The original Solana-the one whose life she’d borrowed-was a woman she’d worked with for months in the convalescent wing of a home for seniors. The real Solana, whom she now thought of as “the Other,” was an LVN. She, too, had studied to become a licensed vocational nurse. The only difference between them was that the Other was certified, while she’d had to drop out of school before she’d finished the course work. That was her father’s fault. He’d died and no one had stepped forward to pay for her education. After the funeral, her mother asked her to quit school and get a job, so that was what she’d done. She found work first cleaning houses, and later as a nurse’s aide, pretending to herself that she was a real LVN, which she would have been if she’d finished the program at City College. She knew how to do everything the Other did, but she wasn’t as well paid because she lacked the proper credentials. Why was that fair?

She’d chosen the real Solana Rojas the same way she’d chosen the others. There was a twelve-year difference in their ages, the Other being sixty-four years old to her fifty-two. Their features weren’t really similar, but they were close enough for the average observer. She and the Other were roughly the same height and weight, though she knew weight was of little consequence. Women gained and lost pounds all the time, so if someone noticed the discrepancy, it was easily explained. Hair color was another insignificant trait. Hair could be any hue or shade found in a drugstore box. She’d gone from a brunette to a blonde to a redhead on previous occasions, all of which were in stark contrast to the natural gray hair she’d had since she was thirty.

Over the past year, she’d darkened her hair little by little until the match with the Other was approximate. Once, a new hire at the convalescent home had mistaken the two for sisters, which had thrilled her to no end. The Other was Hispanic, which she herself was not. She could pass if she chose. Her ethnic forebears were Mediterranean; Italians and Greeks with a few Turks thrown in-olive-skinned and dark-haired, with large dark eyes. When she was in the company of Anglos, if she was quiet and went about her business, the assumption was that she didn’t speak much English. This meant many conversations were conducted in her presence as though she couldn’t understand a word. In truth, it was Spanish she couldn’t speak.

Her preparations for lifting the Other’s identity had taken an abrupt turn on Tuesday of the week before. On Monday, the Other told the nursing staff she’d given two weeks’ notice. Soon her classes were starting and she wanted a break before she devoted herself to school full-time. This was the signal that it was time to put her plan into operation. She needed to lift the Other’s wallet because a driver’s license was crucial to her scheme. Almost as soon as she thought of it, the opportunity arose. That’s what life was like for her, one possibility after another presenting itself for her personal edification and advancement. She hadn’t been given many advantages in life and those she had, she’d been forced to create for herself.

She was in the staff lounge when the Other returned from a doctor’s appointment. She’d been ill some time before, and while her disease was in remission, she’d had frequent checkups. She told everyone her cancer was a blessing. She was more appreciative of life. Her illness had motivated her to reorder her priorities. She’d been accepted to graduate school, where she would study for an MBA in health care management.

The Other hung her handbag in her locker and draped her sweater over it. There was only the one hook, as a second hook had a screw missing and dangled uselessly. The Other closed her locker and snapped shut the combination lock without turning the dial. She did this so it would be quicker and easier to pop the lock open at the end of the day.

She’d waited, and when the Other had gone out to the nurse’s station, she’d pulled on a pair of disposable latex gloves and given the lock a tug. It hadn’t taken any time at all to open the locker, reach into the Other’s bag, and remove her wallet. She’d slipped the Other’s driver’s license from its windowed compartment and put the wallet back, reversing herself as neatly as a strip of film. She peeled off the gloves and tucked them into the pocket of her uniform. The license she placed under the Dr. Scholl’s pad in the sole of her right shoe. Not that anyone would suspect. When the Other noticed her license was gone, she’d assume she’d left it somewhere. It was always this way. People blamed themselves for being careless and absentminded. It seldom occurred to them to accuse anyone else. In this case, no one would think to point a finger at her, because she made such a point of being scrupulous in the company of others.

To execute the remaining aspect of the plan, she’d waited until the Other’s shift was over and the administrative staff were gone for the day. All the front offices were empty. As was usual on Tuesday nights, the office doors were left unlocked so a cleaning crew could come in. While they were hard at work, it was easy to enter and find the keys to the locked file cabinets. The keys were kept in the secretary’s desk and needed only to be plucked up and put to use. No one questioned her presence, and she doubted anyone would remember later that she’d come and gone. The cleaning crew was supplied by an outside agency. Their job was to vacuum, dust, and empty the trash. What did they know about the inner workings of the convalescent wing in a senior citizens’ home? As far as they were concerned-given her uniform-she was a bona fide RN, a person of status and respect, entitled to do as she pleased.

She removed the application the Other had filled out when she applied for the job. This two-page form contained all the data she would need to assume her new life: date of birth, place of birth, which was Santa Teresa, Social Security number, education, the number of her nursing license, and her prior employment. She made a photocopy of the document along with the two letters of recommendation attached to the Other’s file. She made copies of the Other’s job evaluations and her salary reviews, feeling a flash of fury when she saw the humiliating gap between what the two of them were paid. No sense fuming about that now. She returned the paperwork to the folder and replaced the file in the drawer, which she then locked. She put the keys in the secretary’s desk drawer again and left the office.

2 DECEMBER 1987

My name is Kinsey Millhone. I’m a private investigator in the small Southern California town of Santa Teresa, ninety-five miles north of Los Angeles. We were nearing the end of 1987, a year in which the Santa Teresa Police Department crime analyst logged 5 homicides, 10 bank robberies, 98 residential burglaries, 309 arrests for motor vehicle theft and 514 for shoplifting, all of this in a population of approximately 85,102, excluding Colgate on the north side of town and Montebello to the south.

It was winter in California, which meant the dark began its descent at five o’clock in the afternoon. By then, house lights were popping on all over town. Gas fireplaces had been switched on and jet blue flames were curling up around the stacks of fake logs. Somewhere in town, you might’ve caught the faint scent of real wood burning. Santa Teresa doesn’t have many deciduous trees, so we aren’t subjected to the sorry sight of bare branches against the gray December skies. Lawns, leaves, and shrubberies were still green. Days were gloomy, but there were splashes of color in the landscape-the salmon and magenta bougainvillea that flourished through December and into February. The Pacific Ocean was frigid-a dark, restless gray-and the beaches fronting it were deserted. The daytime temperatures had dropped into the fifties. We all wore heavy sweaters and complained about the cold.