Someone Always Knows by Marcia Muller Page A

starting your next book for a couple of months?”
    “Yeah. Why?”
    “How about helping me out in the hunt for Renshaw?”
    Rae often assisted me with my cases—her way, she said, of gathering material for her books, and keeping her hand in at her former profession. She’d always been great at tracking people down.
    She considered. “Okay. I usually get pretty bored after I deliver a book. But isn’t the PD doing anything about him?”
    “I spoke with Larry Kaufman. He said he’d have somebody try to get a line on Renshaw, but I haven’t heard back. Maybe they couldn’t spare the man power.”
    “Wouldn’t surprise me: short on money and perks, short on experienced personnel. I know Larry; I’ll give him a call in the morning. We’ll find the asshole, don’t you worry.”
    9:55 p.m.
    We’ll find the asshole, don’t you worry.
    I thought about those words of Rae’s as I drove home after a hearty dinner of her beef stew. She’d told me years ago that she’d always be part of what my present staff insisted on calling Team McCone. And she’d proven it again and again.
    Friendship. What creates it? What sustains it? Similarity of worldview, certainly. Good luck. Give and take. Mutual respect and trust. But there are many more indefinable components that make friendship a mysterious phenomenon. I’ve always been fortunate in my friends, as I have been in my family members and employees.
    The cats were hungry when I got home. I wished that in this new neighborhood I could find someone as reliable as Chelle Curley to look after them when neither Hy nor I was home. But, I reminded myself, Chelle had grown up and now was well on her way to a career as a rehabber. I wondered if she’d persuaded Chad to sell her the house.
    I still had reservations about the rehab job, but I’d had to learn to let my younger friends make their own decisions.
    11:32 p.m.
    For a while I tried to read. Several of my favorite authors had new books out, but my restless mind-set would have ruined good beginnings. I’d flicked through the TV menu, but nothing—current or old—piqued my interest. In between efforts, I’d tried to reach Hy at his various contact numbers, but with no success. Finally I shut off all the lights, wrapped myself in a soft afghan, and lay down on the living room sofa in front of the gutterings of the fire I’d earlier built.
    Wind baffled around the chimney and occasionally sent little puffs of ash against the fire screen. The four yew trees planted across the house’s façade scraped rhythmically. Close by, a dog woofed, and I frowned, recalling Chad Kenyon’s remark about families with children leaving the city for the burbs and “taking their damn dogs with ’em too.” The comment smacked of one of the many changes in San Francisco that concerned me. What was a city without families? Without its children, pets, playgrounds, and parks? What was a city where everyone flashed platinum cards but looked as if they’d just hopped off a Google bus?
    We used to see elegant old ladies in hats and gloves, strolling in Union Square or lunching at elegant bistros off its alleyways. Elegant gentlemen too, rushing from one important appointment to another. Many of the well-known street performers—mimes, musicians, singers, orators—had faded away. Neighborhoods were becoming indistinguishable, and people who should have known better—given the fancy labels on their beer and wine bottles, pizza and sandwich containers—had taken to dumping their post-picnic trash without regard for amply provided refuse bins in our parks.
    My thoughts about the city were making me sad, so I wrapped the afghan tighter, closed my eyes, and focused on the day ahead. First thing, try Hy again. Then, when he told me what he thought Renshaw’s motivation was, I’d move on.

 
    8:22 a.m.
    I dialed Hy’s cell as soon as I felt coherent in the morning. The call went to voice mail. Now, that wasn’t like him at all. He always