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never wrote another book. His big book continued
     making money throughout his life. It was filmed in 1960,
     and a new paperback release again sold in vast numbers,
     making an encore visit up the bestseller charts. Huggins
     viewed Richard as a tragic literary figure, lonely and
     sensitive and often mean, ever seeking and never finding
     some distant personal El Dorado. He continued to live in
     North Bend: had a house built on the property for his wife,
     who soon left him for another man. But there were long
     periods when he disappeared, absorbed into the decadent
     life of Seattle and Los Angeles and New York. In North Bend
     he filled his nights with classical music, so loud it
     rocked the timbers. Often he would drift down to the
     printshop, where he sat up all night composing poems and
     bits of odd prose for nothing more than his own amusement.
     Sometimes he would set these pieces in type, striking off
     one or two or half a dozen copies before dismantling the
     layout and staggering to bed at dawn. Old acquaintances
     might receive these in the mail, lyrical reminders of a
     time long past. One poem, containing four stanzas and
     lovingly printed on separate folio sheets in
     Grayson’s newest typeface, was fished out of the
     garbage by a neighbor. It remains, today, the only known
     copy. An occasional piece might be sent to a childhood
     friend in Atlanta, a girl he once knew in Hollywood, an old
     enemy in Reno who, inexplicably, kept it, only to learn
     later that it was worth real money. These would arrive out
     of the blue, the North Bend postmark the only hint of a
     return address. In an apologia, Huggins described the
     bibliographer’s nightmare of trying to include it
     all—there was simply no telling how many had been
     done and completely destroyed, and new scraps were turning
     up all the time. At least one Grayson collector had
     assembled more than two hundred unpublished poems and bits
     of prose, set in type by Richard in his odd moments. There
     had been talk of getting these writings published, if
     rights could be determined and the heirs could ever agree.
     A dual biography had been published three years ago: titled
Crossfire
with the subtitle
The Tragedies and Triumphs of Darryl and Richard
     Grayson
, it had been written by a woman named Trish Aandahl and
     brought out by the Viking Press. The Graysons died together
     in a fire that destroyed the printshop on October 14, 1969.
     Both had been drinking and apparently never knew what
     happened to them. Aandahl was cited by Huggins as the chief
     source of information on Grayson’s final project,
     which had been destroyed in the fire. It had engaged him
     for years, off and on around other work. Reportedly he had
     designed two intricate, separate-though-compatible
     alphabets for the two parts, English and French. Based on a
     few surviving letters and the recollections of people who
     knew him, Huggins was able to pinpoint the French volume as
     Baudelaire’s
Flowers of Evil
.
    I remembered that Baudelaire had been one of Poe’s
     biggest fans in his lifetime. In fact, Baudelaire had
     translated Poe’s works into French.

4
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    I flew to Seattle the same afternoon. The job was a piece of
     cake, Slater said at the airport. The kid had no priors and
     had offered no resistance to the deputy who arrested her in
     the woods. No weapon had been found, either in
     Rigby’s possession or in a search of the vicinity.
     The shooting was believed to be an act of panic, and Rigby
     had ditched the gun immediately afterward. At the bond
     hearing her lip had described her as a sweet kid committed
     to nonviolence. She was either Mother Teresa or Belle
     Starr, take your pick. I took my gun along for the ride. I
     wasn’t about to shoot the kid, but when you’ve
     been a cop as long as I was, you don’t leave home
     without it. I cleared it through the airline and tucked it
     in my bag, which I checked through luggage. I was also