“You own this place?”

“Rent. I’ve been here for years.”

“You’re organized.”

“I’m getting there. I don’t want to leave a mess for someone else to clean up. Con’s the one who’ll come in.” The unspoken phrase after I’m dead hung in the air between us.

“Con told me they were trying new drugs.”

Stacey shrugged. “Clinical trials. An experimental cocktail designed for people with nothing left to lose. Percentages aren’t good, but I figure, what the hell, it might help someone else. Some survive. That’s what the bell curve’s all about. I just think it’s foolish to assume I’m one.”

Con Dolan knocked at the front door and then let himself in, appearing half a second later in the kitchen doorway. He carried a brown paper grocery bag in one hand and a smaller white bag in the other. “What are you two up to?”

Stacey put his hands in his pockets and shrugged casually. “We’re talking about running away together. She’s arguing for San Francisco so we can cross the Golden Gate Bridge. I’m holding out for Vegas and topless dancing girls. We were just about to toss a coin when you came in.” Stacey moved toward the stove, talking to me over his shoulder. “You want coffee? I’m out of milk.”

“Black suits me fine.”

“Con?”

Dolan held up a white sack spotted with grease. “Doughnuts.”

“Good dang deal,” Stacey said. “We’ll retire to the parlor and figure out what’s what.”

Con took his two bags into the living room while Stacey produced a tower of nested Styrofoam cups and poured coffee in three. He returned to the counter and picked up the pile of newsprint and a marker pen. “Grab those paper towels, if you would. I’m out of napkins and the only kind I’ve seen are those economy packs. Four hundred at a crack. It’s ridiculous. While you’re at it, you can nab that sealing tape.”

I picked up the roll of tape and my coffee cup, while Dolan returned to grab two of the kitchen chairs. Then he came back and picked up the two remaining cups of coffee, which he placed on the desktop in the living room. He reached into the larger of the two bags and hauled out three wide black three-hole binders. “I went over to the copy shop and made us each one. Murder books,” he said, and passed them out. I flashed on my early days in elementary school. The only part of it I’d loved was buying school supplies: binder, lined paper, the pen-and-pencil sets.

Stacey taped two sheets of blank newsprint to the wall, then unfolded a map of California and taped it to the wall as well. There was something of the natural teacher in his manner. Both Dolan and I helped ourselves to doughnuts and then pulled up chairs. Stacey said, “I’ll take the lead here unless someone objects.”

Con said, “Quit being coy and get on with it.”

“Okay then. Let’s tally what we know. That’ll show us where the gaps are. For now, you probably think we have a lot more gaps than we have facts in between, but let’s see what we’ve got.” He uncapped the black marker and wrote the name “Victim” at the top of one sheet and “Killer” at the top of the next. “We’ll start with Jane Doe.”

I pulled a fresh pack of index cards from my shoulder bag, tore off the cellophane, and started taking notes.

5

He printed rapidly and neatly, condensing the information in the file as we talked our way through. “What do we have first?” He lifted his marker and looked at us. Like any good instructor, he was going to make sure we supplied most of the answers.

Dolan said, “She’s white. Age somewhere between twelve and eighteen.”

“Right. So that means a date of birth somewhere between 1951 and 1957.” Stacey made the requisite note near the top of the paper.

“What about the estimated date of death?” I asked.

I thought Dolan would consult the autopsy report, but he seemed to know it by heart. “Dr. Weisenburgh says the body’d been there anywhere from one to five days, so that’d be sometime between July 29 and August 2. He’s retired now, but I had him go back over this and he remembered the girl.”

“All right.” Stacey wrote the DOD on the paper under Jane Doe’s date of birth. He went on writing, this time dictating to himself. Rapidly, we went through the basics: height, weight, eyes, hair color.

Dolan said, “Report says blond, though it was probably a dye job. There was some suggestion of dark roots.”

I said, “She had buckteeth and lots of fillings, but no orthodontic work.”