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Spaulding—or maybe because of them—I would investigate. Anne Spaulding’s disappearance did sound suspicious. This could be a legitimate Missing Person’s report.
    “She lives just this side of Claremont,” Nat said. I’ll check the house number.”
    Another truck passed. The operator demanded another payment. The coins clanged.
    Nat came back on the line, reading off the street number. I got out a form and said, I’m taking this down as a report.”
    “Don’t do that. Anne might not like it.”
    “Look, Nat, either she’s missing or not. If it’s not serious enough for a report, maybe you should wait till tomorrow.”
    It was a moment before he said, “No. That’s too long.”
    “Okay, have you called her relatives?”
    “She doesn’t have any. I asked Alec—Alec Effield, our supervisor. Anne came from back East, two or three years ago, and if she had any family they’d be back there. But she certainly never mentioned anyone.”
    “What about friends, lovers?” It was a legitimate question, one I would have asked in any investigation. Over the phone, though, there was no way to tell whether Nat’s silence was due to chagrin at the possibility of lovers or at my bringing it up, or whether he was merely attempting to remember who Anne knew.
    “She never mentioned friends. In fact she talked very little about her personal life.”
    “So what you’re saying is that you don’t know any more than her address?”
    There was another silence that I took for acquiescence.
    “Okay,” I said. “I’ll check, but it’s probably no big thing. Most likely she’ll be home, exhausted from a rushed day in San Francisco, and annoyed to have to talk to the cops.”
    Again Nat was silent, and I wondered if he were reconsidering the whole thing.
    “Jill?”
    “Yes?”
    “Will you call me when you get back?”
    This was important to him. “Sure,” I said. “I’ll call.”
    “Thanks. I’ll be home by nine.” He hung up.
    I sat staring at the phone, feeling my resentment mount. Nat was concerned, all right, but not worried enough to interrupt his evening’s plans.
    I had given Nat special treatment. I hadn’t made him come to the station, or wait for an officer to come out. In truth, had he been a stranger, I wouldn’t have taken a Missing Person’s report from him at all, but told him to find someone closer to Anne to make it.
    Be that as it might, I was committed. I still had half an hour before I was to meet Howard. I got the keys for one of the patrol cars and headed for the parking lot. There I climbed in, moved the seat forward, called the dispatcher, and pulled into traffic.
    It was nearly seven o’clock. The sun was dropping toward the bank of fog that pushed steadily in from the west. On Shattuck, students wrapped heavy Peruvian sweaters around the halters or T-shirts that had been ample four hours ago. I headed east crossing the still-crowded area around Telegraph Avenue. The street vendors who had filled the sidewalks earlier were gone, but university students still hurried to night classes and the Avenue regulars still propped themselves along walls and begged for spare change.
    I drove past People’s Park, empty now, and turned south on College.
    The building Anne Spaulding lived in was a quarter of a mile north of the blocks of small shops—butchers, flower shops, bakeries and fashionable used-furniture stores—the area most people thought of as College Avenue.
    Making a U-turn, I parked in front of Anne’s. It was an apple-green duplex circa 1930. Above the double windows on both floors the stucco was embossed with stylized fruit designs. On the building’s twin across the fence to the south, the fruit had been painted rust and saffron, the leaves aquamarine, a color scheme echoed by the doors and window frames. But this building was just apple green. Even the effect of the lattice windows was muted by the white lining of the drawn drapes behind them.
    The morning newspaper lay on