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except talking with a human being, I
     finally reached a service representative.
    I identified myself as Kate Malloy of the Spaulding Foundation. “On the morning of Wednesday, the second, one of our employees
     made some credit-card calls from Oakland Airport. We haven’t received our bill yet, and I need to find out the time and charges
     as well as the numbers called.”
    “I’m sorry, ma’am, but there’s no way I can access that information. The employee should have asked that the time and charges
     be reported at the conclusion of the calls.”
    “Who
can
access that information?”
    “You might talk with one of the supervisors in the billing office, but it’s closed now.”
    I looked at my watch again. Five straight up. “Thanks for your trouble.”
    There had to be a quicker way to find out what I wanted than waiting until the billing office opened in the morning. I thought
     for a moment, then dialed my friend Adah Joslyn’s extension at the SFPD homicide detail. Adah was out, the inspector who answered
     told me, as was her partner, Bart Wallace. No one knew when they’d be back. For a moment I considered calling my former lover,
     Greg Marcus, now a captain on Narcotics, and asking him to expedite an inquiry to Pacific Bell—but only for a moment. Greg
     operated pretty much by the book, and before he’d make the request, he’d want to know exactly why I needed the information,
     an explanation I wasn’t prepared to give him.
    As I sat drumming my fingers on the base of the phone, a memory nudged at me. I muttered, “What did I do with that card?”
     Grabbing my Rolodex, I thumbed to the
P
’s. Nothing where Pacific Bell would be filed. I could have sworn I’d kept it, though. Phone company, perhaps? No. Telephone?
     No again. Sexy-guy-I-met-at-a-party? Hardly.
    Informant—phone company. Aha!
    His name was Ron Chan, and I’d met him at a Christmas party at my neighbors’ house. We’d hit it off instantly and spent most
     of the evening together. Before I left, he gave me his card—he was a mid-level manager in Pacific Bell’s marketing division—and
     said he’d be glad to help me with information they normally didn’t give out, providing I didn’t misuse it. I hadn’t needed
     any favors since then, and I hadn’t pursued the invitation that his writing his home number on the back of the card implied.
    Now I pulled the card out and turned it over. The home number was a 648 prefix, the same as All Souls’s. It was too early
     for Chan to have returned from his downtown office, so I slipped the card into the pocket of my jeans; I’d try him later.
     Then I dialed Barry Ashford’s number in Vernon, got no answer, and put the paper I’d jotted it down on with the card.
    My purse was still downstairs in Rae’s office, where I’d left it before the partners’ meeting. I’d grab it and head out for
     Ravenswood Road in San Benito County.
    *    *    *
    Once I was past Daly City and out of the fog belt, the early evening turned hot and sunny. Traffic was slow all the way down
     the Peninsula and came to a near standstill in San Jose. Many years of dealing with northern California’s varied climate zones
     have conditioned me to keep a couple of changes of clothing in the car, and as I breathed exhaust fumes I thought longingly
     of the tank top and shorts in the trunk. But joining one of the long lines of exiting cars on the shoulder in order to get
     to a gas station and change seemed like more trouble than it was worth, and even if I could easily have reached my overnight
     bag, I’ve never thought much of disrobing in front of the curious eyes of dozens of fellow motorists. In the end I just kept
     pulling my sweater away from my sticky back and chest, and turned the blowers on the MG’s vents to max.
    Then San Jose—sprawling tracts and office parks where orange groves once stood—was behind me. The highway paralleled railroad
     tracks for a while, fruit stands heaped