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half the fun. I knew Polo wasn’t listed in the current phone book, but Itried information, thinking he might have had a phone put in. There was no new listing for him.
    I put a call through to my pal at the utility company, inquiring about a possible service connection. Their records showed nothing. Apparently he hadn’t applied for water, gas, or electricity in the area in his own name, but he could be renting a room somewhere, paying a flat rate, with utilities thrown in.
    I put calls through to five or six fleabag hotels on lower State Street. Polo wasn’t registered and nobody seemed to spark to the name. While I was at it, I tried John Daggett’s name and got nowhere.
    I knew I wouldn’t get so much as a by-your-leave from the local Social Security office and I doubted I’d find Billy Polo’s name among the voter registration files.
    Which left what?
    I checked my watch. Only thirty minutes had passed since I talked to Jonah. I wasn’t sure how long it would take him to call back and I didn’t want to waste time sitting around until I heard from him. I grabbed my windbreaker, locked the office, and went down the front stairs to State Street, walking two blocks over and two blocks up to the public library.
    I found an empty table in the reference department and hauled out Santa Teresa telephone directories for the past five years, checking back year by year. Four books back, I found Polo. Great. I made a note of theMerced Street address, wondering if his prison sentence accounted for the absence of a listing since then.
    I went over to the section on Santa Teresa history and pulled out the city directory for that year. In addition to an alphabetical listing by name, the city directory lists
addresses
alphabetically so that if you have an address and want to know the resident, you can thumb to the street and number and pick up the name of the occupant and a telephone number. In the back half, telephone numbers are listed sequentially. If all you have is a telephone number, the city directory will provide you with a name and address. By cross referencing the address, you can come up with the name again, an occupation, and the names of neighbors all up and down the same street. In ten minutes, I had a list of seven people who had lived in range of Billy Polo on Merced. By checking for those seven in the current directory, I determined that two were still living there. I jotted down both current telephone numbers, returned the books to their proper places, and headed back toward my office.
    The sunlight, intermittent for the last hour, was now largely blocked by incoming clouds which had crowded out blue sky, leaving only an occasional patch, like a hole in a blanket. The air was beginning to cool rapidly, a damp breeze worrying at women’s hems. I looked toward the ocean and spotted that silent veil of gray that betokens rain already falling some miles out. I quickened my pace.
    Once in my office again, I entered the new information in the file I’d opened. I was just on the verge of closing up for the day when I heard a tap at the door. I hesitated, then crossed to the door and peered out.
    There was a woman standing in the corridor, late thirties, expressionless and pale.
    â€œCan I help you?” I said.
    â€œI’m Barbara Daggett.”
    Quickly, I prayed this wasn’t wife number three. I tried the optimistic approach. “John Daggett’s daughter?”
    â€œYes.”
    She was one of those icy blondes, with skin as finely textured as a percale bedsheet, tall, substantially built, with short coarse hair fanning straight back from her face. She had high cheekbones, a delicate brow, and her father’s piercing gaze. Her right eye was green, her left eye blue. I’d seen a white cat like that once and it had had the same disconcerting effect. She was wearing a gray wool business suit and a prim, high-necked white blouse with a froth of lace at the