“I can understand the kind of pressure he was under.”

“Well, yeah, from his perspective. I’ll tell you what was dumb. I didn’t realize this until later, but in July of ’sixty-seven, Greg was twenty-five years old. Once he turned twenty-six, he’d be off the hook, so all he had to do was wait. I don’t think they were taking married guys, so if he and Mom had been willing to go that far, he’d have been home free. Not that they’d have done anything so pedestrian. They were hippies and way too free-spirited for anything as mundane as a civil ceremony. Anyway, once it was obvious the Unruhs weren’t going to cooperate, we hit the road, which was their solution to just about anything.”

“Why such an abrupt departure?”

“They did everything on impulse, though there might have been something more going on. I heard a lot of heated whispers from the back of the bus. Greg was in a panic.”

“Any idea when that was?”

“Not a clue. I was a kid. What did I know? I remember Mom lobbied hard for San Francisco. There was all this talk about the Summer of Love and she was pissed she’d be missing out. She said it wasn’t like they’d have a posse on their tails. There were thousands of guys ducking the draft, so all they had to do was keep on the move and they’d be fine. Cut no ice with Greg. He was anxious to get out of Dodge, so to speak. As far as she was concerned, that was his problem, not hers. She knuckled under in the end, but not without a lot of knock-down, drag-out fights. You want my take on it, I got the impression somebody called the draft board and dimed him out.”

“If they left empty-handed, what’d they do for money?”

“The usual—panhandled, sold dope, stole stuff. It’s what they always did when they were down and out, which I might add was their permanent state. The trip took weeks because of all the stops we made, scoring cash for gas and food. To this day, I bet I could support myself standing at a four-way stop with a funky cardboard sign.”

“They didn’t turn around and head back to Santa Teresa for any reason?”

“No way. Greg was freaked out. They were happy to be gone.”

“Patrick believed they’d come up with a scheme to get money. He was convinced they never really left town.”

Shawn shook his head. “I’m the only one who ever came back and that was three years ago when I read about Patrick being killed. I wanted to pay my respects.”

“Are you aware that Rain was kidnapped right about the time Greg and Shelly left?”

“Rain was?”