The Color of Light by Wendy Hornsby Page A

to be described as lanky, but now a bit stooped. Age aside, he looked sufficiently intimidating in his crisply pressed uniform with a gun holstered on his Sam Browne belt to do his job. He gave me a fish-eyed going-over as I used my card to gain access to the ATM lobby.
    â€œHello, Mr. Riley,” I said.
    â€œIt’s been a while,” he said, smiling when he recognized me. He touched the shiny bill of his cap in a sort of military salute. When the lobby door lock clicked, he pulled it open and held it for me.
    While I waited for a man who had finished his business inside to fumble his cash into his wallet before leaving, I asked, “How are you?”
    â€œGood enough,” Chuck said, still holding the door. “How’s your mother?”
    â€œMom’s doing well. You know she moved?”
    â€œGeorge Loper mentioned that. You’re in town closing up the house, I understand.”
    â€œI am.” I shifted my shopping bag higher on my shoulder. “How’s your family?”
    â€œHanging in.” His smile became closer to a sneer when he said, “But I suppose Kevin already filled you in on the details, eh?”
    There were ugly undertones in that question. What sort of nasty spin was Karen Loper putting on Kevin’s visit to my house that morning as she made her rounds?
    The answer to Chuck’s question was, no. Kevin had said nothing about his wife’s family at all, and never mentioned his wife, Lacy, by name.
    Wallet satisfactorily stowed away, the man inside the ATM lobby finally came out. Without addressing Chuck’s last remark, I said, “Nice to see you, Mr. Riley,” and stepped past him. When I came back out a few minutes later, he had his back toward me, giving directions to a tourist holding a map.
    I hiked the bag up on my shoulder again as I turned and walked away.
    An afternoon breeze blew in off San Francisco Bay, full of salt and fish and a hint of petroleum fumes wafting up from the freeway. It was early for rush hour but traffic streaming out of the City was already so heavy that the line of cars seeping over the Bay Bridge and up the freeway looked like one continuous snake undulating along the shore as far as I could see in any direction. Grim going for those trapped in it.
    Instead of cutting across the campus, as I normally would, I detoured for a look at my elementary school. On the way, I passed the pharmacy where Dad had spotted Isabelle watching for me. Bay Laundry and Dry Cleaners was two doors down. It would be pointless, I knew, to go in and ask whoever was there who might have been driving their delivery truck on a particular Monday morning over thirty years ago. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained, I thought, and not for the first time. Even though the chance of solving a thirty-year-old murder was remote, especially when there was scant surviving evidence, maybe the right question to the right person might dislodge an essential bit of information out of hibernation. Who knew?
    I ask questions for a living, so I went in.
    â€œGood afternoon.” The young woman at the counter looked up from a chemistry textbook. “Picking up?”
    â€œNo,” I said. After an awkward-feeling moment—what was my excuse for being there?—I pulled out one of my business cards with the network logo in the middle and asked if the owner was on the premises. The woman raised her eyebrows and looked from the card to me, and back again.
    â€œJoe’s out in the shop, but he’s busy,” she said. “Can I tell him what you need?”
    I lied: “I have a few questions about running a family-owned business. If he could give me just a minute or two.”
    â€œI’ll ask,” she said in a way that gave me little hope. Probably for the best, I thought. Why waste his time?
    A man I guessed to be in his fifties, wearing starched green work pants and matching shirt with the laundry’s logo stitched over the