Cold Case

PART FOUR. Satoshi

Her father had surprised me so much during my brief visit to see him in Vancouver that I cautioned myself not to have preconceptions about what Satoshi Hamamoto would be like. I was certain I would fail to imagine her correctly.

On the congested drive south down the Peninsula from the San Francisco airport my mind, despite my intentions, continued to conjure images of her. The portraits I composed were mosaics of fragments of the various photographs I'd seen of Satoshi's dead sister, Mariko. Without ever having met her, I was unable to picture Satoshi as anything more than a composite of her sister. My mind insisted on perceiving Satoshi as Mariko was at sixteen-her skin tawny, her smile alluring. For some reason, my imagination would not allow Satoshi to have an identity separate from her sister. I concluded that I was so eager to actually know Mariko that I was desperate for her sister to be her twin. I wanted Satoshi to be a window into her sister's life, and I wanted to gaze through that glass and see what had led Mariko to walk with her killer.

In 1988, when Tami and Miko disappeared, the two friends were sixteen years old.

Satoshi was younger, thirteen or so-a girl. But the person I was about to meet in Palo Alto was somewhere around twenty-five, a woman.

She'd asked me to meet her on campus at Stanford. I found the building where we were to meet without too much trouble. Locating the specific room was not so simple. The room numbers made little sense and the building was chockablock with culs-de-sac and dead ends. I begged for directions at least three times.

The students I asked for help seemed to be as clueless to their surroundings as I was.

My watch told me that I had found the appointed room with only a few minutes to spare. The door was open and I stepped in after a cursory knock. Satoshi wasn't there. No one was.

I suspected from my own days in graduate school that this room functioned as a group office that was shared by at least four grad students. Desks and tables were crammed against three walls. The fourth was lined with shelves and file cabinets. Computer equipment, some new and some old enough to be considered quaint, littered every horizontal surface.

"Dr. Gregory?"

The voice came from behind me. It was light and friendly and almost without accent.

I turned and saw a young woman standing on the far side of the hallway outside the door. In one hand she held a can of Coke. The other hand gripped a laptop that she was pressing tightly against her chest.

The woman was certainly of Japanese ancestry. I said, "Satoshi Hamamoto?"

She said, "I've been thinking that it's too nice a day to stay in here. Would you mind if we go outside to the courtyard? Is that okay?" I said, " I'll follow you."

As I walked toward her she stepped back from me. First one step, then quickly, two more.

She said, "This is awkward, but…" Satoshi's black hair was pulled back and it mostly disappeared beneath a floppy beret the color of dying bluegrass. Her head swayed slightly from side to side as she asked, "May I see some ID? Maybe your… drivers license?"

The request puzzled me but I didn't have a reason not to comply. I tugged my wallet from my pocket and fished out my Colorado license.

She juggled the can and her computer and examined my ID for half a minute before she handed it back to me.

"I'm sorry that was necessary. But thank you."

This time she didn't shy away as I moved closer to her. Satoshi was tall and thin, like her father. Her face was narrower than Mariko's had been, though her cheeks were full, the bones below taking on definition only when she smiled.

Her manner displayed more confidence than I imagined Mariko had ever managed to accumulate in her limited years on the planet.

She asked about my flight and my drive from the airport and if I'd had any trouble finding her office. When I admitted I'd gotten lost inside the building she laughed along with me.

Outside we settled on a stone bench beneath a tree that she told me was a laurel.

"This is my bench. I come here every day. Almost." She placed her laptop and a shoulder bag on the grass at the base of the bench and faced me.

"Thanks for this," she said.

"For coming all the way here. And even more for caring about what happened to Mariko." The moment was poignant but she met it head-on.

Her gaze stayed locked on mine. I watched as the corners of her mouth turned down infinitesimally, hinting at some lingering sadness about her loss. Her dark eyes glowed from within like black pearls.

I said, "I'm grateful that you're meeting with me. It's not easy, or pleasant, to dig up painful memories."

She placed her hands behind her on the stone and leaned away. She was wearing a loose top that was cropped near the waistband of khaki cargo pants. The top rode back onto her abdomen, exposing a band of caramel flesh at her navel. I tried not to look. I failed. She appeared not to notice. She said, "That sounds suspiciously like a platitude. My father didn't prepare me for that about you.

He said to expect you to be forthright."

I don't know what it was that I had expected from Satoshi. But it wasn't confrontation. I fought surprise as I said, "Despite the circumstances, I enjoyed meeting your father. And I hope you won't be disappointed and end up disagreeing with his assessment of me. I can only assure you that my comment wasn't intended as a platitude. I believe what I said before. The territory we need to cover is painful. I have trouble with it, and I never knew your sister or Tami Franklin."

Her eyes closed briefly and she said, "I think that you are trying to be kind.

It's not necessary. You don't know-you can't know-the agony, Doctor. No matter how hard you've looked, how many people you've talked to about what happened, I promise you that you don't know the half of it."

When her eyes opened again she was looking away from me, her lips dry and parted. I noticed her breathing had changed; she was exhaling through her open mouth. I followed her gaze to the distance. The sky on the western horizon was hazy. The rolling hills of the coastal range appeared as ghosts. It was as though I were peering at the edge of the world through gauze.

"Before I begin with my story," she said, "there is something to which you must agree."

I waited. I couldn't begin to guess what she wanted now. The driver's license request had seemed odd enough.

She leaned forward from her waist and folded her hands on her lap in a way that left her palms open and cupped to the sky.

"You must agree not to divulge the information that I am about to provide to anyone beyond the membership of your committee. Your group-I believe it's called Locard. Is that correct? And your committee must agree never to divulge the information to anyone else. Simply, this story I will tell you must not become public. Specifically, my parents cannot ever-ever-learn this information. If it does become public-or if my parents learn the details-I will not only deny that I told you this story but I will also deny that it is true. I guarantee you that you will find no independent source for the information I plan to give you today. If it turns out that what I say is useful, I hope your organization will be able to exploit it to guide your inquiry into my sister's murder. But you must develop your own proof. Do you understand?"

I tried to keep my voice level. I failed.

"No. I don't understand. You have information that you feel is so potentially helpful that you invited me all the way to California to hear it-and yet, you forbid me to use it? I don't pretend to understand. I don't."

She reacted physically to my words. Her neck tightened; her kneecaps came together. She composed herself-allowing her shoulders to sag back down half an inch-before she replied.

"Neither of us-neither you nor I-knows the value of what I'm about to tell you. If I knew with any certainty that this information would help you find the person who killed Mariko, I would have told this story to someone long ago. I'm willing to divulge it now only because my father is convinced that the organization you work for is sincere in attempting to find my sisters killer."

(t-t-v-r)1 We are.

"Good. Unfortunately, my story is not an answer for you in that quest.

It is not proof of anything. I don't know who killed Mariko and Tami. With my story, I am able to do nothing more than to point my finger at a trail the killer might have walked. No more than that, I'm afraid."

She was examining me as closely as I was examining her. I knew she could feel my reticence to accept her proposal.

She said, "If you don't agree I will try to understand your rationale for refusing my request. Then I will thank you for your journey and for your efforts and I will show you back to your car."

I weighed my alternatives and concluded I had little to lose. Any direction she could provide would be welcome. I contemplated how to respond to her for a moment before I said, "I could give you my word, Satoshi. But I would be misleading you by pretending to have authority that I don't really have. I don't have control of the information once I report it to Locard. To provide you with the guarantees you are requesting I need to run your request by someone much higher up in the organization than myself."

She tilted her head slightly, tucking her chin closer to her shoulder.

"Thank you for your honesty. You can do that by phone? Get that permission? You could do that now?"

"Yes"

"This way," she said. Before standing, she looked behind her, scanning the courtyard for something or someone whom she didn't appear to find. Finally she led me back to her office and sat me at her desk. I used my phone card to call A. J. Simes in Washington.

A. J. insisted on speaking with Satoshi before she reluctantly assented to Satoshi's demand for discretion. During the negotiation Satoshi was diplomatic but determined in pressing her case. After she was convinced she had the promise she needed from Simes she left her things in the office and removed the beret. I followed her from the classroom building to something like a student union. She bought a container of vanilla yogurt and carried it to a quiet table in a deserted corner of the cafeteria. She chose a seat that placed her back against a wall and began eating by lifting a tiny amount of yogurt on the tip of the spoon and placing it between her lips.

She repeated the act mechanically, taking baby bites over and over for a minute or two. I waited.

The table between us was laminated. The chairs we sat on were molded plastic.

My stomach growled and I considered getting up and buying myself something to eat, but I didn't want to fracture her mood.

Before she finally spoke Satoshi stood her spoon in the half-eaten yogurt and brushed a flurry of crumbs to the floor from the edge of the table. She arranged the salt and pepper shakers behind a grimy bottle of French's mustard.

A thick golden yoke had hardened around the squeeze top of the mustard bottle.

The three containers, once aligned, stood like soldiers at attention behind the chrome napkin holder.

Satoshi crossed her arms across her body, the fingertips of her hands gripping the big tendons between her neck and shoulders. The setting was so antiseptic that I found myself totally unprepared for what she had to say. Finally, she spoke.

"Joey Franklin. You know about Joey? Well, this is about Joey Franklin, Tami's younger brother. Do you know what became of him? He's become a big-shot golfer." The words "bigshot" sounded especially foreign coming from her mouth.

I said, "I know who he is."

She'd apparently worked through her hesitation. Her words began pouring forth in a strong voice.

"Joey… forced me to have sex with him one day shortly after school started in 1988. He was fifteen I think, maybe fourteen. I was thirteen."

She took a deep breath before she continued.

"The only person I ever told what happened that day… was Mariko. No one else. I told her what Joey did to me three days before she disappeared. Three days before… she was murdered.

"That is my story."

I was stunned but, for some reason, not surprised. I wanted to comfort her, but she appeared composed and tranquil. I forced myself to refrain from reaching out to touch her hand. I said, "I'm so sorry."

She shook her head.

"Don't. Don't misunderstand. I'm not seeking your compassion. This isn't about me. This is about Mariko. And about whoever killed her. Obviously, I have reason to fear it might have been Joey." "You said that Joey forced you to have sex with him. You didn't say he raped you." My reply seemed to please her. She said, "A curious distinction, right? This vantage that I have now, today-that of a grown woman-provides perspectives I didn't have when I was thirteen. At thirteen, I felt I had done something wrong.

That I had failed, somehow. That perhaps I had lured him into assaulting me. Or that I should have been more, I don't know, aggressive in repelling his advances. At thirteen, I was ashamed of what happened. You can appreciate that, I hope."

I hoped my face reflected the fact that I could appreciate it.

"Now? Now I'm older, maybe wiser. I feel that Joey took advantage of me. Was I raped? I'm not sure. Did he threaten me? No. Did he overpower me? Yes. Was I terrified? Absolutely."

"It sounds to me as though you were raped."

She lowered her chin and placed her hands on the table, her fingers spread, her eyes locked to her fingertips.

"Is it that easy for you? To listen to a few words someone says about something painful in her past and proceed to cast judgments about the motives and lives of others? People you have never met? Is it really that easy for you? I've lived with the consequences of what happened that day for almost half my life now and still it seems that the judgments I make about what occurred are no more constant than the clouds."

I considered my words for half a minute before I spoke.

"I don't mean to trivialize that struggle, Satoshi. I'm only reflecting back the reality of what you're saying Joey did to you."

She wasn't mollified.

"You and your organization are out looking for villains, Dr. Gregory. I've handed you one. Joey Franklin may indeed be an evil man. I know he did an evil thing to me when we were both children. Be careful with that knowledge. For you, Joey Franklin may be a villain and he may be the right villain. But he may also be the wrong villain."

Her anger was so tempered, so measured, that I didn't quite know how to understand it.

"Why now, Satoshi? Why bring this to light now?"

"Because you, and Locard, seem to care about what happened to my sister. That's why. I can offer you no proof of anything. If pressed, I couldn't even prove that Joey did to me what I am accusing him of doing. The only person I ever told about the…" She shook her head.

"The only person I ever told was Mariko.

