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help. Lenny's got a place in Calistoga. No one answers the phone, but it would be just like him to be holed up there, sulking. I could ask Phil Leider—"
    "He doesn't know anything. But he talked about it all the way up from San Francisco."
    "So he did pick you up, the sweetie." A flicker of a grin crossed her face.
    "Why the hell didn't you stop him? I might have wound up in some ditch."
    "I thought you'd enjoy the experience. And he was only trying to help."
    " He wasn't ticked off about Lenny?"
    " You kidding? Don't waste your time worrying about Leider Vineyards. They're coining it. You should see the castle he just built. Swimming pool. Private screening room."
    "How very Hollywood."
    "Rumor has it he shows dirty skin flicks to a select few. I haven't been invited yet, but I have hopes."
    "Where else should I look for Lenny?" He gave in with a grimace and a secret vow not to waste more than twenty-four hours at the task. "Girlfriend?"
    Kate shrugged. "There's his ex, of course. I think she's somewhere back east. She may have heard from him. I don't know of any local contender."
    " No gossip? You're slipping." `
    "If there is, you'll hear it soon enough."
    Spraggue's right eyebrow shot up.
    She laughed. "How do you do it?"
    "The trick with the eyebrow? I'm not telling."
    " No. How can you keep asking questions like that? Rattling them off like a cop?"
    " Practice," he said. "I was once a private investigator."
    " I will never understand that particular episode in your life, Spraggue. Want me to rub your back?"
    He refused. The temptation was still there, clouding his judgment. She sat next to him on the rock, close but not touching. "I'm not sure I understand it," he said. "Romantic illusions, maybe. Mostly I dug up dirt everybody would have been better off not knowing."
    She nibbled at the corner of a fingernail and shot him a sidelong glance. "So you went back to fantasy land. You and your actor eyes."
    " Actor eyes?"
    " They show exactly what you're thinking, what you're going to do next. They do, Michael. When you relax, they're like windows, but the minute you start asking questions, I can't see through them anymore. They glaze over."
    "Otherwise I'd need a blindfold," he said. "Your eyes never give you away. I can't tell what you're thinking."
    " Good," she said.
    " Kate, I have to ask one more question."
    " Shoot."
    "Did you recognize that body?"
    " Spraggue—"
    " Come on. Someone put it where you'd find it. Or where you'd take the blame for it."
    "I didn't find it. The cops did."
    " Did they say why they looked? Why they just happened to check out the car trunk?"
    "They didn't answer questions. They asked them. Like you."
    Spraggue bent over and twisted a clover stem until it broke off in his hand. "Sorry."
    " Spraggue?"
    " Yeah."
    "I really didn't recognize that body. But . . ."
    "But?"
    " But what if Lenny did?"
    "He could have stuffed the body into that old car wreck, if that's what you mean. He certainly knew where the car was, knew that nobody was likely to disturb it."
    Kate brushed a leaf out of her hair, wound a strand tightly around her index finger. "Then that could be why he disappeared .... "
    " The timing would be about right."
    Kate stayed silent, closed her eyes.
    " Do you still want me to find him?" Spraggue asked.
    "Yes."
 
    4
    Kate waved him out of sight, leaning back against the railing of the sagging white porch. Déja vu.
    Spraggue sucked in his breath. Seven years ago . . . Hell, seven years ago was seven years ago. Now was now. They'd have to rip the old house down soon and build something showier, nostalgia or not. With a tasting room for the tourists. Holloway Hills wasn't amateur stuff anymore. Not with over ten thousand cases projected for the '80 harvest.
    Lenny's place was barely more than a shack, isolated on a mountain road just beyond the Calistoga city limits. Spraggue drove by once, no more slowly than the winding road demanded. No car in the narrow gravel driveway. A total