He laughed again but I was thinking: Paris? Where did that come from, Professor Freud?

“So you’re busy,” I said.

“Just came off an eighteen-hour fun-fest. Multicar collision. Daddy and Mommy having a spat in front, two kids in the back, three and five, no car seats, no belts. Daddy and Mommy survived. She may even walk again—enough of this or I’ll have to pay you. The big guy’s not in. Breezed by for dinner, then left.”

“He say where he was going?”

“Nope. We had Chinese takeout and I nearly fell asleep in my moo goo. When I woke, he’d tucked me in and left a note saying he might be busy for a while. He did seem a little edgy. Is there something I should know about? You two into something new?”

“No,” I said. “Everything’s old.”

I tried reading, watching TV, listening to music, meditating—what a joke that was, all I could focus on was bad stuff. By 10 P.M. I was ready to claw the plaster from the walls and wondering when Robin would call again.

At this hour, the Eugene concert would be in full force and she’d be backstage, wonderfully harried. Needed. All those guitar-strumming, save-the-world sonofabitch—

Rrrrring.

My “hello” was breathless.

“What, you in the middle of working out?” said Milo.

“I’m in the middle of nothing. What’s up?”

“I can’t locate Schwinn, but I might’ve found his old lady.”

“First name Marge? Mecca Ranch in Oak View?” I said.

His exhalation was a protracted hiss. “Well, well, well, someone’s been a busy worker bee.”

“More like a drone. How’d you find her?”

“Exemplary detective work,” he said. “I got hold of Schwinn’s retirement file—a naughty thing, so this stays between you and me.”

“His pension checks went to the ranch?”

“For the first fifteen years after he left, they went to an address in Simi Valley. Then he switched to a post-office box in Oxnard for two years, then the ranch. He’s not listed in any DMV files, but the address cross-referenced to Marge Schwinn. I just called her, got a machine, left a message.”

“No DMV listing for him,” I said. “Think he’s dead?”

“Or he doesn’t drive anymore.”

“An ex-cop who doesn’t drive?”

“Yeah,” he said. “True.”

“Suburban life in Simi followed by a two-year POB interlude before the ranch. That could be divorce, intervening lonely bachelorhood, remarriage.”

“Or widowhood. His first wife was named Dorothy and she stopped being a beneficiary when he moved to Oxnard. Two years later, Marge came on.” He paused. “Dorothy . . . I think he mentioned her name. It’s getting hard to tell what I remember and what’s wishful thinking. Anyway, that’s it, for now.”

I recounted my time in the library, what I’d learned about the Cossacks.