She's not here. All I can do now is say, "Look over there." So that's what I'm saying. Go and look over there. I don't know what you'll find."

The line she was drawing may have connected two points, but it didn't feel straight. It was bent, as a beam of light is refracted by water.

"You've obviously given this a lot of thought, Satoshi. How do you figure it?

Why would Joey kill your sister and his own sister?"

She crossed her arms across her chest.

"I don't know the answer to that. I wonder, of course, if Mariko confronted him after I told her what he did to me.

Perhaps Mariko told Tami first and they confronted Joey together. The reality is that I'm as lost in the dark as you are." She paused and examined the fingers on her hands as though they were foreign objects.

"What happens… in the darkest places… what happens in the black space between confrontation and rage… is something I don't profess to be familiar with." "You never told your parents what you suspected?"

She looked up and almost smiled.

"I spoke once… of what happened… and my sister and her friend died within days. Why would I speak of it again?" Somehow her question was void of sarcasm.

"You feared for your parents' safety?"

"I was a child. I was in a strange country. I was in a new town. I'd been molested by a boy twice my size. My sister had disappeared. You wonder if I feared for my parents' safety? I feared everything-I feared that the sky would fall to the earth, that the oxygen would disappear from the air."

"Do you still fear for their safety? Is that why you insist on not telling anyone what you've told me?"

She looked around the room, her eyes jumping.

"Just as there are many kinds of safety, there are many ways to inflict pain.

For my parents, this would be a novel one. I have no desire to hurt them any more. I have lived too many years with the lingering suspicion that they already suffer the consequences of what happened to me, even though they don't even know it occurred. I don't wish to impale them on that sword and draw fresh blood." She shook her head.

"No. My parents won't learn of this."

A group of four students took a table across the room. They were loud as they settled. I watched Satoshi watch them. Within moments three of them were reading. The fourth was busy constructing a perfect cheeseburger. I leaned forward and whispered, "You seem to have already come to the conclusion that Joey was capable of killing your sister and Tami Franklin."

"Capable?" She shrugged and momentarily appeared puzzled by the word.

"The question isn't one that I've ever struggled with. He forced himself on me.

What I know is that he was capable of that."

I lowered my voice again.

"But whoever murdered your sister and f.ua

Tami also mutilated their bodies. If you are indirectly accusing Joey, then he has to be capable of that as well."

She nodded slowly. " Is that the larger sin, Dr. Gregory? The mutilation? Is that where everyone is still getting lost? Give me back my sister absent her toes-I'll take her gladly. Gladly. Tami with only one hand? I would welcome her in a second and every day I would caress her stump with lotion. And what about me, losing my virginity at thirteen? Rather irrelevant now, don't you think? The mutilations were distractions back then. And apparently the mutilations are distractions now. It's your responsibility not to be distracted"

"You said 'everyone is still getting lost." What did you mean?"

"The amputations. Tami's hand and Mariko's toes. It distracted everyone back then. It convinced them that a stranger was at work. Someone more evil than any of us could ever be. The mutilations cracked the mirror that they needed. The mutilations blackened the glass so the town couldn't look at itself, at its own reflection. Instead, they began sweeping back the brush, searching for psychopathic strangers and… we took comfort there. All of us."

I thought about the meaning of her words and the truth that was so near that surface.

I pushed my chair back from the table, maybe six inches, just to stretch my legs. Without reflecting long enough, I asked, "What about now, Satoshi? Have you been able to move on, too?"

Her eyes narrowed before they softened. Her chin rose a centimeter or so. She shook her head.

I didn't know how to interpret her expression or her refusal. Had she told me no, she wasn't able to move on, that perhaps she still wasn't able to trust or to love? Or was she telling me that no, she wasn't going to visit that territory with a stranger? I guessed the former, then in the next second, the latter.

Before I left Stanford to return to the airport, I asked Satoshi if she was frightened about something.

She touched her hair with her left hand, looked at me quickly, then away. She replied, "Is it that obvious?"

"While I've been here, you've seemed… I don't know… spooked. I'm not sure how obvious it is." She smiled at me and said, "Spooked? Is that a polite way of saying paranoid?"

I smiled back at her.

"I've been edgy since my father called and told me about you and what you were doing. I've been imagining all kinds of things. Phone calls with no one on the line. Strangers I think are following me around campus. Cars I don't recognize parked outside our apartment. Things like that. What I know-about Joey-it must be dangerous to someone, right?" I said, "Yes," and recalled what Sam had told me about sleeping dogs.

As we spoke we were walking in a circuitous route that would lead back to my car. For a few steps she even held my arm. I suspected that despite her reluctance, she needed to tell me the story about Joey.

She'd only met Joey Franklin twice before he raped her. Both times he had been with Tami and Mariko. Once in town at a store. Once at the Hamamoto residence.

Each contact had lasted only moments. Satoshi admitted that she found Joey to be attractive and charming.

The third time she saw Joey he had gone out of his way to find her. He'd been waiting for Satoshi after school, had offered to walk her home. When she explained that her mother would be waiting in the car, Joey had quickly said good-bye, said he'd see her around.

Joey Franklin was the first boy in Steamboat Springs who had shown any interest in the new Japanese girl in town. Satoshi thought he was handsome. She thought his attention was flattering. She not only wasn't alarmed when he joined her on her almost daily run later that afternoon, she welcomed his company.

"The first time we'd met I was just coming back from a run. He must have learned that I ran frequently. He must have known that I ran alone," she said.

"Joey was not a runner. He soon grew tired running with me. I slowed down but he couldn't keep up. He asked if we could stop to rest. We did. After a moment or two-it was awkward-he took my hand-gently-and he led me down a trail into the woods.

I thought it was a pretty place where we stopped. It reminded me of the hills in Japan where my grandparents live. Finally, we stopped to rest."

They sat on the ground, side by side, leaning back against a rounded boulder.

Above her, through the trees, the sky was beginning to lose its luster.

Satoshi was frightened-not of Joey Franklin, but in the way that a young girl is frightened the first time she is alone with a boy whom she likes. She felt that she was violating her parents' admonitions. She promised herself that she would sit with him for only a moment.

He told her she was pretty. She remembered that clearly. He told her that she was prettier than her sister. She remembered that, too. She'd never felt better than her big sister at anything.

Joey kissed her then. He was gentle with her. She remembered finding it difficult to breathe afterward, her excitement at the contact was so intense.

And she allowed him to kiss her again.

He touched her bare leg, her thigh, his fingers edging below her running shorts.

She was horrified and pulled away from him. She stood. He stood, too, towering over her. He took her by the hands and told her again how pretty she was. His voice was not so kind.

Joey Franklin leaned down and, once more, kissed her. As soon as their lips touched this time, she felt his tongue prodding into her mouth, and she turned her head away, surprised. He clamped down on her wrists with his strong hands.

She thought that she said, "No." He said, "Shhhh." The sound hissed.

"Five minutes later," Satoshi Hamamoto said, "I was no longer a little girl."

I didn't recall the drive north from Palo Alto to the San Francisco airport and didn't know how I had managed to go through the machinations of turning in my rental car without remembering a single step of the process. But I had returned the car. I had a receipt to prove it.

At least fifty people were lined up at the podium in the terminal to check in for their nights. I shuffled my feet along patiently until my turn came, hardly noticing the delay. I didn't get upset when the apologetic agent began a laborious explanation that concluded with the punch line that my electronically ticketed reservation had disappeared into some hard-drive version of hell. Not only that, but the agent also informed me that the flight I had been scheduled on was now full. The agent plucked away at the keyboard in front of him for what seemed like an eternity before he smiled at me and said, "Good." I shrugged my shoulders, thanked him, and accepted the offer he made of a front-row window seat on the next departure.

All I had in my carry-on was a book, a magazine, Lauren's laptop, and a bottle of water. Spotting an electrical outlet on the wall near my departure gate, I lowered myself to the carpet, leaned against the wall, and plugged in the laptop. I had a lot I wanted to write about my interview with Satoshi Hamamoto and needed to conserve the battery for the flight back to Denver.

Once I'd booted up the computer and rested my fingers on the keys I was almost surprised when they didn't start flying across the keyboard on their own. But they didn't. I didn't write anything at first.

Where I was initially lost was in understanding Satoshi's adaptation to her own trauma. I wanted to go back and sit with her for many more hours. I wanted to be quiet and perch beside her until she was ready to descend into whatever cavern held her fears, and I wanted to guide her fingertips as she explored the contours of the fissures in her defenses. I wanted to perceive for myself the psychological accommodations she'd had to make to deal with the back-to-back blows of being raped and having her sister murdered.

I wouldn't have that chance, though.

I was left with what I had observed that afternoon. What was it that I had seen?

Satoshi was a smart, savvy, disarmingly honest young woman who was functioning at a high level at a university that demanded exemplary performance.

Freud said mental health was the capacity to love and the ability to work.

Apparently, Satoshi could work.

In our brief afternoon together she had demonstrated empathy, compassion, humor, and assertiveness. Important pieces, but I still didn't know whether or not she could love.

I had seen something else, too. I had seen a woman who was wary. Not just of me and whatever I, and Locard, represented. She was not just fearful of the consequences of telling me her story. Satoshi was frightened of something she felt might harm her imminently.

What was it?

I made no progress in answering my own question. And without having typed a word, I recognized that I had never asked her one of the most important things I had flown to California to learn. I folded up the computer, stuffed it in my shoulder bag, and rushed to the nearest pay phone. I glanced at my watch and decided to try her apartment.

The phone was answered on the first ring. I asked for Satoshi.

"No, she' sum… not here. May I take a message?"

"Is she still at school? I have that number. Should I try her there?"

"Um. No. Do you want to leave a message?"

"Please. My name is Alan Gregory. I just met with her on campus and need to talk with her again as soon as possible."

"You're that guy from Colorado?"

"Yes."

"Where are you now? What's your number?"

"I'm at a pay phone. I don't think it will ring through. Wait, I have a cell phone with me."

"Give me that number? I may be able to have her call you right back."

"Can't you just give me her number?"

"She wouldn't be pleased if I did that"

More paranoia? I wondered. I dictated the number of my cell phone.

The woman on the other end of the line said, "Wait there five minutes. I'll try and find her and have her call. I'm Satoshis roommate by the way. I'm Roz."

"Roz, is Satoshi okay?"

"What do you mean?"

"She seemed… worried about something today"

"She's not herself. Let's leave it at that."

I left it at that and said, "Thank you, Roz."

A few minutes later the phone rang and startled me, despite the fact that I was waiting for it to do just that. I answered it after half a ring, saying, "Satoshi?"

"Yes?"

"Its Alan Gregory. I'm at the airport. I forgot to ask you about something that I need to know. Do you mind?"

"I don't mind. It's all right. I only have a few minutes before I need to T.A. a class, though. I hope it won't take long."

"It shouldn't. I'll be… blunt. I'm trying to determine if your sister was involved in a relationship around the time she disappeared."

"You mean a romantic relationship? Are you asking about a boyfriend?"

"Yes."

"Not that I know of, no. She hung around with a group of kids, mostly Tami's friends. But she wasn't dating anyone. I would have known about that. She and I were close. We talked a lot."

Despite my promise of frankness, I had hoped to approach the rumor indirectly.

That attempt had failed. So I decided to confront the innuendo straight on.

"I've heard, but have not been able to substantiate, that she might have been involved with… an older man. Someone in town.

Do you know anything about that?"

"You're kidding."

"No"

"Who?"

"I don't know."

"But you suspect someone specific, don't you? I can hear in your voice that you are… I don't know, casting for a… a certain fish."

"I don't suspect someone in particular. But at that time there were people in Steamboat who suspected that the relationship between your sister and Raymond Welle might have been… less than professional. Improper, even."

"What? Raymond Welle? Dr. Welle? You think that my sister was involved with Dr. Welle?"

"Perhaps."

Her voice became hard and all remnants of her accent evaporated.

"No way. She idolized him."

I didn't find that argument persuasive.

"If she felt so positive about him, why would you rule out a more "

"It's not possible. That's all."

"Satoshi, please help me understand why. If the rumors are false, I need to be able to put them to rest."

