FOURTEENRETURNING TO La Jolla, Kelly and I didn’t find much to say; boy and girl don’t when thrown together with words of advice that could easily be set to wedding march music.
Besides, I was brooding hard over two items. First, Steve Gage knew more than he would tell—at least tell in front of Kelly. And then Patterson kept me intrigued. If he was really bucking for plainclothes, why hadn’t he told the d***s a lot more than their questions indicated they knew?
I dropped Kelly at the travel agency. At Chaparral House I showered and shaved and got the valet service to promise to return the imported Italian pure silk before the 5 P.M checking-out hour. With the grandchild dead, why would H. H. Crossway keep me longer on the assignment?
I drove on up the hill and found the newspaper magnat
