Self-Defence

found.'

'Reverend Best, I don't want to-'

'Don't worry, sir, I don't expect her to be restored. There was only one Rebirth. But the truth- I knew it would come out. 'In your patience possess ye your souls.' '

'We don't really have the truth, Reverend. Just-'

'This is the beginning, sir. What does this witness remember?'

'Just what I told you. Sir.'

'Well, I have things for you. Names, dates, clues. May I show them to you? It may sound stupid, but, please, would you humor an old maniac?'

'Certainly,' I said.

'When can we meet? I'll come to you.'

'How about tomorrow?'

Pause. 'If need be, sir, I'll wait until tomorrow, but today would be better.'

'I could meet you tonight,' I said. 'Around nine.'

'Nine would be perfect. Where shall it be? The file's at my home.'

'Your home's fine.'

'I live in Highland Park.' Repeating the address his son had given me. 'Where are you coming from?'

'The west side.'

'If you'd like I can come to you.'

'No, it's no problem.'

'You're sure? All right, then. I can have it all organized for you by the time you get there. Will you have time for dinner? I can prepare something.'

'That won't be necessary.'

'Coffee, then? Or tea?'

'Coffee.'

'Coffee,' he said, as if committing a menu to memory. 'I look forward to it, sir. God bless you.'

***

At eight-fifteen, I left Robin and Spike in the garage workshop and drove over Malibu Canyon to the 101. Midway through the Valley it turned into the 134, and a few miles later I connected to the Glendale Freeway south and got off just past Eagle Rock, in Highland Park.

The streets were dark, hilly, and tilting, crowded with small houses, duplexes, and apartment buildings on scratch lots, suburban silence broken by a constant freeway dirge. Runt lawns hosted old cars and trucks. The neighborhood had once been working-class white; now it was mostly working-class Hispanic. Gangs had made some inroads. A police chief had lived there, but that hadn't made much difference.

Sherrell Best's home was a single that overlooked a dry wash and the six lanes of asphalt that paralleled it. A box with a low-pitched tar roof. The stucco was sprayed on and looked pink in the nightlight. The grass was split by a concrete walkway. Iron grating shielded the windows.

Spanish music came from the place next door. Best's place was silent but all the lights were on- custard- colored patches behind woven curtains. A twenty-year-old Olds 88 sat in the driveway.

He was at the front door before I got there, a small round man with a small round head. He wore black-rimmed glasses, a wash-and-wear white shirt, and a narrow gray clip-on tie.

'Dr. Delaware?' he said, holding the door open, then closing it behind us and double-bolting. The house smelled of canned vegetable soup. The front was divided between a low narrow living room and a dining area even more pinched. The furniture was old and fussy-looking and arranged very neatly: polished wood tables with Queen Anne legs, beaded lamps with floral shades, overstuffed chairs sleeved with doilies. A gray hooked rug spread on the vinyl floor like a sleeping pet. The walls were covered with framed posters of biblical scenes. All the characters looked Nordic and on the brink of emotional collapse.

'Here's our coffee, sir. Please sit down.'

The dining table was bridge-sized and metal-legged, crowded with an electric percolator, two plastic cups on saucers, a box of sugar, a pint container of half-and-half, and a plate of Oreo cookies. Next to that was a two-foot- square cardboard box labeled KAREN in black marker.

We sat down facing each other and Best picked up the pitcher and started pouring. His complexion was florid and mottled, like raw sweetbreads, and his blue eyes popped behind thick lenses. Furrows scored his brow, as if the flesh had been plowed. The rim of his collar bit into his neck flesh like a knife in shortening. His mouth was thin, his nose wide and bulbous with large pores. The little hair he had was slicked and black.

'Karen looked like her mother,' he said. 'Cream and sugar?'

'Black is fine.' I took the cup.

'Mrs. Best was beautiful,' he said. 'Talk of our town was what did she ever see in me.'

Short laugh. Wide spaces between brown teeth, lots of silver fillings.

'My son Craig took after her too. Here, have an Oreo- Karen used to break them apart and eat the filling first. She could spend half an hour on one cookie.'

Behind him, against a backdrop of fruiting trees and golden wet sheaves, a wet-eyed Ruth embraced Naomi.

He filled his own cup. 'So what, exactly, led you to Karen?'

'Just what I told you, Reverend.'

'Memories? Do you have children, doctor?'

'No.'

His lips puckered and his eyes closed for a moment. 'Here.' Reaching for the box. 'Let me show you what I've got, and you tell me if any of it helps you.'

Standing, he shoved his hands deep into the carton, like a surgeon rearranging viscera. What little space was left on the table quickly filled with spiral notebooks, bound stacks of newspaper clippings, and other papers.

He untied the clippings first and passed them to me. The newsprint was brittle and dry, the color of weak tea. The cutouts were twenty-one years old, all from a beachside throwaway called the Shoreline Shopper.

Best ate a cookie, then another, as he watched me read.

The first pages were taken from the classifieds. Two months' worth of a Personals ad, circled in blue:

Lost. Reward. Karen Denise Best, 19 y.o., 5-7, 117, blond hair maybe dyed brown, blue eyes, speaks with a New England accent, appendectomy scar. Our daughter was last seen walking up the road to PCH at the Sand Dollar Restaurant in Paradise Cove. We love her very much and miss her and we are worried. Please call collect, any hour, to 508-555-4532. Any information leading to finding her will be $$$ rewarded.

'Did anyone ever call?' I said.

'Lots of people called. Liars and practical jokers, and some well-meaning people who thought they'd seen her. I paid out eighteen hundred and fifty-five dollars.' He poked a finger under his glasses, rubbing his eye.

I turned back to the clippings. The last was an article from the op-ed page, written by the editor of the paper, a woman named Marian Sonner, and surrounded by ads for local shops. A poor-quality photo of a beautiful fair-haired girl was set in the middle of the text. Even the blurred reproduction couldn't hide the innocence and enthusiasm on the heart-shaped face.

FATHER TRAVELS FROM EAST

IN QUEST FOR MISSING DAUGHTER

MALIBU. Special to the Shopper.

Sherrell Best is a determined man. Maybe even stubborn, but who's to blame him? Isn't stubbornness part of the American Dream, Malibuites?

Raised in the midst of the Great Depression, he fought in World War II, rising to the rank of sergeant, came back and married his high school sweetheart, the lovely Eleanor, and built up a plumbing supplies business from scratch. To top it off, he and Eleanor had two young'uns: beautiful blond Karen and, two years later, freckle-faced