"It's simple. Mariko would not have taken me to see him if he was being inappropriate with her."

"You saw Dr. Welle? You mean professionally?"

"You didn't know? I understood that you'd spoken with Dr. Welle already. My father said he gave you permission. I assumed Dr. Welle had told you that he'd met with me."

"But you didn't think he would have told me about the rape?"

"No. He wouldn't be allowed to, would he? Wouldn't he be forbidden to breach confidentiality?"

"Yes, he would have been prohibited, but the reality is that I didn't know you had seen him professionally. Your father didn't mention it to me. And Dr. Welle certainly didn't."

"My father didn't know. I only saw Dr. Welle once. It was Mariko's idea. It was right after I told her about… that time with Joey. She thought he could help me like he helped her."

I tried to keep the dates straight.

"I thought you said that no one knew about what Joey did to you except for Mariko." "I'm sorry. When I said that, I thought you already knew about my meeting with Dr. Welle."

"You saw Welle-what?-a day or two before your sister and Tami disappeared?"

"I saw him that same afternoon. After school with Mariko. She came with me. She took me to see him."

"To his office?"

"No. We met him at his ranch."

At his ranch?

"Why did you meet him at his ranch?"

She seemed perplexed at my question.

"That's where Mariko took me. I never asked why."

"Was he… helpful?"

She was suddenly hesitant.

"He was kind. He listened to me. But he said he couldn't see me again without my parents' permission. And, of course, I couldn't ask them for permission.

They would want to know why I needed his help. I couldn't tell them that. Then Mariko disappeared and…"

"You never saw him again?"

"Never. Maybe around town once or twice, but not professionally. Is that it? I really have to go."

"One more thing. Did he send you to someone else for help? To a colleague, maybe?"

"No"

"Did he arrange for you to see a physician after the rape?"

"No"

"Did he encourage you to report the assault to the police?"

"No."

"To your parents?"

"I really do have to go. No. He didn't do any of those things. He was… compassionate. That's all. I really have to go."

I thanked her.

She said goodbye.

I had to give Welle credit for refusing to see Satoshi for more than one psychotherapeutic intervention. There were many reasons for him to refuse.

Treating two siblings in the same family was risky business in any circumstance. Although it was always a difficult choice to refuse to see someone in crisis, it was the ethical decision when the patient was a thirteen-year-old who was lacking parental permission for psychological treatment. But why hadn't Welle made subsequent arrangements for Satoshi to see a physician? And why hadn't he referred her on to someone else in town for further evaluation and psychotherapy? I didn't understand that.

Perhaps Satoshi's memory of the events was clouded by the trauma she had suffered.

Satoshi's conclusion that Mariko would not have taken her younger sister to see a man with whom she was romantically involved was logically flawed. If the transference in Mariko's therapy permitted her to view Welle positively enough to become involved with him romantically herself, she wouldn't have refused to involve her younger sister with him, either.

I was also troubled by the very fact that Mariko even knew where Raymond Welle lived.

And why had Welle not told me he had seen Satoshi for a crisis visit? That puzzle wasn't so hard. I quickly determined that there were lots of reasons why he might not have been more forthcoming.

One, I hadn't asked.

Two, he didn't have permission from anyone to discuss Satoshi's visit with me or with anyone else.

Three, he actually didn't have the legal right to see Satoshi at all. She'd been thirteen, below the age where she is permitted in Colorado to consent to her own treatment.

Four, when he did agree to see her, he saw her at the Silky Road RANCH. Not at his office. A questionable decision, for sure.

I concluded that if I were in Raymond Welle's shoes, I'd probably keep Satoshi's visit to myself as well.

But with the information that Satoshi had given me about her visit to the Silky Road Ranch I was in a position to view Raymond Welle differently. I now knew that Welle knew that Joey Franklin was a rapist, which was something that Raymond Welle didn't know I knew.

I typed furiously from moments after takeoff until moments before landing, trying to capture the essence of what I'd learned from Satoshi

Hamamoto. It seemed that the more I learned about the case of the two dead girls, the longer my task list grew.

At the top of the list: talking with Joey Franklin. Meeting the famous young golfer no longer felt at all like an option.

Once back home I faxed my report to A. J. and spent a couple of hours puzzling through the new information with Lauren. She had as much difficulty as I did deciding what any of it actually meant.

While we started getting ready for bed, she spelled it out.

"Let's pretend that it's all true. Right? Raymond Welle now has two possible motives for killing those girls, or at least being involved in their deaths. We were concerned when we thought he might have been covering up for being sexually involved with Mariko, correct?" I nodded.

"Well, now he might also have been mixed up in order to cover up for whatever Joey Franklin had done to Satoshi."

I'd already traversed the same ground.

"Sorry, that doesn't work for me. Why would he cover up what Joey had done? He kills Tami to protect Joey? Why? It doesn't make sense."

She was getting frustrated.

"I don't know why. I don't think we know enough yet to know why. But every road we get on in this case seems to take us straight to Raymond Welle."

"And to the Silky Road Ranch."

"And to the Silky Road Ranch." I said, "We're neglecting Dorothy Levin's disappearance. Can it be connected to Welle, too?"

"You haven't heard anything new on that, have you?"

I shook my head.

"I'm scouring the news. Nothing either on her disappearance or on the shooting at the tennis house. And apparently the police in D.C. still can't find her husband."

My wife didn't hesitate for long. She said, "Sure, the disappearance can be tied in. She was accusing him of campaign improprieties. She was in the line of fire when someone took some shots at his campaign rally. She disappeared while she was interviewing witnesses in his hometown. Circumstances alone tie her to Ray Welle. Is there anything really there? I don't know. No one knows."

I was suddenly troubled by something Lauren had just said. But I wanted to think about it for a moment, so to keep her talking I said, "Pretend it's all related.

What's the connection? What could it be?"

She thought about it while she disappeared into the bathroom to brush her teeth.

She was still holding the toothbrush in her hand when she stuck her head back into the bedroom and said, "There's only one way that I can see for Welle to be connected to Dorothy's disappearance. Dorothy's disappearance and Tami's and Miko's deaths have to be related somehow. The investigations must overlap.

Someone Dorothy was investigating for her article would have to have been involved-somehow-in Tami's and Miko's murders."

"Are you suggesting someone other than Welle? He's the constant in all this, obviously."

"I'm not sure. I think someone other than Welle, or in addition to Welle. I'd guess it would need to be someone who was involved in whatever campaign-finance irregularities Dorothy was investigating for the Post. Someone who also has a link to the murders of the two girls."

"That should be a relatively short list of people. Dorothy's article in the Post names names, doesn't it?"

"But it doesn't list her sources. I wonder if her editor would help us out"

"Her editor won't give up sources."

It was my turn to brush my teeth and pee. When I stepped back out of the bathroom Lauren was propped up in bed, rereading the fax of Dorothy's last Post article and making a list of all the names that had been mentioned.

I said, "I don't think I even bothered to mention this to you before, but Joey Franklin was in Steamboat the day that Dorothy was murdered. I saw signs welcoming him to town."

She stopped writing and glanced at me sideways.

"He was?"

"Yeah, he played golf with Raymond Welle that morning. Welle was coming from the golf course while I was waiting at the ranch." She said, "More circumstances I don't like." Emily waddled up and placed her head in Lauren's lap. She scratched the dog's ears.

"Is Joey still up in Steamboat Springs?"

"I don't know. What are you thinking?"

"We could go talk to him."

"Just like that? I haven't cleared it with A. J."

"Do you think she'd mind?"

"No. As a matter of fact, I think she'd be pleased. But what do we ask him? If he remembers raping Satoshi Hamamoto? I don't know why, but I sort of suspect he'd deny it."

"No. We ask him things he has no reason to deny and see what he does. Did he know Tami's friends? Did he know Miko's friends? How much does he contribute to Welle's campaigns? And oh, by the way, did he know Satoshi?"

"You really want to do it?"

"We both have tomorrow off. It's hot down here. It's cool up there. And I'd really like to see what Joey has to say for himself."

"He doesn't have to talk with us."

"Nobody does. Why would he refuse, though?"

"Maybe because he's a rapist?"

"There is that." She raised the tablet she was writing on.

"You know, I don't recognize any of these names. The gist of Dorothy's article is that when Welle was financing his first run at the House seat in 1990, and again during his second run in 1992, Japanese money was tunneled into his campaign through local business interests that supported the ski area. The names in the article are mostly the Japanese who were involved."

"Not Taro Hamamoto, though?"

"No. Not him."

I tried to recall the details of Ray Welle's political career.

"Welle wasn't elected in ninety, was he?"

"No. He didn't even get his party's nomination until ninety-two. And he won for the first time in ninety-four."

"His first nomination? That was after his wife was murdered?"

"Yes. Gloria actually died during the second campaign."

"A lot of death around that man."

I climbed into bed.

"More than his share." * * *

We decided to drive up to the mountains early and make a cold call on Joey Franklin. Either he'd be in town or he wouldn't. Either he'd agree to see us or he wouldn't.

The sky above us was still dark when we left the house. The sun finally cracked the lip of the horizon over the eastern plains as we were climbing Floyd Hill on 1-70. I watched the show in my mirrors and Lauren spun on her seat to gaze as the sky transformed itself from the colors of morning coffee to the pastels of cotton candy.

We actually talked about baby names for most of the rest of the journey to Steamboat. So far our lists of favorites shared no common ground and the effort felt to me like a parlor game. Lauren compared it to jury selection. She argued that we were still at the stage where we both felt as though our preemptory challenges were infinite. Later, she assured me, push would come to shove and our discussions would get more contentious.

Twice we stopped so that Lauren could use restaurant bathrooms. She was developing a thing about fetal health and gas-station facilities.

Steamboat Springs' golfing choices are finite. There's the new Haymaker course and the proletarian Steamboat Golf Club, and there's the Robert Trent Jones-designed course at the Sheraton. Not surprisingly, the morning I'd been cooling my heels at the Silky Road, Joey and the congressman had been playing at the lovely Yampa River Valley course at the Sheraton. Lauren and I decided to try there first.

We arrived in the shadows of Mount Werner shortly after nine and tracked down the course starter at the pro-shop desk. He was busy copying names onto a log sheet. I asked if he knew where we could find Joey Franklin. Without hesitation, the starter told us that Joey's foursome wasn't due to tee off until almost ten.

He thought Joey might be having breakfast upstairs on the deck and suggested we look out there for him.

"Who might he be with?" I asked.

"I thought he was meeting you." The starter finally glanced up from his paperwork. He looked at me suspiciously and smiled at Lauren, who took a half step forward.

She said, "Oh… he is, a little later." She didn't bother to mention the fact that Joey didn't know it yet.

The starter leaned over the counter, and his eyes traveled the length of Lauren's legs until arriving down at her feet. She was wearing open-toed sandals and had painted her toes the color of the grass on the greens.

"You're not planning on playing in those, are you?"

She shook her head.

"No. Not that it would make much difference to my score, I'm afraid." Lauren, to my knowledge, had never swung a golf club in her life.

He laughed.

"I feel like that some days, too. Might as well play in flip-flops, you know?

Pretty sure that Joey's meeting with Tony and Gary and… Larson.

His sponsors. You know them?"

She shook her head and widened her eyes.

"Haven't had the pleasure. But I'm certainly looking forward to it." We headed up the stairs toward the deck. I said, "You're quite the flirt."

She replied, "Whatever." After a few more steps, she asked, "What did he mean by 'sponsors'? Like golf club companies? Nike and Reebok? Endorsements? That sort of thing?"

"I'm sure that Joey has plenty of endorsement contracts, but no. I think he meant the kind of sponsor who provides seed money for young golfers. When he was first starting out as a pro, Joey probably accepted financial backing for tour and living expenses from individuals or groups of individuals in exchange for a percentage of his future earnings on the tour. The people who bought in to provide that support are his sponsors."

She looked at me with raised eyebrows.

"So these guys he's having breakfast with own a piece of him? Is it a big piece?"

"I don't know how the deals are structured. But when he makes money, they make money."

"And he's doing well, right?"

