the address on my list, which was out of date. She gave me the new one with a set of directions that I scribbled down in haste.

My last call was to Daisy, telling her I was making a quick run to Santa Maria and back. On Thursday, I expected to have a block of free time, so I was proposing lunch and a quick verbal report. She was agreeable and said we could try a coffee shop close to her work. Since Tannie would be in Santa Maria on Thursday as well, she’d give her a call and see if she could join us. Her lunch hour was flexible, so I agreed to call as soon as I had a break.

After I hung up, I folded the list and gathered my index cards, gassed up the VW, and headed north. I was already getting bored with the hour drive each way and not all that happy about the miles I was putting on my thirteen-year-old car.

5

Kathy

Wednesday, July 1, 1953

Kathy Cramer was working in the office at her father’s Chevrolet dealership when Violet pulled up in Foley’s rattletrap pickup and started looking at cars. She carried a big straw tote with a little dog tucked inside, its head popping up like a jack-in-the-box. This was Kathy’s first real job, and her father was paying her a dollar an hour, twenty-five cents over the minimum wage and twice what her best friend, Liza, made for babysitting. A dollar an hour was pretty good for a fourteen-year-old, even if his hiring her was not entirely voluntary. When his secretary left to get married, he’d wanted to advertise for a permanent full-time replacement, but Kathy’s mother put her foot down, insisting he could find somebody in the fall when Kathy went back to school.

Her responsibilities entailed answering the phone, filing, and ‘lite’ typing, which she generally messed up. At the moment business was slow, so she occupied her time reading the movie magazines she kept in her lap. James Dean was already her favorite of the new Hollywood stars. Also Jean Simmons, with whom she completely identified. She’d seen Androcles and the Lion and, most recently, Young Bess, in which Jean Simmons had starred with her husband, Stewart Granger, who was second only to James Dean in Kathy’s mind.