cheek that someone should take a look at, one of your knees has bled through your pants, and your clothes are filthy.'
I drove west on Olympic Boulevard without saying anything.
'And your hands smell like your feet,' she said. 'Simeon, are you going to tell me what's going on?'
'How'd you find him?'
'Just forget it.' She folded her hands primly and stared through the windshield at the rain.
'It's the middle of the day. How do you know he'll be home? Doesn't he work?'
She sniffed. We seemed always to be fighting in cars lately. 'You could get killed,' she said to the air, 'and no one would know for days.'
'So could you. That's what I've been trying to tell you. These people do not give to UNICEF.'
'Stop treating me like Miss World Porcelain of 1988. At the risk of being tedious, let me remind you of a few things. I'm the one they can look up in the phone book, I've been more than a little helpful so far, and I'm the one who found him. I'm also planning to write this whole story, and I think you owe me. I want to know what's happening.'
'I think maybe you should move.'
'Don't be dramatic. In fact, don't be anything. Just shut up and drive.'
I drove.
'Anyway,' she said in an acid tone, 'you're supposed to be good at your job. Surely it's not anything we can't figure out.'
'We already know who,' I said. 'What we want to know is who else, and why. It's whether we can figure them out before they figure us out. And I doubt it.'
'I don't. I'm an optimist.'
'Are you ever.'
'Optimism, as Larry McMurtry said, is a form of courage.'
'It can also be a form of stupidity.'
'Oh, Simeon. You're always so eager to stomp on anything that's growing. Except your stupid roots.'
I didn't feel like someone who was ready to stomp on anything that was growing. But Eleanor usually knew me better than I did.
'So what happened to your cheek?' she asked a few miles later.
'I hurt it killing somebody.'
'Am I supposed to believe that?'
'Up to you.'
'Today?'
'Of course, today. Was I walking around with this cheek last night?'
'Jiminy Christmas, don't you think I ought to know about it? Who do you think you are, Clint Eastwood? I don't believe this. I don't believe you could kill anybody, and if you did, I don't believe you wouldn't tell me.' She glanced discreetly at the speedometer and tightened her seat belt. Then she sighed. 'I don't know, maybe I do believe you could kill somebody.'
I didn't say anything.
'Oh, stuff it,' she said violently. For Eleanor that was real profanity. 'I don't feel like I really know you at all anymore. I'm not even sure I want to.'
'I'm not sure that you should,' I said.
For the next few minutes I concentrated on driving while Eleanor cracked her knuckles very deliberately, one by one. That was always a bad sign. When she started on the second joints I knew we were in for trouble.
'Turn right on Fourth,' she said very quietly. 'And pull over.'
I made the turn and parked Alice under a big deciduous tree that still had a few leaves clinging hopelessly to its branches. Rain strummed flamenco on the roof of the car.
'Here?' I said.
'Here is fine. I've got something to say to you, and I want you to listen. I'm not going to rake over the past, and I'm not going to do character analysis on how you got to be the way you are. You weren't like this when I met you. You were a sweet guy who didn't know where he was going, but you were good at enjoying yourself. Now you're not so sweet anymore, and you don't seem to enjoy yourself very much either. Sometimes I look at you and it's like seeing a stranger through the window of a train. But other times, you're still Simeon.'
I flicked off the windshield wipers.
'Maybe it's because we've never really stopped seeing each other,' she said, 'maybe if we had I'd notice a big change in you. As it is, it's been sort of day-to-day and more-or-less, like getting older. But instead of just getting older, you've been getting different.' She fiddled with the buckle of her seat belt, making a metallic snapping sound. 'But you don't seem to notice that I've changed too. I've been taking care of myself for three years, Simeon. I've published two books, okay? I've got a good job, if I decide to keep it. I've been through some men, nothing as serious as you were, but they've been there when I decided I needed them. When I needed them. Are you listening to me?'
I nodded.
'I want you to stop acting like I'm the person you met all those years ago. I am involved in this. Maybe I'm in danger. If I am, I want to be able to defend myself, and you have to stop pretending that you're wearing forty pounds of armor and biceps, and I'm the fair lady who needs protection. I'm not helpless. I'm not a little girl. I don't scream when I see a mouse or faint at the sight of blood. You have no right to keep anything from me because you think it might make me safer, and I don't believe for a minute that knowing less is going to reduce my vulnerability. And if you've really killed somebody, then I want to know about it not only for me, but for you too. Simeon, I want you to talk to me.' She reached over and put her hand on top of mine.
'Okay,' I said. 'Here?'
'Right here. Right now. If you don't, I'm going to get out of this car. You can go find him alone.'
I told her all of it. When I'd finished she sat quietly, chewing on the ends of her hair.
'Are you going to tell this to Hammond?' she finally said.
'Eventually. When I have to.'
'Why not now?'
'I want to work it out, Eleanor. I want to get the bastard who killed her.'
'It sounds like you already did. But of course, he's not the one you want.'
'No,' I said. 'I want the one who told him to do it.'
'He really pulled her fingernails out,' she said, as though she was trying to digest a fact that contradicted everything she'd ever been taught.
'Is there someplace else you can stay?'
'I'll think about it. I suppose I could move in with Chantra for a week or so.'
'That ought to do it. If I'm not finished by then I'll give it all to Hammond.'
She directed a clear gaze at me. 'Is that a promise?'
'Promise.' I gave her my hand, and we shook. Then she pressed my hand to her cheek, folded her other hand over it, and lowered it to her lap.
She leaned back against the seat of the car and let out a slow breath. 'I'll tell you how I found him,' she said.
She'd called the Times bureau in Sacramento and asked a woman there to check the Church's board of directors. 'It's a California corporation, right?' she asked rhetorically. 'That's what that sleazy Brooks man said. That means their corporate articles and their board of directors have to be on file with the Secretary of State. It's a big board, and one of its members is a Mrs. Caleb Ellspeth. Mary Claire, in other words.'
'Well, well. Did you get the whole list?'
'Of course.'
'Have you got it?'
'In my purse.'
'And Caleb Ellspeth was in the phone book.'
'No,' she said, sounding pleased in spite of herself. 'He wasn't. He was on the Times subscription list. I went into the computer, and there he was, Caleb Ellspeth, right in Venice, only about a mile from me. I was so excited,