"Very well. I think he's in the top ten in earnings on this year's tour. His earnings could be in the millions."

"So these sponsors wouldn't be too happy to see their cash cow accused of an old rape?"

"Or a new one, for that matter. No, I'd imagine not."

Joey Franklin was indeed on the deck of the clubhouse having breakfast with three men his father's age. Joey drank cola with his breakfast. From my vantage he appeared bored with the company.

Lauren said, "We shouldn't walk over there together. I think that he'll view me as less threatening than he views you. Let me see if I can get him to talk with us."

I demurred happily. I wasn't looking forward to the confrontation anyway. From the doorway I watched Lauren approach the table and introduce herself to the four men. Two of them stood. Not Joey. She said something that made them all laugh and then leaned over and whispered something in Joey Franklins ear. He whipped his head around so fast his face almost collided with hers. I couldn't hear what he said to her. But she corrected her posture, smiled, and nodded to him once before rejoining me near the entrance to the pro shop.

"He'll be over in a minute or two."

"What did you say to him?" "Not much. I said I thought he was in a position to help us find his sister's murderer."

"That's it? You didn't mention Satoshi?"

She shook her head. Joey was coming our way.

He was my height, around six two, and lanky. I thought he walked as though he had too many joints, almost like a rodeo cowboy who's been thrown from two or three too many bulls. His eyes were the lightest amber imaginable, almost golden, and he had his sister Tami's brilliant blond hair. He appeared younger than the images I'd seen of him on the news and in the sports pages. As he crossed the room towards us, his left hand flexed and un flexed repeatedly. I wondered if he was even aware that he was doing it.

I could understand women finding him attractive. My wife, I knew, was one of the ones who did.

Lauren said, "Joey Franklin, Dr. Alan Gregory."

We shook hands. His shake was unenthusiastic. He scratched behind his ear and said, "I tee off soon."

I replied, "This shouldn't take long. Where would you like to talk? Is there someplace we can go?"

He looked around as though it was the first time he'd ever been in the room.

"Yeah. Follow me."

We did, and he led us up some stairs to a room with a gorgeous down-valley view.

The Yampa was still swollen with snowmelt and it flowed laconically, like an overstuffed hog, toward its distant marriage with the Green River. We took chairs in front of big windows that left me facing Rabbit Ears Pass. On this gorgeous summer morning all the other golfers were enjoying the practice greens or the deck. We were alone inside. Which was good.

"You guys are what? Are you from that group that my dad hired to find who killed Tami?"

Lauren answered, "Not exactly hired. How about enlisted? Does that work? But yes, we're from Locard. We've been looking into your sister's murder and that of Mariko Hamamoto."

"I already talked to somebody. Some detective from the East Coast. He caught up with me in Florida."

"This is a different part of the investigation."

He rolled his eyes.

"So you know who did it yet?" Joey was restless, and his posture on the chair left him in a position that was more horizontal than vertical. I estimated that he was around twenty-seven years old, but he seemed to have an inordinate amount of adolescent still wrestling around inside of him.

Lauren said, "Sadly, no," and gestured at me.

"Tell him your role in the investigation. Doctor."

I used my best doctor-voice and gave my we-needtoknowtamitoknowher-killer speech.

Joey was unmoved.

"Yeah. What do you want from me?"

"What was your sister like?"

His left fist stayed clenched.

"She was my sister. She was okay. I don't remember her that well. It was a long time ago."

Don't remember her that well? He was fourteen when she died. I'd bet good money he remembered every scratch on his first snowboard.

"Was she someone who would be likely to be particularly friendly to strangers, someone who-"

"Tami? She'd talk to anybody. Sometimes she wouldn't shut up."

From his lips it wasn't a compliment.

"How'd she get along with your parents?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"I'm just trying to understand her frame of mind at the time she died. See if she might have been upset. Whatever."

"She and Dad argued sometimes. But she gave as good as she got with him. Mom was more annoying to her, though. Always wanted to be part of her life, you know?"

He shivered. I wondered if it was an act.

I said, "No. I don't know." Joey shrugged. His face said "tough shit." I hoped for more. I didn't get it.

Lauren asked, "Did you ever… I don't know… develop any theories about what happened?"

He made a noise with his lips.

"Sure. Tami and Miko somehow managed to run into the wrong dude. What else could it have been?" He was remarkably lacking in curiosity about his sister's death.

The three of us went on in this unproductive vein for almost five minutes before I ran out of questions and Lauren took over. She asked about Tami's friends.

Joey told us nothing new. He tapped his watch.

Lauren said, "Tell us about Satoshi. Miko's sister." He said, "Who?" His expression didn't change at all. I couldn't tell if he was lying. If he was lying, he was good. I set my antennae for sociopathy.

"Satoshi Hamamoto."

He frowned.

"Doesn't ring a bell. Sorry. You say she was Miko's sister? I didn't even know Miko had a sister."

"You didn't know a girl named Satoshi? A Japanese girl?"

"Should I?"

"You never went out with her?"

"I went out with lots of girls."

He smiled. I wanted to slap him.

Joey made his tee time.

"Wasted trip," was Lauren's conclusion about the visit. We were back in Boulder in time for dinner.

I volunteered to cook, so I was standing right next to the phone in the kitchen when Satoshi called.

Although I would have been reluctant to admit it, the truth was that from the moment I'd first stepped into Joey Franklin's time-share jet for the trip to Washington to be introduced to Locard, I'd been enjoying myself playing forensic sleuth. I'd already begun to anticipate the sense of loss I would experience when Locard put this investigation to rest and my role with the organization ended.

The daily life of most workers is routine. That is as true for a psychotherapist as it is for a bus driver. For me, the opportunity to delve into the lives of Tami and Miko had provided a drastic alteration to my routine. Although I was using the same skills I typically employed every day in my office-clinical skills, interviewing skills, interpretive skills- I was using them in ways that enriched and intrigued me in an unanticipated manner.

In my daily work I resented the days or, more frequently, the nights that would come around when I wasn't able to shove intrusive thoughts about one of my patient's lives from my consciousness. But I discovered that I actually welcomed uninvited visits from the ghosts of Tami and Mariko and often allowed myself to lapse into reverie about the two girls and their lives. Sitting on the bedroom deck watching the sun set, walking the prairie trails with Emily, pedaling repetitively during long rides on my road bike, I encouraged the events and the people and the interviews and the history to tumble together in my mind as though they were gems requiring polish.

The events of 1988-the disappearance of the girls, their murder-felt distant to me, like history, even at times like fiction. The atrocity I was examining felt sanitized, safe. It was long ago that they died, and as much as I was trying to know them, I hadn't yet approached a spot where I could know them enough to grieve their deaths with any emotional honesty. The few tears I had shed for Tami and Miko were tears that sprang from the same small reservoir that supplies the almost artificial tears that are tugged by a movie or a novel that digs unabashedly for pathos.

But this was a story I was living and it was different from a book or a movie in that it was interactive and seductive. Each day I found that I could leave the pages and step into the story and find pieces unavailable to others. I could talk to the characters. I could follow Flynn Coe and Russ Claven to Steamboat. I could walk out my door and find Kevin Sample eating hamburgers on the lane. I could get off a plane in California and find Satoshi Hamamoto strolling the shady paths of the Stanford campus, looking over her shoulder. I could drive to Steamboat and get an audience with a hot young golfer who just happened to also be a rapist.

Even Dorothy Levin's disappearance hadn't impeded my enthusiasm for this quest I was on.

Each day as I awoke, I could hardly wait to turn the next page.

That all began to change with Satoshi's phone call.

"I got a telephone call today," she said without prelude.

"At my apartment."

"Yes?" I was aware that I was trying to act as though getting mysterious calls from Satoshi happened all the time. I wasn't aware why I was trying to act that way.

"The person asked for me. I identified myself. Then… the person said that some things are best left forgotten."

"That's all?"

"That was it. The voice was soft but I think it was a man. After he said that, he hung up."

"You didn't recognize the voice?"

"No."

"And he didn't make an overt threat?" "No, just said that some things are best left forgotten."

"Are you frightened?"

"Terrified."

"I can understand that. How can I be of help, Satoshi?"

She didn't hesitate.

"I haven't decided that yet, but I don't think I can stay here right now.

Things feel too creepy. There are plenty of places I could go. I have lots of friends. Family. I could even go to Japan and see my mother." She paused.

I wondered about school, but all I said was, "Yes?"

"But I've decided that I want to try to help with your… investigation. It's what Mariko would have done. So I'm thinking of coming to Colorado… to talk some more… maybe even go back to Steamboat to see if it helps me remember more about what happened. What do you think?"

"I think your help would be welcome by everyone at Locard."

"But you don't think I should come to Colorado?" She'd read the subtext in my words perfectly.

I chose my response with care.

"This is the epicenter right now, Satoshi. Given the phone call you just described, I can't imagine its the safest place for you to be."

She paused, too, but not for as long as I had.

"But if my goal is to study aftershocks it's the only place to be. Right?"

I didn't know how to respond. I should have known better than to use an earthquake metaphor with a transplanted Californian.

"If I come," she asked, "will you help me?" Maybe it was a mistake, but I asked, "How?"

Satoshi had two requests. They were both mundane. If she came, she would want a place to stay. I offered our guest room, but she declined.

"What if they're watching you, too?" she argued.

I thought next of Sam and told her that I thought I had a friend she could stay with.

Her other request was for enough cash for a one-way ticket to Japan, just in case she felt so unsafe she wanted to leave the U.S. She would pay me back, of course, but she didn't want to use her credit card and didn't want to involve her father, for obvious reasons.

I said that the money wouldn't be a problem.

She thanked me, said she'd let me know when she'd made a decision about coming to Colorado, and hung up.

The next day was Saturday. Sam called around three o'clock in the afternoon and invited me to join him and his son, Simon, for a couple of hours of fun at the indoor climbing wall at the Boulder Rock Club on Mapleton. Although I didn't really enjoy rock climbing, I was tempted to meet them there purely for the distraction value. Watching Sam get all harnessed up while trying to prove Newton wrong about the laws of gravity sounded to me like the essence of entertainment.

But I declined, reminding myself I had responsibilities to attend to first. I wanted to consult with A. J. about my meetings with Satoshi and Joey. A. J."s machine picked up my call and her recorded greeting referred all Locard business to Kimber. I left a cryptic message asking that she call me as soon as possible.

Next I called Kimber at his elegant loft in D.C.

"Kimber? It's Alan Gregory in Colorado."

"Alan? I'm afraid you caught me in the theater looking at rushes from the second Star Wars prequel. George sent them over by messenger. Fascinating work, truly evolutionary. I don't know how he ever manages to decide to leave some of this footage on the floor." I thought Kimber sounded surprised to hear from me.

Not exactly pleased. Not particularly displeased. I decided that what I was hearing in his voice was a slight swell of curiosity.

George Lucas? Kimber certainly had an interesting roster of friends.

"What a treat to be able to see those."

"A privilege, actually. George has his secretive side, to be certain.

But with friends who like movies, love movies… it's often like Christmas or… well, Halloween."

"Well, I'm sorry to bother you on a weekend, Kimber, but there've been some troublesome developments regarding the case, and A. J."s answering machine refers calls to you. Is she okay?"

His reply came after a slight pause.

"The purpose of your call to her was…?

"Lauren and I just met with Joey Franklin and I thought I should let someone on the committee know what was happening."

"Yes?" He made the solitary word feel like a meal. His voice was that rich and full.

"I assume that A. J. has kept you up-to-date on my recent interview with Satoshi Hamamoto? Mariko's sister?"

"We haven't spoken about it, but yes, I have a copy of your report."

"You're aware of the rape accusation she made against Joey Franklin?"

"Yes. Proceed, please. Go on."

We did go on this way for almost ten minutes as I reiterated the details of my trip to California and the frustrations of meeting with Joey Franklin. Kimber's manner encouraged me to do almost all the talking. I ended up feeling as though I had been a patient in an initial psychotherapy session. By the conclusion of our conversation I'd learned virtually nothing that was helpful and certainly didn't feel any better.

His last line wasn't, "I'll see you next week." It was, "Please keep me informed as things progress on your end. And Alan?"

