'So you think he left in search of another job?'

'Oh yes.'

'He's done this before?'

'Not for this long.' She explained that printing was a nomadic life because companies got big contract orders and hired printers like her father to fill those orders, but that when the jobs were done, the printers were let go. She said that when her father was let go, he would have to look around for another job and that was why they moved around so much.

'Does he have a girlfriend?'

She looked surprised. 'We move around too much for that.'

'How about friends?'

She frowned, thinking hard. 'I don't think he has any friends here either. He might've in Tucson.'

I thought about her GED. I thought about her not liking being the new kid in school. 'How about you?'

'What?'

'Do you have friends?'

She sipped more coffee and didn't answer. Guess they moved around too much for that, too.

'Does your father have a criminal record?'

'No.'

'Does he gamble? Maybe hit the card clubs down in Belflower or put money on sporting events?'

'No.'

'He drink, or have a history of mental problems?'

'Absolutely not.' The fifteen-year-old face hardened and she gripped the cup with both hands. 'Why are you asking questions like that?'

'Because a man doesn't just walk away from his children.'

'You make it sound like he abandoned us.'

I stared at her, and the washing machine changed cycles.

'He isn't anything like that. He isn't a drunk, or have brain problems. He's a good father. He's kind and sweet, and he's been gone before, but he's always come back.' She shook her head. 'There are too many printers and too few jobs. When you hear of something you have to follow up fast or you'll lose out.' She looked affronted, like how could I suggest anything else? 'I'm worried that he went somewhere and had an accident. What if he has amnesia?' Amnesia.

I circled Enright Printing on the little pad. 'Okay. I'll talk to the folks at Enright and see if they know something. Also, it might help if I had a picture.'

She frowned. 'I don't think we have a picture.'

'Everybody has pictures.'

She bit at her lower lip. 'I don't think so.'

'Well, maybe you have a snapshot.' I knew a friend with a fifteen-year-old daughter. She had about a zillion pictures of her cat and her friends and siblings and vacations and school and things. Boxes of the stuff.

Teresa shook her head. 'I guess we're just not camera people.'

I put away the pad and stood. 'Okay, let's go look in your dad's bedroom.'

She looked horrified. 'I don't think he'd like us snooping in his room.'

I spread my hands. 'When you hire a private eye, you hire a snooper. Snooping is how you find people who walk away without telling you where they've gone. Snooping is what I do.'

She didn't like this either, but we went along a little hall and into a bedroom at the back of the house. It was a small room, sparsely furnished with a double bed and a dresser and a nightstand. There were no photographs on the nightstand or the dresser, but large ink drawings of all three children were thumbtacked to the walls. The drawings were done on coarse construction paper with colored felt-tip pens, and appeared to have been torn from a notebook. They were signed CH. 'Wow. Did your father do these?'

'Yes.'

'He's some artist.' The drawings were almost photographic in their realism.

'Uh-huh.'

When I opened the dresser's top drawer Teresa stiffened, but said nothing. I looked through the dresser and the nightstand. Maybe a half-dozen undershirts and underwear and socks were in the dresser, and not much else. There was a closet, but there wasn't much in it, just a single sport coat and a couple of pairs of thin slacks and a raincoat. 'Does it look like he packed for a long trip?'

She peeked into the closet like something might jump out at her, then shook her head. 'Well, I know he had two coats, and two pairs of pants are missing.'

'Okay. So he packed some things.'

'I guess so.'

I stood in the center of the room and tried to come up with an idea. 'Do you have any pictures of your mother?' If there was a picture of the mother, maybe Clark would be in it, too.

She shook her head. 'I don't think so.' Jesus. I had never seen a house without pictures before.

'Okay. Forget pictures. Where does he keep the credit card receipts and bank statements and things like that?'

'We don't use credit cards.'

I stared at her.

'We pay for everything with cash. When you're on a budget, cash is the best way to manage your money.' She was very certain of herself when she said it.

'Okay. No pictures, no credit cards.' No clues.

'We have a checking account and a savings account, though. Would you like to see them?'

'That, and your phone bills.'

The eyes narrowed again. 'Why would you need to see that?'

'The phone bills will show any toll calls made from or charged to your phone. You see?' My head was starting to throb. I guess she wanted me to find him without clues. Maybe I was supposed to use telepathy.

But she finally said, 'Well, okay.' Grudgingly.

'You know where to find that stuff?'

'Of course I know where to find it.' Offended.

I thought that she might find the stuff in her father's room, or maybe lead me out to the kitchen, but she didn't. She brought me to her room. Two twin beds were set against adjoining walls, a small army of stuffed animals on one, pictures of David Duchovny, Dean Cain, and Gillian Anderson above the other. Again, there were no photographs of Teri or her family. I said, 'Who likes Duchovny?'

Teri turned red and disappeared into her closet. Guess I'd gotten my answer.

She reappeared with a shoe box held together by a large rubber band. She put the box on the empty bed, then sorted out thin packets of paper held together with large paper clips. She knew exactly what was what and where it belonged. 'Are the phone bills in there?'

'Un-huh.' A large wad of cash was mixed in with the packets, even larger than the roll she'd brought to my office. She saw me looking at the cash, frowned, then put it in her pocket. Better safe than sorry.

Far away something chimed, and Teri stood. 'That's the washing machine. I have to put our clothes in the dryer.'

'Okay.'

The checking and savings accounts were from the First Western Bank of Tucson, Arizona. The savings account was a simple passbook account with a balance of $1,104.16, and showed no unusual deposits or withdrawals. The checking account held a balance of $861.47, with the last deposit having been made just before they'd left Tucson for Los Angeles. The entry record was neat and orderly and made in a teenage girl's rounded hand. I put the banking papers aside and paged through the phone bills. Since they had been in Los Angeles for only four and a half months, there were only four bills, and most of the toll calls were in the LA area, with more than half to Culver City. Most of those were in the first month. Probably Clark looking for a job, but maybe not.

Two of the calls were to Tucson, and five to Seattle, three of the Seattle calls made in the last month, and two of them lengthy. When Teri came back, I said, 'Who's in Seattle?'

She stared at me as if she didn't understand what I'd said.

'You've got five calls to Seattle here, three in the last month, two of them for a pretty long time.'

'My mom's up there.'

That's where she's buried?'

Nod.

'So your dad might have friends there.'

'I doubt it.' She adjusted her glasses. 'We didn't like it there. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't go back.'

'We'll see.'

'I'm positive he wouldn't.'

'Fine.' Like I shouldn't even waste my time.

I tamped the phone bill pages together, folded them, then put them in my pocket. She didn't like it when I did that either. I gave back the rest of her bills. 'Okay, I'm going to try to find your father, but we have to have an understanding.'