CHAPTER SEVENFeeling like a total fool, Hobart Lindsey stopped on the way back to Walnut Creek and bought a white snap-brim hat. He’d need it for his appointment with Francis. He was playing detective now, with a vengeance, and he didn’t like it. He’d met more strangers in a couple of days than he normally did in six months, and there wasn’t one of them that he liked.
He left the hat in his car and rode the sterile elevator up to his office. The first thing he did when he got back to his desk was telephone Harden at Regional with his report on Comic Cavalcade.
Harden grunted. He said he wanted a daily report on the case and he wanted to see progress. “What about Patterson?” he asked.
“I’m not going to pay him the quarter million,” Lindsey said. “I’m going to recommend that we sit on the