"Yes?"

"A. J. is… not well. In fact, she is in the hospital. Please don't trouble her with any of this. I will take responsibility for communicating with her and I will be your contact at Locard for the time being."

"What's wrong with her?" I suspected that her MS had flared. Given that she was hospitalized, that it had flared seriously.

"She would prefer that I be discreet about the details. I'll send along your best wishes. Will that suffice for now? If any of these developments require your continued attention someone will be in touch."

He paused briefly. I thanked him.

"And your sweet wife? I hope she is well. Mary is full of nothing but praise for her efforts and her legal acumen."

"Lauren is fine, Kimber. I'll pass along the kind words from Mary and tell her that you said hello."

Satoshi's subtle paranoia was infectious.

Just in case someone-who?-had a way of monitoring Lauren's or my bank accounts-how?-it didn't feel prudent to give Satoshi the money she wanted from our savings at the credit union. Where would I go if I needed a large quantity of cash in a hurry? Easy. I walked across the lane and interrupted Adrienne as she was plucking slimy green bugs off the tomato plants in her garden. In the same tone of voice I would have used to borrow a cup of sugar, I asked if she would withdraw two thousand dollars from her bank for me. I promised to pay her back.

She, of course, demanded details. Adrienne trusted me; I knew she wasn't especially worried about her money being returned. Anyway, Adrienne had more money than just about any human being needed. She just liked having leverage. I spoon-fed her about half of the facts before she agreed to get me the cash. I had expected to have to tell her much more. She ran upstairs without bothering to kick off her garden shoes. While she was gone I played catch with Jonas with a pink-and-gray Nerf football. My mouth dropped open when Adrienne came back down to the family room with a stack of hundreds and fifties.

"That's eighteen hundred. I'll get you the rest tomorrow."

"You keep this kind of money in the house?"

"What other kind of money is there? I don't have time to be running to the bank every other day for petty cash."

Petty cash? The pile of money in my hand actually had heft.

"You have a safe up there?"

"If I did, would I want to advertise it? Stop poking at me and remember your manners. Say

"Thank you, Adrienne."

"Thanks, Adrienne. You're great."

"Yes, I am." She turned her back to walk away before she added with a devious smile, "And in lieu of interest, I want updates."

When my patients need to inform me of an emergency, the message on my voice mail instructs them that they must leave a verbal message before dialing my pager number and punching in the phone number of the location where I can reach them.

The system serves a myriad of S.S.S, purposes, one of which is to ensure that my patients think twice before categorizing a situation as an emergency.

Monday, at almost 3:30, my pager vibrated. I was in the process of concluding a session that had started at 2:45, so I waited a few minutes until my patient was out the door before I checked my beeper. The screen read an unfamiliar number. I tried my voice mail to look for a corresponding message that might explain the emergency. There wasn't one.

I picked up the phone and punched in the number on my pager screen. After half a ring a voice said, "Yes."

"This is Dr. Gregory. I'm returning a page to this number."

"Hi, it's me."

With those words, Satoshi Hamamoto let me know she had indeed decided to come to Boulder.

"Satoshi? You're in town?"

"I drove straight through. I'm so tired I'm shaking. But I'm all right. I decided I wanted to help. Did you keep your promise about… not telling my story?"

"Pretty much. My wife is part of Locard, so she knows what you told me. And to get you someplace to stay I had to tell the person I described to you the last time you called. Besides the two of them, yes, I kept my promise. I don't feel I have much choice. If I talk about the rape, you'll deny whatever I say, right?"

"Sorry. Right."

"How does my friend get in touch with you?"

"Does your friend have a pager?"

"Yes"

"I'll take that number."

I gave it to her.

"Would you please tell your friend to expect a call."

"He already does. And I'll get the money to him. I have eighteen hundred so far.

More is available."

I heard her yawn.

"That's probably enough for now, thanks. It's just a net; I'm not planning on needing it."

"Anything else I can do?"

She didn't answer my question. Instead, she said, "I hardly know you, yet I'm trusting you. That's not like me." She made it sound almost like an accusation.

"I know. And I'm doing my best to deserve it. There's another side to this, though. I'm trusting you, too."

She laughed.

"Funny, I hadn't thought about that. Yes, you are. That's good. I like that."

"Satoshi, do you really think Joey is sending somebody after you?"

"No. From what I've been able to learn about him over the Internet, I don't think he has the balls. I'm sure he has money people-agents, managers, people like that who are living off of him. They're more likely to come after me than he is."

"It could be one of his sponsors."

"What do you mean 'sponsors'?" I explained about the financial relationship between sponsors and young touring golf pros.

"I didn't know about that part of the business. So these sponsors have a lot to lose if Joeys career tanks?"

"Absolutely. They might even have more to lose than Joey does."

"You have their names?"

"No"

"Shouldn't be hard to find out. I'll look into it. I have some other ideas, too.

Some long shots. I've done nothing but think about this all night long. Do you have any idea how much empty space there is between San Francisco and Denver?"

Sam paged me a few minutes after six. I was packing up to go home for the day.

He said, "She's sleeping. She's safe. Neat kid. I like her. You? You're lucky I like her."

"Thank God. I've been worried. Where is she?"

"Just in case she has a reason to be worried, I don't think I should tell you that. Certainly not over the phone. Know what I mean?"

"Yes. I'm sorry I asked. I'm not used to this." I sighed.

"At least Sa-she's. safe. Listen, I need to get you that money. Should I drop it by the police department?"

"I don't think that's the best idea. Here's what we'll do instead."

I hadn't seen Sherry, Sam's wife, for months. She looked harried when, twenty minutes later, I walked in the door to her flower shop on the west end of Pearl Street, only a few blocks from my office.

I embraced her and commented that she was staying open late on a Monday evening.

"Spousal request. You know about those? It's been a hell of a day. My employee had an emergency root canal this morning so I've been by myself since eleven.

Anybody ever tries to tell you that retail's a fun way to make a living, don't believe them. Listen, you have something to give me for Sammy? I'm sorry to be so rushed with you, but I have to run and get Simon at child care. I'm already so late they're going to scream." She tapped her watch.

I handed Sherry the envelope. She stuffed it into her shoulder bag and offered me a bouquet of lilies to give to Lauren.

"Sam insisted," she said. I was about to say it wasn't necessary when I realized that Sam probably didn't want me to be observed leaving the shop empty-handed. I thanked Sherry for the flowers and stayed at her side while she locked the door.

Traffic was a bitch going home. Every decision I made was the wrong one.

Broadway was gridlocked by a car-bike accident on the Hill. The left turn signal at Table Mesa was short cycling. An old Mercedes in front of me on South Boulder Road was belching enough diesel exhaust to choke a herd of bison.

I knew I should have taken Ninth to Baseline and cut across on Fifty-fifth. I just knew it.

Lauren had been concerned about my late arrival home. She expressed her concern verbally when I walked in the door, yet the whole time her eyes were darting between my hands and my face. Her expression clearly communicated her disappointment that I'd apparently forgotten to bring home the spinach pizza I'd promised her for dinner.

I looked down at my hands, too. As though it were their fault. I said, "I'm so sorry." She said, "That's all right." She didn't mean it.

"I'll take you out, okay? We'll go someplace nearby."

"There's no place good that's nearby." She was coming perilously close to pouting.

"Then I'll go back out. I'll get the pizza you want. The one I promised. You were really looking forward to it."

"That's silly. You'd have to go back downtown. I don't know, maybe

I'll just fix something here. Open a can of soup." Even a dolt would know that she didn't really want to eat canned soup.

"I'll make you an omelette. Tarragon? You like those."

"I don't know if I want an omelette." She didn't.

It appeared that she wasn't predisposed to let me off the hook easily. I tried a different tack.

"Satoshi's in town."

"No!"

Despite a horrendous serve, the point was mine.

I made her an omelette with spinach and tarragon and gave her a foot massage for dessert.

Lauren complained of fatigue shortly after eating and carried a book with her to bed. I plugged her laptop into an outlet near the couch in the living room so I could review all my notes about the two dead girls. I had a nagging feeling that I was missing something important about the case.

Whatever it was that I might be missing wasn't apparent after forty-five minutes of looking. I could find only one item that had remained unaccomplished: I'd promised myself that I would make contact with the high school teachers whose names I had culled from the TV news stories that had been broadcast after the girls disappeared.

I checked the time: 9:15. Not too late to make a phone call-especially to a graduate student. I punched in Kevin Sample's number in Fort Collins. He sounded pleased to hear from me.

"I was going to call you tomorrow or the next day," he said.

"About that thing with my uncle Larry."

I drew a blank. What thing with his uncle Larry? Oh yeah, the release so that Kevin could talk to Raymond Welle about Brian Sample's psychotherapy. I had hoped Kevin had forgotten about it.

I stammered, "So your uncle agreed to write the letter?"

"Not exactly. He's still protective of me. He said he'd do it but he wants someone else to screen the information first-you know, he didn't want me to be the one to hear things about my dad directly from Dr. Welle. So he wrote a letter that authorizes you to talk to Dr. Welle about my dad. And he wrote you a letter saying it's okay for you to talk to me about whatever you think is relevant. I hope that covers everything and that it's all right with you."

If I agreed, I would have to schedule yet another meeting with Ray

Welle to talk about one of his patients. This particular patient happened to be the one who had executed Welle's wife. I thought I'd rather schedule a sigmoidoscopy. I said, "Sure, I guessum Kevin. I'll do that. I mean, I'll consult with Dr. Welle. When he and I can fit it in."

"Thanks. I told my uncle I thought you would. He's already sent the letter to Dr. Welle. I'll have him send you copies. But you called me. Now what can I do for you after I've monopolized the whole darn conversation?" I explained that I wanted to talk with some faculty at the high school who might have known Tami and Miko and ran the names I'd gleaned from the video footage by him. Did he remember any of them? After tossing the names back and forth for a minute, he suggested I start with two: Stuart Bird, the former principal, and Ellen Left, who had taught English at the high school. Before I hung up, I nonchalantly inquired whether Kevin knew Mariko's little sister, Satoshi.

If it was possible to blush over the phone, Kevin managed. He said, "Yes, yes.

She was… around some. She was a couple of years younger than us, I think.

Maybe-what?-three? I'm not sure. She liked to run. I did, too."

"Have you stayed in touch with her over the years? Know what happened to her after…?"

"Her family left Steamboat right around the same time we did, which was 1990 or so. I tried to… you know, help her… after her sister was… killed, because… I'd been through kind of the same thing. But… she wasn't that interested."

I prodded, but couldn't get him to say anything more.

"You must have been able to be a support for Joey Franklin as well. I mean for the same reason." "No," he said.

"I wasn't much help to Joey."

I couldn't track down a number for Stuart Bird through directory assistance, but Ellen Left answered her phone on the first ring.

As obtusely as I could, I explained my role in the investigation of Tami and Mariko's murder and asked if I might pose a few questions.

Ellen seemed thrilled at the prospect. She said, "Let me turn down the tube.

I'm ready and waiting."

Ellen liked to chat. It took me almost thirty minutes to confirm that she wasn't going to tell me anything that might shake my existing portrait of Tami Franklin. She acknowledged that she didn't know Mariko well. Her apology about that ran for well over a minute.

I thanked her for her time.

She said, "Oh, you don't have to thank me. I still pray for those two girls every Sunday. Worst thing I ever saw in this town. We had those murders and then we had what happened to Gloria Welle-Lord, Lord. And then there was that skiing accident with Doak Walker? Such a nice, nice man. Awful! But Tami and Mariko.

That was the worst. Absolutely.

"And still you know it's funny-ironic funny-how things turned out. I mean how crucial those two Franklin kids have been to this town. Tami's murderer is still running loose out there-and I swear her death is like a wound that won't heal for anybody. And now the whole world seems to be in love with our little Joey. I would have guessed it was going to be the other way around. That Tami would be Steamboat's angel. And Joey would be the one causing us to pull out our hair.

And it's not just me who'd think that way, everybody would have guessed it wrong."

I woke up. I sat up.

