T Is for Trespass

flyer, thinking I might pick up a client in the bargain. Aside from that, I thought it lent an earnest air to my quest.
    I spent most of the afternoon canvassing the hillside homes off Palisade across the road from the entrance to Santa Teresa City College. I parked my car on a side street near a two-story apartment complex and proceeded on foot. I must have knocked on fifty doors. When I was lucky enough to find someone at home, I explained the situation and my need to locate a witness to the accident. I underplayed the notion that he might end up testifying on behalf of the defendant. Even the most conscientious of citizens is sometimes reluctant to commit to a court appearance. Given the vagaries of the judicial system, a witness can spend hours sitting in a drafty corridor only to be excused when opposing parties reach a pretrial settlement.
    After two hours I’d learned absolutely nothing. Most of the residents I spoke with were unaware of the accident and none had seen a man who matched the description of the witness I sought. If there was no response to my knock, I left a flyer in the door. I also tacked flyers to any number of telephone poles. I considered tucking a flyer under the windshield wipers of the cars I passed, but the practice is annoying and I always toss such notices myself. I did leave a flyer taped to the wooden bench at the bus stop. It was probably illegal to use city property for such purposes, but I figured if they didn’t like it, they could hunt me down and kill me.
    At 2:10, having covered the area, I returned to my car, drove across the intersection, and into the college parking lot. I shrugged myself into the jacket I’d tossed on the backseat, locked the Mustang, and walked out to the point where the access road emptied onto the four-lane expanse of Palisade. A length of chain-link fence separated the eastbound from westbound traffic. To my right, the road curved gently down along a slope and out of sight. There was no turn lane designated for vehicles intending to enter the lot from either direction, but I could see that from Lisa Ray’s perspective, an oncoming vehicle would have been visible for approximately five hundred yards, a fact I hadn’t noted on my earlier visit.
    I perched on a low fieldstone wall and watched cars speed by. There was a smattering of foot traffic to and from the campus. Most pedestrians were students or working moms there to pick up kids from a college-run day-care facility on the far corner, near the bus stop. I gathered the day-care operation had no parking spots of its own, so the moms took advantage of the City College lots when picking up their tots. Where possible, I engaged these hapless passersby in conversation, detailing my search for the man with white hair. The moms were polite but distracted, barely responding to my questions before they hurried away, anxious to avoid being dinged with after-hours charges. As the afternoon wore on, there was a steady stream of moms with their little tykes in tow.
    Of the first four students I approached, two were new to the college and two had left town that Memorial Day weekend. A fifth wasn’t even a student, just a woman out looking for her dog. None had anything useful to contribute, but I learned a lot about the intelligence and superiority of the standard poodle. The campus security officer stopped to chat, probably concerned that I was homeless, casing the joint, or flogging designer drugs.
    While he was busy quizzing me, I quizzed him in return. He had a dim recollection of the man with white hair but couldn’t remember when he’d seen him last. At least his response, though vague, gave me a modicum of hope. I handed him a flyer and asked him to get in touch if he should spot the guy again.
    I continued in this manner until 5:15, two hours beyond the time when the accident had occurred. In May, it would have been light until eight. Now the sun set at five. In the back of my mind I was hoping the man had routine business that brought him to the neighborhood the same time each day. I planned to swing by again on Saturday and do a second neighborhood canvass. Weekends I might have better luck finding folks at home. If there was no response to my newspaper ad, I’d return on Thursday of the following week. I abandoned the project for the day and headed home, feeling tired and out of sorts. In my experience, loitering is an enervating act.
    I turned onto my street and made the usual quick search