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his pale arms and stoop, Raveneau saw strength at the shoulders, a stark contrast to the rest. His eyes were bright as if anticipating something in this encounter, and that he was there at all made Raveneau wary. This wasn’t a trail and he didn’t see anybody earlier and the guy was clearly watching him approach, waiting.
    ‘Brandon Lindsley,’ he said. ‘I was a grad student in history at the same time as Ann Coryell. I knew her fairly well. I talked to her all the time. I remember when she first raised the idea of our collective unconscious as a living thing. I always come here in the early fall around the time of year she disappeared, but I’m not some freak, Inspector. Don’t worry. I don’t have a hidden gun, but I do know who you are. I know the case is open again. I was hugely influenced by her and I liked her a lot and I care that her killer is caught.
    ‘There was a TV report last night on the skulls in the fallout shelter. They said you and your partner were investigating the case, so I googled you both and found photos. That’s how I recognized you, but I came out here this afternoon because I was thinking about her. I still miss her. I miss the way she saw the world. She was special.’
    ‘I’m a little slow here. You were at Cal with her?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And your name is Brandon Lindsley?’
    ‘Yes. I was in grad school at the same time and we both were writing dissertations on aspects of nineteenth-century American history. But I wasn’t in her league and I didn’t last in grad school. I couldn’t really find my place. I didn’t fit and fumbled around and wasted years. I had the money to pay for it, so I didn’t have to get things figured out. Sorry, I know that’s too much information.
    ‘I got to know her much better when she was living in Lash’s guest cottage. I knew Lash pretty well. He was my professor also and if I had a role model it was him. I’m still trying to imitate him. I’ve written a couple of pop history books, though I haven’t sold any yet. One of them is up on Amazon if you want to check that out, but I’m still looking for a publisher. I can name the characters in every book Professor Lash wrote. I know he was a suspect but you’ve got to admit he’s a pretty clever guy. I’m working on a new one now, a book about a miner living in San Francisco during the Gold Rush, Mark Twain meets Grizzly Adams.’
    ‘Do you want to walk up with me?’
    ‘Sure.’
    ‘Are you still in contact with Professor Lash?’
    ‘I saw him a month ago but he’s pretty sick now. I never believed he killed her. SFPD didn’t either.’ He turned and smiled. ‘What do you think now?’
    ‘I think it’s going to get dark soon.’
    They climbed back to where Raveneau had parked and, as it turned out, Lindsley as well. Raveneau gave him a card and got Lindsley’s cell number as he asked again how Lindsley happened to be out here this afternoon. He checked out Lindsley’s car and got the plates and ran them on the drive back to San Francisco.

EIGHT
    R aveneau heard her scream though it was faint and masked by wind rattling through the dry eucalyptus trees. The trees shed long tinder-dry strips of bark which broke underfoot as he worked left through the grove, turning once back upslope, using the stick frame of the cottage to tell where he was. He needed to hurry. La Rosa was impatient with the idea to start with and wouldn’t remain in the bomb shelter long.
    A surveyor’s map showed an easement for underground power lines that slashed across part of Lash’s former property and then angled down through the eucalyptus. His guess was the builder of the bomb shelter quietly reopened the trench and added the air intake duct after the power went in and the utility crew left in 1962. If that was true he should be able to find the other end of the vent feeding air into the bomb shelter. Somewhere it surfaced.
    He crossed a shallow gulley and started up the other side when he heard her