"Really, Ellen?" I didn't have to put any effort into sounding surprised.

"What do you mean?"

"Excuse me?"

"Why would you have expected that Joey would have everyone pulling out their hair?"

"My good friend, Jackie Crandall? She taught Joey history in junior high.

Always thought he was a dark one. In fact, she's the one whose idea it was to send him to Dr. Welle for professional help. And now look what Joey's accomplished. I swear that Ray Welle worked miracles with him. He truly did. I was sure that Franklin boy was heading for serious trouble."

"What did your friend mean by that? By calling Joey 'dark'? Why did she refer him for therapy?"

She tsked me.

"Are we just gossiping now. Dr. Gregory? I don't mind talking during recess, but I don't want to-"

"Believe me, Ellen, this is important. I have no reason to gossip with you. I'm trying to know Tami's whole… family."

She lowered her voice to a whisper. I had to strain to hear her.

"For

Tackie, that incident in the girls' bathroom did it. That was the last straw."

I waited for her to go on. She didn't. I said, "The one where, uh-"

"He and the Lopes boy drilled that hole in the wall so they could watch the girls doing their business. That one, mmm-hmm. Doesn't get much sicker than that, does it?"

Her question was rhetorical. I didn't contradict her.

I hit myself so hard on the forehead with the heel of my hand that I startled myself into yelling, "Ouch!"

Lauren called from the bedroom.

"Are you okay?"

I yelled back that I was fine. I couldn't believe it. Of course. It wasn't Tami Franklin or Cathy Franklin who had been in therapy with Ray Welle. It was Joey Franklin.

That's why Ray Welle had looked so smug while he was denying to me that he ever treated Tami or Cathy. And that's yet another reason why Ray Welle refused to see Satoshi for psychotherapy after she accused Joey of raping her.

My mental to-do list grew a little longer. I wanted to try to discover the dates of Joey's treatment with Welle. I wondered if Welle was still treating Joey when he raped Satoshi.

I'd often wondered what it would be like to be a psychotherapist in a small town like Steamboat Springs. Even in a town the size of Boulder, with over 100,000 people, lives sometimes overlapped so that the boundaries between patients' histories became blurred. In a smaller town like Steamboat, the lines would inevitably intersect like the cross-stitched threads in a piece of fabric.

Patient A would talk about patient B, who would be dating patient C, whose father would be patient As accountant, or the therapist's own golfing buddy.

And the psychologist would be alone in the middle of the mesh, entrusted with the responsibility to keep everyone's secrets from everyone else. And entrusted with the mandate not to allow what he or she might learn from one patient to influence how another is treated.

I found myself getting a headache as I tried to imagine the complications that would ensue for the small-town psychologist if patient A wasn't just talking about patient B. What if patient A was guilty of raping her?

I made a logical leap that seemed reasonable. I concluded that Raymond Welle's treatment of Joey Franklin was either ongoing or had recently been terminated when Mariko took Satoshi to see Welle after the rape. I then decided that it didn't make any difference which version was true.

In Welle's circumstances-with Satoshi literally on his doorstep accusing one of his patients, or recent ex-patients, of rape-what would I do? What ethical and legal obligations would I have as a psychologist?

Like Welle, I probably would have refused to offer Satoshi any ongoing therapeutic intervention after the emergency visit. The number of potential conflicts that would be inherent in simultaneously treating a possible rapist and his accuser was too astronomical for me to calculate. But, unlike Welle, I would have encouraged Satoshi to seek other help. At the very least, a physician should have promptly examined her. Pregnancy was an obvious concern.

Sexually transmitted disease had to be considered. And I would have referred Satoshi to a colleague for further psychological evaluation and, if necessary, treatment for the psychological consequences of the assault.

The legal issues Welle confronted were less murky than the ethical ones. Welle couldn't divulge the information he had learned from Satoshi to anyone else without her permission unless Satoshi had threatened future retribution against Joey. That was Colorado law. Without threat of future harm to some individual, Welle was sworn to maintain Satoshi's confidentiality. So Welle had been under no legal mandate to report Joey's crime to anyone.

I also considered whether Welle could have used the child-abuse exception to doctor-patient privilege to divulge the rape to the police. If Welle reasonably suspected that Satoshi had been the victim of child abuse, he was obligated to report it to authorities, confidentiality be damned. The problem with that argument was that at the time of the rape Joey Franklin was-legally, at least-a child, too. The age difference between him and Satoshi was not great enough to permit the act of sex between them to be classified either as statutory rape or as child abuse.

I tried to guess what Welle's motives might have been for not referring Satoshi to either a physician or another psychologist. It was difficult to imagine that he had concluded that such a referral wasn't warranted. By her own report, penetration had occurred during the rape, so a physical examination should have been proforma. Satoshi also admitted being quite traumatized emotionally. So why would Welle not refer her on for further assessment or treatment? The most cogent explanation I could come up with was that he wished to contain the circle of people who were aware that the rape had occurred. Perhaps Welle didn't want his colleagues in town to become aware that Joey Franklin had been accused of rape. Or perhaps he didn't want his colleagues to know that he was treating an accused rapist.

The possibility also existed that Joey had revealed his intentions about assaulting Satoshi while in psychotherapy with Welle. If that had occurred, Welle's failure to alert the police or to warn Satoshi would make him legally vulnerable.

Was Welle protecting Joey? Was he protecting himself? Was he protecting someone else?

I didn't know answers to any of the questions. And I doubted that Ray Welle would be inclined to enlighten me.

The events themselves felt jumbled. I pecked out a chronology on the laptop in an attempt to order them. I wrote:

Sometime prior to the autumn of '1988, Raymond Welle began treating joey Franklin in psychotherapy after an incident where Joey was accused of voyeurism in a girls' bathroom at his middle school. Had there been other incidents involving joey? It appears likely.

Three days before Tami and Miko disappear in the late fall of 1988, Joey Franklin rapes Satoshi Hamamoto.

That night, Satoshi tells her sister, Mariko, about the rape.

Did Mariko then confide Satoshi's secret to Tami Franklin? It would have been an awkward disclosure, since the accused was Tami's sibling. But I can't rule it out.

Two days later, Miko accompanies Satoshi on a visit to Raymond Welle's Steamboat Springs ranch.

That night-only a few hours later-Miko and Tami disappear on their way to the hot springs at Strawberry Park.

Months later, the girls' bodies are discovered near Tami's wrecked snowmobile.

The discovery takes place not anywhere close to Strawberry Park, but rather farther up the same scenic Elk River Valley that is home to the ranches of both the Welles and the Franklins.

No matter how I looked at it, Raymond Welle was right in the middle of everything and everybody. He had treated Mariko in psychotherapy. He was, or had just concluded, treating Joey Franklin, which meant he'd had professional contact with at least one of Joey's parents. Probably both of Joeys parents. At Mariko's urging, he had just completed an emergency session with Satoshi. In fact, Welle seemed to have an established relationship with everyone involved in the conundrum with the possible exception of Tami Franklin.

What else was going on in Steamboat during that three-day period in the late autumn of 1988?

In 1988, Phil Barrett was sheriff of Routt County.

Gloria Welle was raising her horses.

Raymond Welle was running a successful small town psychology practice and toying with starting a radio show. Maybe he was already dreaming of running for Congress.

And something else. What? I didn't know. But something else must have been going on, too.

And now, years later? Satoshi Hamamoto feared that someone might try to silence her. Why?

I could think of only one answer. Someone wanted to keep her from accusing Joey Franklin of a very old rape. Was that enough of a motive?

To me, it didn't seem sufficient.

If Satoshi ever went public with her accusation, which seemed unlikely, Joey could just deny the story. If the national media picked up the allegation, Joey might suffer some temporary damage to his reputation, but he would survive it.

Professional athletes are routinely accused of criminal activities and their careers seem to proceed unhindered by the charges. In fact, their careers often proceed unhindered by a subsequent conviction.

If the threat of disclosure of the rape wasn't the motivation for the danger Satoshi was in, then what was it? The timeline I'd just typed suggested that there had to be a link to whatever originally motivated the murders of Tami and Miko. Something that tied Satoshi to Tami's and Miko's deaths. Perhaps something that Satoshi wasn't even aware of.

What was it?

I didn't know. But I knew whom I wanted to ask.

I called Sam and asked if his guest was awake and available. While he and I were negotiating a safe place to rendezvous in town, the fax machine started spitting out a two-page memo to Lauren from. Mary Wright in Washington.

The gist of the memo was that Mary was asking Lauren for advice about two things. First, she wanted a review of Colorado statutes and procedures relating to search warrants. And second, she wanted to know the circumstances under which a Colorado governor could usurp the power of a local district attorney and appoint a special prosecutor for a criminal investigation.

I momentarily stopped breathing when I read that the suspect property for the search warrant was Raymond Welle's home, the Silky Road Ranch. Mary informed Lauren that inquiries were being made of Representative Welle to determine whether he would voluntarily grant Locard investigators access to his property.

Should he refuse, Wright seemed prepared to recommend approaching the local district attorney in Routt County to petition a judge to obtain a search warrant. Should the DA refuse to proceed, Mary Wright was devising a strategy for an end around.

It was obvious to me that Mary Wright thought she had grounds for probable cause. Given her reputation, I didn't doubt that she was right.

I wondered what Flynn and Russ had discovered that pointed them toward the Silky Road.

Lauren was asleep. I left her a note that I was going to town to meet with Sam and Satoshi, and headed to Sherry Purdy's flower shop. I spent the time driving across the Boulder Valley trying to imagine what life was like right now in Raymond Welle's camp.

He was in the midst of a senatorial campaign that had necessitated his choosing not to run for reelection to his relatively secure seat in the House of Representatives. The Washington Post was investigating him for campaign-finance irregularities dating back ten years or more. With the bloody disappearance of the Post reporter who had broken the campaign-finance story, the rest of the national media had sharpened their focus on the accusations that had initially been front-page news only in the Washington Post and in the Denver papers.

In addition, Locard had shown up in Raymond Welle's universe and started actively investigating the possibility that he'd had a role in the murder of two young girls a dozen years before. Satoshi Hamamoto, who Welle knew had accused one of Welle's ex-patients of rape, had become a loose cannon. And now Locard's investigation had apparently proceeded to a point where the Locard forensic team felt that it was reasonable to consider asking the local prosecutor in Routt County to petition a judge for permission to search Welle's ranch for physical evidence that might be related to the murders of Tami and Mariko.

Indeed, Mary Wright felt strongly enough about the evidence she had before her to inquire about procedures that would bypass the local prosecutor should he or she turn out to be reluctant to ask a judge for a search warrant.

Raymond Welle was not having a very good month. Given the circumstances, I assumed he had little choice but to agree to a voluntary search of his property.

Should he deny Locard permission to search, they were inclined to present whatever new evidence they had accumulated to the local prosecutor and to a local judge. That maneuver would greatly increase the risk of leaks to the media. And that was something that Welle could ill afford.

Sam hadn't turned on any lights, and the interior of his wife's flower shop was streaked with shadows from the streetlights along Pearl. The sweetness of the perfume from the blossoms felt especially cloying in the dark. I followed Sam past a wall of coolers to a crowded back room where Sherry did the paperwork associated with her business. Satoshi was there waiting for us.

She stood and embraced me, kissing me quickly on one cheek. I found myself surprised by the intimacy of the greeting. She smiled warmly at Sam-she had obviously developed a quick affection for him.

Sam wasted no time. He asked me, "What's up?"

I looked at Satoshi as I answered.

"I just learned that Raymond Welle was treating Joey Franklin in psychotherapy when he raped you, Satoshi."

She lowered her chin and exhaled in a rush through her nose. It was as though I had hit her in the gut. It took her half a minute to process the information and to regain her composure.

"For what?" she asked.

"Why was Dr. Welle seeing him?" I'd expected her to be full of venom. I found the question curious.

"His assault on you apparently wasn't the first time he'd… taken advantage of young girls."

"So Dr. Welle knew about Joey. And he knew… what Joey was… capable of doing."

"Possibly, yes." Sam asked how I knew, and I explained about my call to Ellen Left, Tami's old English teacher, and about her story regarding Joey and his trouble at school.

