Hand of Evil

might lead us to some other people who know him or who knew him in the past?”

“I don’t remember that he did,” Bob replied.

“Believe me, if there’d been an unexplained call on the phone bill, your father would have remembered,” Edie told Ali in a pained whisper. “He goes over every line of every bill every month, but he couldn’t be bothered with asking whether or not Kip had a driver’s license? As soon as the cops leave, I think I’m gonna kill the man and be done with it.”

By the time Edie’s rant was over, the cops were ready to leave. “This doesn’t give us a whole lot to go on, but we’ll see what we can do,” Kenny said. “You say your Bronco’s still up at Franco’s Garage?”

“It’s still there,” Bob answered. “Along with the goods Kip was supposed to drop off at the homeless encampment up on the Rim. They evidently weren’t good enough for the creep who took my tools, gas can, and spare tire.”

As the two cops left, Edie followed them to the door and locked it behind them. She went over to the booth where Bob was still sitting with Sandy, who had burst into tears. “Where could Kip be?” Sandy wailed. “Something terrible has happened to him. I’m sure of it.”

Edie slipped into the booth next to her and put her arm around Sandy’s shoulders. “I’m sure the cops will do everything they can to find him,” she said kindly. “Won’t they, Bob?”

“Absolutely,” Bob agreed, but only after Edie nudged his ankle under the table. “Of course they will.”

Sandy turned her tearstained face in his direction. “Do you think so?” she asked. “Really?”

“Definitely,” Bob declared with what sounded like absolute confidence. “No doubt about it.”

A few minutes later, when Bob stood up to walk Sandy out to her vehicle, Edie turned to her daughter. “So, where’s your charge?” she asked.

“Dave’s home now,” Ali said. “I dropped her off with him.”

“Does he know what she’s been up to?” Edie asked.

“Crystal’s supposed to tell him.”

“What if she doesn’t?” Edie asked.

“Then I’ll probably have to,” Ali allowed. “I don’t want to be stuck in the middle of it, but I’ll do it if I have to.”

Edie clicked her tongue. “It’s going to break Dave’s heart when he has to take her to a doctor to have her tested for STDs.”

Ali looked at her mother in surprise. She had always been baffled by her mother’s uncanny ability to see everything and know everything, and the fact that Edie Larson was conversant on the subject of sexually transmitted diseases seemed to be another case in point.

“Crystal told you what she’d been up to?” Ali asked.

“She didn’t have to tell me a thing,” Edie Larson returned. “All I had to do was look at her. I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.”

By four that afternoon, Ali had made several calls to California. Then with Sam curled contentedly on the couch beside her, Ali was ready to reply to Velma Trimble’s e-mail:

Dear Velma,

I’m so sorry it’s taken so long to get back to you. Things have been crazy around here. I’ve spoken to several doctors in your general area. The one that’s getting the highest marks is a concierge medical practice in Costa Mesa called Cancer Resource Specialties. I guess you’d call them a cancer care clearing- house.

You pay a set fee to join their practice, and none of that fee would be covered by either insurance carriers or by Medicare. Cancer Resource then provides routine medical care. After all, people with cancer still get the flu. On the cancer front, however, they arrange for referrals to appropriate specialists all over the country. They help organize appointments with oncologists, arrange for scans and MRIs, put patients in touch with surgeons, pain management specialists, and whatever else may be needed. In other words, you pay them to know all the stuff you need to find out right now when you don’t have the time or the energy to track it all down on your own.

The woman who started Cancer Resource is an internist named Dr. Nancy Cooper. I met her several years ago at a luncheon and found her to be very impressive. She got involved when she realized how dealing with the ins and outs of a cancer diagnosis can simply overwhelm both the patient and the patient’s family. Her whole focus is trying to coordinate care and smooth out some of those rough spots.

As I said at the beginning, this service is relatively

expensive, but I have no doubt it’s well worth whatever she charges. Her fee scale is listed on her Web site. Check it out. If this is more than you can afford, let me know and I’ll see what other options may be available.

ALI

With that out of the way, it was only natural for Ali to turn to the blog. The cutloose mailbox was brimming over with comments, all of them dealing with her last post, the one she had written just after she had learned of Crystal’s disappearance. Without knowing the girl had been found, Ali’s readers were still hanging in limbo-still waiting to hear. Scanning through the outpouring of commentary, Ali was interested to see that responses often touched on opposite sides of the same story.

Dear Babe,

My father was an abusive drunk. My mother was a doormat who would never say a word when he lit into us kids with a belt or a spoon or whatever else came readily to hand. I thought nothing could be worse than staying where I was, so when I was fifteen I ran away from home. How wrong I was. By the time I was eighteen I’d had three abortions and was strung out on heroin. I’m clean and sober now, but I also have hepatitis C and am HIV positive. My father sobered up years ago. My younger sister says he’s a different person now. She thinks I should come home-that I should forgive him and let bygones be bygones. It’s not fair. He got his life back. Mine is over. I hope your friend finds his daughter before it’s too late. I hope it’s not his fault that she ran away.

DAWN

Ali studied that one for a long time. There was so much hurt in the words, she hardly knew where to begin in crafting a response:

Dear Dawn,

The life you have is the life you have, and it isn’t over until it’s over. Don’t give up too soon. And your sister may be right. Forgiving your father may make it possible for you to forgive the other person in your life who needs forgiveness-yourself.

I think your comment is an important one, and I’d like to post it on the blog, but I won’t do so without your express permission. Please let me know.

BABE

The next one came from the parent of a missing child.

Dear Babe,

I’ll be praying for the girl’s safe return. My daughter Sally disappeared when she was twelve-on January 11, 1966-forty-one years to the day before your friend’s daughter went missing. That’s why, when I read your post, it made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. We still don’t know what happened to our Sally or if she’s dead or alive. Part of me knows that she’s dead-has always known that she’s dead. But another part of me still hopes that someday the front door will slam open and she’ll be standing there saying, “Mama, I’m home.”

Please let us know if your friend’s daughter returns safely.

LOUANN

Ali posted that comment and skimmed the rest. More comments came clicking in while she was reading. In the end, there were so many that it simply wasn’t feasible to respond to them all individually. She replied in her post instead.

CUTLOOSEBLOG.COM

Wednesday, January 11, 2006, supplemental