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I shrugged, watching him carefully "Just tell me the truth What else can you do?"

"I could keep my mouth shut, which is what I’ve done to date"

"Maybe it’s time to speak up," I said

He was quiet for a moment

"Who was she involved with?"

His sht Reverend Haws What a pal he turned out to be He knew I lusted after her, so he counseled me in matters ot purity and self-control He never mentioned what he did with her himself"

I stared at him "Are you sure of that?"

"She worked at the church, cleaning Sunday-school rooms Wednesdays at four o’clock before choir practice started, he would pull his pants down around his knees and lie back across his desk while she worked on him I used to watch from the vestry… Mrs Haws, our dear June, suffers froinated just about that time Resistant to treatht after the other A, don’t you think?"

A chill rippled down e was vivid, his tone matter-of-fact "Who else is aware of this?"

"No one, as far as I know"

"You never mentioned it to anybody at the time?"

"Nobody asked, and I’ve since left the church It turned out not to be the kind of co for"

The San Luis county clerk’s office is located in the annex, right next door to the County Courthouse on Monterey It was hard to believe that only yesterday ere all convening for Bailey’s arraign place across the street, inserted coins in theredwood and into the annex entrance The corridor was lined with ray with darker streaks The county clerk’s office was on the first floor, through double doors I set to work Using Jean Timberlake’s full name and the date of birth I’d pulled froe nu her birth certificate The records clerk looked up the original certificate and, for eleven dollars, made me a certified copy I didn’t much care if it was certified or not What interested me was the information it contained Etta Jean Timberlake was born at 2:26 AM on June 3, 1949, 6 Ibs, 8 oz, 19 inches long Her ravida 1, para 1, fifteen years old and une physician was Joseph Dunne

I found a public phone and looked up his office The nu service picked up He was out on Thursdays, not due in again till Mondayat ten "Do you kno I can reach him?"

"Dr Corsell’s on call If you’ll leave your naet in touch" "What about the Hot Springs? Could Dr Dunne be up there?"

"Are you a patient of his?" I set the receiver back in the cradle and let myself out of the booth Since I was already don, I debated briefly about stopping by the hospital to see Royce Ann had said he was asking for me, but I didn’t want to talk to hi one of the back roads, an undulating band of asphalt that wound past ranches, walled tract "estates," and new housing develop lot The hotel couldn’t be doing enough business to sustain the good doctor and his wife I angledas I had before the dense chill in the air The sulfur ses of some befouled nest

This time I bypassed the spa entrance and went around to the front, up wide concrete stairs to the wraparound porch A row of chaise longues lent the veranda the look of a ship’s deck Under a canopy of oaks, the ground sloped down gradually, leveling out then for a hundred yards until it ht a gliht Two tennis courts occupied the only other portion of the property graced with sun The surrounding fence was screened by shrubs, but the hollow pok… pok suggested that at least one court was in use

I pushed through a double-wide door of carved lass The lobby was built on a grand scale, riht frohts Thewas obscured by yards of gray canvas dropcloth, speckled with old paint Scaffolding erected along talls suggested that the wood paneling was in the process of being sanded and refinished Here, at least, the harsh sent aros that burbled under the property like a cauldron