Satoshi's expression was tight as I spoke, but her eyes were unfocused. I guessed that her agile mind was navigating the waters I'd stirred up.

"It's not enough," she said.

"It still isn't adequate to explain why someone would threaten me. I can't prove what Joey did to me. If he denies it, and especially if Dr. Welle denies knowing about it, my accusation would be meaningless." Without even having heard Joeys denial that he even remembered Satoshi, and without even considering the fact that confidentiality would prevent Welle from commenting on the case, Satoshi had reached the same conclusion that I had.

I said, "I agree. It leaves me thinking that you must know something else, Satoshi. Perhaps something that felt inconsequential at the time. But something that's crucial to someone today. Something that puts someone at enough risk that they are willing to try to scare you into silence."

She raised her eyebrows and they disappeared beneath her thin bangs.

"What?" she asked.

Sam nodded his big head twice and shifted on his chair. He said, "Let's see if we can figure that out." He leaned close to Satoshi and his voice softened.

"What I'd like to do now, tonight-what we're going to do now-is we're going to talk about those few days back then and see if we can help you remember some things that you might have forgotten. Or maybe see if there're some things that you remember that have never seemed particularly important until now. How does that sound? You ready to get started? I'm going to be asking you a lot of questions.

I'll probably be a little redundant. And I'm going to ask for a lot of detail."

"I'm ready."

He turned and faced me.

"Alan, go get us all some coffee. I'm afraid we could be here for a while. I'm sure something's open on Pearl. Get me a Danish or something, too. I really like bear claws." Satoshi said, "I'll have tea. A plain bagel maybe, if you don't mind." Sam said, "She'd prefer tea. Get her some tea."

I stepped out of the room and ventured out onto Pearl Street. The night was warm, and the sidewalk was pocked with raindrops that had fallen since we'd been inside. I guessed it had been a thunderstorm cell about the size of a city block. The air was heavy. For an hour or so Boulder would pretend that it had humidity.

I hesitated outside Peaberry's but decided to buy our provisions across the street at the Trident. Something about the place always took me back to the Boulder I'd fallen in love with in the seventies. The Trident was careless and cluttered and autocratic and democratic all at once. The coffee was reliably good. The pastry case was usually overflowing.

Sam got his cherished bear claw. Actually, I bought him two. They were out of plain bagels. Satoshi was going to have to settle for poppy. I went back and forth over the selection of teas. After a mental toss of the coin I chose Darjeeling.

She accepted the pebbled bagel and the cup of tea with grace.

I thought it resembled a pas de deux between an elephant and a doe. Over the years, Sam had often surprised me with his physical agility. In fact, a time or two, when I'd seen him dance with his wife, Sherry, he had struck me as peculiarly light on his big feet. But I'd rarely seen him dart and probe with the sensitivity and delicate touch that he demonstrated as he interviewed Satoshi about the ancient rape and the tragic days that followed.

The most glaring difference between a psychologist-interviewer and a cop-interviewer is that the cop treasures the facts more than the psychologist does. Facts for me, as a psychologist, are the smooth rocks I step on as I follow my patient across a riverbed. They are the treads I use to ascend a staircase behind her as she climbs toward a destination I cannot imagine. I try never to succumb to the trap of allowing the facts to masquerade for truth, for truth is a commodity that sometimes bears little resemblance to my patients' recall of the facts. But for a cop, like Sam, the facts are everything. They are the gilded riches in the hold of the sunken galleon. When Sam is in full cop mode, the facts are what he's diving for.

As he proceeded with Satoshi-guiding, prodding, probing-I spotted at least a dozen instances where I would have followed different paths from the one that Sam chose to pursue. A spark of anger that flared in the corners of Satoshi s mouth would have warranted a diversion to explore the source of the detonation.

The fingernails that she dug into the flesh of her thigh would have earned a soft "What is that about?" But Sam wasn't interested in reading the signs that were flashing about eruptions in Satoshi's underlying affect; his eyes were focused on the hard details of the ancient wreckage.

In the end-and the end didn't come until the clock in Sherry's office read 2:18-I was pretty certain Sam had learned a story different from the one that I would have learned.

The story of the rape itself didn't change much in the retelling.

Sam insisted on hearing much more than I would have about the setting where the rape occurred. He pestered Satoshi for detail after detail about possible witnesses who might have been nearby. Where were the closest houses? What was Joey wearing that afternoon? Did he remove any of his clothing? What color was it? Sam wanted to know exactly what she did after she returned home. When had she showered? What had she done with her own clothing? At one point he asked if she knew whether Joey had ejaculated during the assault. Satoshi tightened her lips and nodded in response before she turned away from him and faced me. I felt a plea in her eyes, as though she wished that I would rescue her from his onslaught of queries. I wanted to.

I didn't.

A moment later she turned back to Sam and said, "When it dripped down my thigh, I didn't know what it was. There was blood, too. Mariko explained to me what it was."

I couldn't imagine that those prurient facts or the innumerable mundane ones were actually important to Sam. His purpose, I guessed, was to try to goad Satoshi's memory to do some yoga. He wanted her to begin to stretch her mental muscles and find recollections that had disappeared under the weight of the dual pressures of time and suppression. Sam needed Satoshi to be limber for what was to come.

What was to come? At Sam's insistence, Satoshi recalled the details of the conversation she'd had with her sister, Mariko. Satoshi's memory of this event was quite vivid, as though it were a relic she had refused to bury along with her sister. She recalled that telling Mariko what Joey had done to her took only about as long as the rape had taken-a matter of only a few minutes.

Satoshi guessed three or four. In Sam's hands, though, the retelling of the conversation took most of an hour. What had Mariko wanted to do after she learned about the rape? Was she going to tell someone else? Would she break a confidence and tell their parents what she had learned? Did she want to go and confront Joey and cut off his nuts? What?

Satoshi's patience with Sam was admirable. She answered the questions, one after another, the best she could. Some she couldn't respond to because she couldn't find the memories; others she remembered like that morning's breakfast.

Sam permitted a few tangents. One was especially poignant to me. Satoshi wanted to talk about the friendship between Tami and Miko.

Her words were halting. She wasn't comfortable with the territory.

"She was Mariko's first American girlfriend. Tami was. Before coming to Colorado, our family had been in Switzerland for, I think, two years. And before that, of course, we were in Japan. Tami was something new for her. For both of us. I remember feeling jealous. Tami would lie for Mariko and they would go off on their own after school. At night, at home, they would whisper secrets on the telephone for hours and hours. I felt as though I was no longer the sister. Tami was more important to Mariko than I was-that's how it felt to me. For a long time, I tried to follow along. To be with them. To ski with them. To hang out with them in town.

"I wanted a friend like Tami. That was part of it. But I also wanted my sister back."

Sam stayed in her footsteps, always behind her, always filling her shadows with his mass. Occasionally he asked for a clarification. When she stopped speaking at the end of a long response to another in a series of questions about what she had told Mariko the night of the rape, Sam said, "Good, good. That's great." I mistakenly assumed he had concluded his questioning.

But he soon continued. He rubbed his hands together and rested his elbows on his knees.

"Let's do it again," he said.

"This time, though, we'll do it from some new angles."

The new questions came in sets, like ocean waves. Where were you sitting when you told Mariko about the rape? Where was she sitting? Or-maybe-she was standing? How did you bring it up? What were your first words? Did she believe you? What did she say?

Satoshi found answers for almost all of Sam's questions, surprising herself with the wealth of information that she could remember. Sam tried to stay impassive, but his eyes betrayed his enthusiasm. His subject, he knew, was warming up to her task. I was stifling yawns. I would have gone back out for more coffee but I didn't want to miss what might come next.

Sam said, "Okay, okay. Now we move on to the day that Mariko took you to see Dr. Welle. Do you remember that day?"

"Yes."

"What was the weather?"

For the first time Satoshi's voice betrayed some irritation.

"What? Why does that matter?"

"It does. Humor me."

She thought for a moment.

"It was a beautiful day. A storm was coming. The day had been warm and the sky was high. No clouds. Not even a thread. You know what it's like in the Rockies just before a big blizzard comes? It was one of those days. A September day in November." "I love those days before a storm," said Sam.

"One time-must've been Thanksgiving a couple of years ago-I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt when I was going into Ideal to get some groceries. I come out with maybe fifty dollars' worth of stuff and the air's suddenly freezing cold and the wind's howling and there's half an inch of snow on my windshield.

Don't know why, but I love those days when that happens. Its like weather chaos."

I loved those days, too. But I kept quiet.

Sam had an annoying little buzzer on his wristwatch that beeped on the hour. It tolled at two A.M." causing me to check my watch. Satoshi had just said, "You know what? There was a car there when we left Dr. Welle's house. It was down near the stable. We drove by it on our way out. I remember because Mariko mentioned it. She said she liked it-the car." Neither Sam nor I had reacted to her words as though they were particularly meaningful.

Satoshi continued, and a change sang in her voice, indicating that she was surprised by the memories she was having.

"You know what else? I saw it again on the news a few days later. Tami's mom was driving it. It was a… I don't know what kind. But it was white. A white car. That was the one that Mariko had said that she liked. It belonged to Mrs. Franklin." She smiled to herself and added, "I haven't thought of any of this stuff in years." "You saw what?" Sam and I asked simultaneously.

"The Franklins' car was parked down by the stable. I guess Mrs. Franklin had come out to the ranch while we were inside with Dr. Welle" Sam pressed.

"Was Gloria there? Mrs. Welle? When you were at the ranch, before or after meeting with Dr. Welle, did you see Mrs. Welle?"

Satoshi shook her head.

"No, we didn't see anyone else while we were there. But I never knew Mrs. Welle. She's the one who was murdered in that house, right?

She was the one who was shot?"

I interjected, "Yes, she's the one who was killed there. Satoshi, there were housekeepers at Dr. Welle's ranch-two of them. Women. Did you see either of them that day?"

"No." She didn't hesitate.

"What about cowboys? There were two hands who worked at the ranch full-time.

Did you see either of them?"

"No. No one else. Only Dr. Welle." She pursed her lips.

"What are you two thinking? Are you thinking that Dr. Welle had called Mrs. Franklin and told her what Joey had done to me and that's why she came over to the ranch? I don't think that's possible; Dr. Welle was with me the whole time.

I don't recall him leaving the room at all. I didn't see him call anyone." I said, "No, that's not what I was thinking."

Satoshi moved her tongue between her teeth for a moment. She cocked her head to one side.

"Are you suggesting Dr. Welle and Joeys mom were-No. Is that what you're thinking? That they were having an affair? That that's why she was at the ranch?" Sam shrugged. I said, "I don't know that they were having an affair. But I guess that it would explain some things."

"Like?" Satoshi was tired. She should have been able to answer this question herself.

I said, "Like why Dr. Welle never encouraged you to report what Joey did to the police."

Satoshi wanted to use the bathroom before we locked up the flower shop. As soon as I heard the door close behind her, I said to Sam, "Every time I blink my eyes, it appears that Raymond Welle is deeper and deeper into this mess."

"Go on"

"If he's screwing Joey's mother, he's going to have a difficult time being objective about her kid raping someone."

Sam shrugged.

"Sure. But so what? It still doesn't tell me why that would have led him to kill the two girls."

"What if Mrs. Franklin and Welle were having an affair and the two girls found out about it? "

"Yeah? So? You think they put their heads together and decided it would be easier to cover up a double murder than to cover up an affair? You think parents go around murdering their children after the kids discover that the parents have been sneaking around doing a Lewinsky? I don't think so-there'd be dead kids everywhere." I stifled another yawn and suppressed an argument that the number of dead kids in the world was way too high for my comfort level already. Sam appraised me critically before he said, "You know, I'm beginning to get the impression that you don't think too well after midnight. You're sounding kind of goofy."

I was feeling a little bit defensive.

"You have to admit it's a mess. The whole situation."

"Of course it's a mess. But what does that tell us? Nothing. You're out looking for suspects, Alan. It doesn't work that way. Look for evidence. We found some evidence tonight-evidence that Mrs. Franklin was at the ranch. That may help lead to a suspect. It may not. It may be Welle. It may not."

