J is for Judgement

was in the area, Wendell Jaffe probably wasn't far away.
    12 BACK IN SANTA TERESA, I went straight to the office, where I hauled out my portable Smith-Corona and typed up my notes, recording the events of the past two days as well as names, addresses, and miscellaneous data. Then I calculated the time I'd put in and tacked on gasoline and mileage. I was probably going to bill CF at a flat rate of fifty bucks an hour, but I wanted to have an itemized accounting ready in case Gordon Titus turned all prissy and authoritarian. Down deep, I knew this rapt attention to the paperwork was only a thinly disguised cover for my mounting excitement. Wendell had to be close by, but what was he doing and what would it take to bring him into the light? At least the Renata sighting had confirmed my hunch. . . unless the two of them had split up, which didn't seem likely. He had family here. I wasn't sure she did. On an impulse, I checked the local telephone directory, but there were no Huffs listed. Hers was probably an alias just as his name was. I would have given just about anything to lay eyes on the maIl, but that was beginniI1g D feel about as likely as a UFO sighting.
    At this stage of any investigation, I'm inclined to impatience. It always feels the same way to me -- as though this is the case that's finally going to do me in. so far, I haven't blown a gig. I don't always succeed in ways that I anticipate, but I haven't yet failed to bring l case to resolution. The problem with being a PI is here isn't any rule book. There's no set procedure, no company manual, and no prescribed strategy. Every case is different, and every investigator ends up flying by the seat of her (or his) pants. If you're doing a background check, you can always make the rounds, looking up deeds, titles, births and deaths, marriages, divorces, credit information, business and criminal records. Any competent detective quickly learns how to follow the rail of paper bread crumbs left by the private citizen wandering in the bureaucratic forest. But the success of l missing persons search depends on ingenuity, persistence, and just plain old dumb luck. The leads you develop are based on personal contact, and you better be good at reading human nature while you're at it. I sat and thought about what I'd learned so far. It really wasn't much, and I didn't feel I was any closer to homing in on Wendell Jaffe. I began to transcribe my notes onto index cards. If all else failed, maybe I could shuffIe them and deal myself a game of solitaire.
    The next time I looked up, it was 4:35. My Spanish class met on Tuesday afternoons from 5:00 until 7:00. I really didn't need to leave for another fifteen minutes, out I'd exhausted my little storehouse of clerical skills. I slipped the paperwork in a folder and locked the file cabinet. I locked the office door behind me, went out through the side door, and down the stairs. I had to stand on the street comer for a good sixty seconds, trying to remember where I'd parked my car. It finally occurred to me and I was just setting off when I heard Alison yoo-whooing from the window.
    "Kinsey!"
    I shaded my eyes against the late afternoon sun. She was on the little third-floor balcony outside John Ives's office, blond hair hanging over the railing like a latter- ay Rapunzel. "Lieutenant Whiteside's on the line. You want me to take a message?"
    "Yes, if you would, or he can call my machine and leave a message himself. I'm going off to class, but I'll be home by seven-thirty. If he wants me to call back, ask him to leave me a number."
    She nodded and waved, disappearing from sight.
    I retrieved my car and drove over to the adult ed facility, which was two miles away. Vera Lipton pulled into the parking lot, arriving shortly after I did. She turned into the first half-empty aisle on her right. I'd eased into the second aisle on the left, parking closer to the classroom. Both of us were testing theories about how to make the quickest getaway once Spanish class ended. Most of the available classrooms had been pressed into service, and there were anywhere from a hundred and "fifty to two hundred students piling into cars at the same time.
    I grabbed my legal pad, my pile of papers, and my copy of 501 Spanish Verbs. I locked the car in haste and made a diagonal cut across the parking lot, intercepting Vera. We'd first met when I was still doing periodic investigations for California Fidelity Insurance, where she was employed as an