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"What’s the story on him?"

"Typical of the tie as a clean-cut kid and ca like a bum I believe it was the sual showed up in a yellow school bus He’d been traveling across the country, thinking what a free spirit he hile he borrowed nant and the two of them were broke Deborah and Patrick offered the perirl already had one kid, five or six years old Greg parked the bus on one side of the cabana and that’s where they hung out I used to see the little boy running around the front yard without a stitch of clothes on Deborah and Patrick were fit to be tied To top it off, once the baby was born, Greg and what’s-her-face took off with the boy and left the little girl behind After two years of no contact and no financial support, the court terhts and the Unruhs adopted her"

"Sounds like a soap opera"

"It was They thought they’d seen the last of theain some time later, in the sans in psychedelic paint It was the talk of the neighborhood Greg had changed his naet what her name was before Her son was ten or eleven by then They called him Sky Dancer, Sky for short"

"Oh dear," I said "And the daughter was Rain?"

"Patricia Lorraine The shortened version came before it occurred to them to rename theain abruptly some weeks later By then, Deborah orried the day would cohter back so that ht have been another reason she and Patrick packed up and left ‘Gone, no forwarding’ as far as those hippies were concerned"

"Could the bio-mom have done that, reclaimed the child?"

"Hard to say The courts can be capricious when it coes soh in nurture Deborah and Patrick were terrific parents, but why take the risk?"

"Who left first, Greg or his parents?"

"He did, definitely It was the second time he’d decamped with his co up with that again"

"What happened to him?"

"Last I heard, he and Destiny were heavy into free love and dope Flower children That’s what they called the daisies down the rifle barrels of the National Guardshed "That’s right--1967 was the Su?"

He s old--when you start looking back with kindness on things you knew for sure were ridiculous at the ti Kids I see these days don’t seem to have passions of any kind"

"That’s the other way you know you’re getting old When you say crap like that," he said with a laugh "Anyway, I didn’t nificant?"

"I don’t know, but I’ll tell you what’s bugging ’s body was stolen from the veterinarian who put him to sleep Does that make sense to you?"

"Not ive up, youup I think the pieces are there I just don’t understand how they fit"

I left his house, walking past my car on my way to her place next door In truth, I was talked out for the day and I would have preferred to head home I had a lot to absorb and I wanted to make notes while the information was fresh At the same tiured I ht as well make contact while I was close I hadn’t known her name before Felixwith the neighbors in the houses across the street It had been a while since I’d done an old-fashioned canvass, trotting fro e of Ben Byrd and Morley Shine, this was hoas done You followed a trail of cruh the forest and pecked them up one by one Thus far, I was still lost, but my appetite hadn’t been satisfied so on I went