Satoshi walked back into the room. She'd apparently been listening to the argument. She said, "I told him pretty much the same thing about Joey, Sam" She faced me.

"You know, Alan, you've already told me that you've been suspicious that Raymond Welle might have been sleeping with my sister, right?"

"It wasn't exactly my accusation. But yes."

"And now you're considering the possibility that he was having an affair with Joey's mom. Right?"

I wanted Satoshi to sit down, but she remained standing. I said, "Yes. That's one conclusion."

"So are both suppositions true? Or only one? And which one? His motivation would change, depending on who he was sleeping with, right?"

"Right." Sam had been correct. I wasn't thinking well.

"Maybe he was sleeping with both of them. I don't know."

"And maybe neither?"

"I suppose that's possible, too."

Sam and Satoshi walked down Pearl toward the Mall and, I guessed, toward Sam's old Jeep Cherokee. The downtown bars had just emptied out and there were a few dozen pedestrians still loitering as though something interesting was about to happen. I had parked on Ninth in front of where Treats used to be. The building that housed the bakery was now history. I still missed the wonderful breakfast rolls and muffins at Treats.

And I missed the trifle at Southern Exposure. And the grits at the original Dots Diner. And the omelettes at the Aristocrat. The Irish stew at Shannon's.

Fred's wonderful pie. And the brats on brown bread at Dons Cheese and Sausage.

When I was finished reminiscing about the Boulder that existed before Subway and Starbucks, and before the Gap and Banana Republic, I realized I wasn't as convinced as Sam that Welle wasn't implicated in at least five different ways in the murder of the two dead girls. But I was also exhausted. I had to force myself to concentrate to remember the final part of Satoshi's story-the part when she described to Sam and me what had happened after Mariko had driven her home from her visit to see Raymond Welle at the Silky Road Ranch.

Satoshi said that Mariko had folded her into the front seat of the car as though she were a small child. She took her home and she did what she could to offer comfort. She brought her tea and she smuggled some American candy into her room.

Satoshi thought it had been a Three Musketeers bar. Satoshi remembered that she had really liked them when she was young.

Sam, I could tell, was pleased at the detail of her recollection.

Mariko had plans to see Tami that night. Satoshi said that at some point her sister left her alone in her room and went to get ready to go see her friend.

Satoshi watched out the window as Mariko walked away to meet Tami. Satoshi didn't know where the two friends were supposed to meet.

She never saw her sister again.

I sucked down coffee the next morning while Lauren stood at the sink with her back to me and grumbled that she wished she could do what I was doing. I growled back, "What? Stay out till three o'clock and feel terrible in the morning?" She showed no sympathy as she said, "No. Have real coffee for breakfast. With caffeine."

After my second cup I offered an apology for my intemperance and gave her a quick we-both-have-to-get-to-work rendition of the previous night's marathon with Sam and Satoshi. She found the possibility of a romantic liaison between her ex-brother-in-law and Cathy Franklin intriguing. But she didn't have time to discuss it; she had to get to a breakfast meeting.

Her purse in one hand, her briefcase in the other, she said, "Oh, I almost forgot, Flynn Coe called after you left last night. She said she had a present for you. The mystery man? The one Dorothy Levin mentioned in the note she scribbled on the fax? They managed to identify him through hotel phone records.

His name is Winston Mcgarrity. His phone number is by the phone in the bedroom.

Bye. Love you. Oh, and something big is breaking with the forensics on the case.

She couldn't say what, but said that they've been reexamining some of the previously unidentified materials from the autopsy and the crime scene and think they have something solid. That's why they're ready to proceed with a search of the ranch. She said we'll hear about it soon enough." With that, Lauren walked out to her car. * * *

Late that morning, between patients, I phoned Winston Mcgarrity. The telephone prefix was for a Steamboat Springs number. The line was answered by a woman whose voice reminded me of Lauren's mother. She said, "Mcgarrity Associates."

"Winston Mcgarrity, please."

"May I tell him who's calling?"

"It's Dr. Alan Gregory."

She paused. I imagined her lips pursing.

"Is this about a claim for one of your patients, Dr. Gregory? Because Win-Mr. Mcgarrity senior-doesn't actually do claims anymore." Her voice resonated with an endearing little chuckle at the thought of Win Mcgarrity actually doing claims.

"No, this isn't about a claim."

She was silent, waiting for me to elaborate and dig myself a hole so deep that I couldn't climb out of it. I waited along with her. Finally she asked, "It's about… what then? If you would be so kind."

I wasn't sure how to respond. I said, "Mcgarrity Associates is an… insurance company? Is that correct?" I don't know why I was surprised to realize the nature of the business I'd called, but I was.

"Agency. We're the largest independent in Routt County. Serving our clients since 1982"

"What kind of insurance do you sell?"

"Home, auto, health, life, disability-you name it, we sell it. Soup to nuts.

Are you looking for malpractice? Because if you are, I'm afraid we don't do that." I heard a second line ringing in the background. Her voice jumped an octave as she said, "Oh my, but things are starting to hop around here. Now may I please tell Win what this is all about?"

I wasn't sure I was ever going to get past this woman who was guarding the door and actually speak with Winston Mcgarrity. I decided to use what I assumed would function as the verbal equivalent of a skeleton key. I said, "Please tell him I'm calling about Gloria Welle." She said, "Gloria? Really? Oh my! Just a moment. Oh my!" "Hi," he said, "this is Win." His voice was softer than mine, which made it as soft as a whisper.

"Mr. Mcgarrity, my name is-," I began. Before I could say another word, he interrupted.

"Win. Mr. Mcgarrity is my father. You're Doctor…?"

"Gregory. Call me Alan."

"Alan, what can I do for you? I already understand from Louise that you're not buying anything, you're not selling anything, and you're not complaining about anything. So right off the bat-just from the point of view of complete novelty-you have my undivided attention " I smiled.

"I'll try to be brief. I'm calling about a recent meeting that you had with a Washington Post reporter by the name of-"

"Dorothy Levin-Dorothy. What a shame what happened to her. What a complete and utter shame. I liked her. She talked a bit fast for my taste. And she smoked like my brother-in-law's John Deere. I tried to tell her that her premiums would be much lower if she just stopped smoking. Health, life, everything. She wouldn't listen; they never do, the smokers. But I liked her. Know what else?

Tragedy is that at the time she disappeared she was severely under insured Young ones often are" Actual tragedy was, I thought, that it mattered that she was under insured I said, "I'm fond of her, too, Win. The meeting I was talking about? I understand that you spoke with her the day before she-"

"Actually, didn't just speak with her, I had dinner with her. Nice place in town called Antares? You ever been there?"

Before I had a chance to acknowledge that I had, he said, "Well, try it next time you're up here. Use my name if you like, may get you a kick in the rear."

He laughed. I sensed that his self-deprecation was not exactly genuine.

"I recommend the mixed grill. Dorothy had it on my advice. And I think she enjoyed it just fine. That's my memory anyway."

"Do you mind if I ask what you talked about? Why she-"

"Why she thought I might know something that might interest the Washington Post?" The interruptions were becoming less jarring. I was actually beginning to expect him to finish my sentences for me. And I had to admire he was doing a pretty fair job of anticipating my drift.

"Don't exactly know. Somebody probably gave her the name of some local citizens who might have been considered movers and shakers in this town back in the eighties and early nineties. You collect enough lists like that, my name would probably show up on one or two. I've been here awhile. I've made some friends over the years. I've been lucky enough to own some land in some of the right places. And unlucky enough to own in a few of the wrong ones, too." He chuckled.

"But nobody ever really wants to talk about the mistakes I made. Dorothy never would say exactly how my name came up. Turned out, though, that what she wanted to talk about was Ray Welle's campaign finances for the primary elections he lost ten years or so ago. The first couple of elections. It was a short conversation cause I didn't have much to say. I didn't run with Ray Welle's herd back then."

He laughed self-consciously.

"Truth is that I don't run with Ray's herd now."

I tried to keep my tone conversational as I said, "And after you were done talking about Ray, that's when you and Dorothy started discussing Gloria Welle's murder?"

He hadn't been able to anticipate the end of that question. When he spoke again his voice was suddenly a little raspy, as though his throat had dried considerably. He asked, "Now how did you know that?"

I considered lying but didn't.

"Dorothy sent me a note the night before she disappeared. Said she'd had an interesting dinner with someone who had some unusual theories about Gloria's death. She knew that the whole episode out at the Silky Road is an interest of mine."

"Why's that? Curious interest for someone." I'd anticipated the question and told him that I'd recently befriended Kevin Sample.

He said, "Oh." His voice grew even fainter at the mention of the Sample name. I pressed the phone hard against my ear in a vain attempt to increase the volume.

Win asked, "How is that boy?"

"He's in veterinary school in Fort Collins. He's doing better than you would expect."

"Good. Good. I'm relieved to hear that. Life like that boy had when he was young-could have ended up with all kinds of tragic outcomes. Hey, I'm sure you don't want to play guessing games with me, so I'll just tell you what I told Dorothy about Gloria's death. No harm there. Curious thing is, only a week or so before he killed Gloria, Brian called me and asked about buying some additional life insurance."

Really?" For himself?"

"For himself, that's right. Well, I knew of course what had been happening to the Samples-everyone in town did. I knew about his son's terrible accident.

And Brian's suicide attempt, too. But I heard him out, polite and professional as can be. When he was all done, I told him the honest-to-God truth, which was that, if he insisted, I'd take his application right then over the phone. But I explained that there wasn't much likelihood that any of the companies that I represent were going to be too eager to underwrite a life insurance policy on him after looking at his recent medical history."

"You were referring to the suicide attempt?"

"Yes, that's right, I was."

"And?"

"And nothing. He asked me a few questions about the way the policies worked, the underwriting and all, and after I explained, he said he understood. He hadn't even known that the policy he had already bought from me just before his son's car accident-that one was for two hundred and fifty thou-he didn't even understand that if he had died from his recent suicide attempt, it wouldn't have paid death benefits."

"And that's because…?"

"There's a grace period, a waiting period if you will, on life insurance policies so that someone can't just buy one and then kill himself the next day.

The waiting period on Brian's existing policy wasn't up. He didn't remember that. Anyway, I answered all his questions and he thanked me for my time. Brian had always been a gentleman and he was that day as well. He was a gentleman right up until the very end, I would say."

"Do you think he was thinking that he might die while he was doing whatever he was planning to do at the Welles' ranch? Do you think that's why he wanted the additional life insurance?"

"Don't see any other possible conclusion. Do you?"

"No sir," I said, "I don't."

It all made more sense than it had before.

At least a week before he made his way out to the Silky Road Ranch, Brian Sample had already decided to seek his revenge on Raymond Welle. He assumed that his plan for vengeance might result in his death. In fact, he judged it to be enough of a risk that he endeavored to increase the insurance on his own life prior to kidnapping Gloria Welle.

In our recent meeting, Kevin Sample had been eager to view his father's optimism and relative ebullience the morning he died as a sign that his depression had abated. The exact opposite might have been true. The reality is that the mood of a suicidal individual often brightens after he has decided on a plan that will end his life. Many families and many psychotherapists are fooled by the improvement in mood and lulled into believing that self-destructive danger has ameliorated. It appeared likely that the morning Kevin Sample had breakfast with his father, Brian Sample was more talkative because he had already settled on a plan that was likely to end his life.

Kevin, ever hopeful, wanted to believe that what he saw that morning was evidence that his father was getting better.

But that morning over a breakfast of pancakes and sausages with his surviving son, Brian Sample wasn't less depressed because he had found a solution to his grief. Nor was he brighter because he had discovered a way to escape from his depression. Brian Sample was simply relieved.

He knew that his pain was almost over because he had arranged a standby seat on the next flight off the planet.

The only thing I didn't understand was why he wanted to take Gloria Welle on the ride along with him. I was assuming I would never know the answer to that question. Then I recalled that the night before I'd promised Kevin Sample that I would review his father's psychotherapy history with Raymond Welle.

Maybe I would learn something about Brian Sample's motives after all.