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“Do you have those records still?”

“Of course. I have them here at the house somewhere. They’re probably packed already.”

“Find them and I’ll come for them in the morning.”

“I’m already in bed.”

“Then find them in the morning. First thing. It’s important, Graciela.”

“Okay, I will. And look, the one thing I can tell you is that usually if Terry was going to the mainland, he took the boat across so he had a place to stay while he was there. If he was going across but wasn’t going to be in L.A. or was going to be staying at Cedars for tests or something, he would take a ferry because otherwise it would cost too much in boat fuel.”

“Okay.”

“Well, there was one trip in that last month. I think he was gone for like three days. Yes, three days, two nights. He took the ferry. So that meant he was either going across and then somewhere else or to the hospital. And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the hospital. I think he would have told me and I know everybody in cardio at Cedars anyway. They would have let me know he was there and what was going on. I had that place wired.”

“Okay, Graciela, that’s good. That helps. Do you remember exactly when that was?”

“Not exactly. It was the end of February, I think. Maybe the first couple days of March. I remember it was bill time. I called him on his cell to talk about money and he said he was on the mainland. He didn’t say where. He just said he was over there and he’d be back in a couple days. I could tell he was driving when we talked. And I knew he hadn’t taken the boat because I was on the balcony looking at it in the harbor when we talked.”

“Why were you calling him, do you remember?”

“Yes, we had bills to pay and I didn’t know what if anything he had taken in on the boat in February. The credit-card payouts were sent directly here but Terry had a bad habit of walking around with personal checks and cash from customers in his wallet. When he died and I got his wallet back, there were three checks in there for nine hundred dollars that he’d had in there for two weeks. He wasn’t very good at business.”

She said it as though it was one of her husband’s endearing and humorous qualities, though I was pretty sure that during his life she didn’t smile at these oversights.

“A couple more things,” I said. “Do you know if it would be his routine to check in with a hospital in a city he was going to? In other words, if he was going to Las Vegas would he set things up at a local hospital in case he needed anything?”

There was a pause before she answered.

“No, that doesn’t sound like anything he would do. Are you saying he did that?”

“I don’t know. I found a phone number in one of the files. And a name. The number was for Vegas Memorial and I’m trying to figure out why he would call there.”

“Vegas Memorial has a transplant program, I know that. But I don’t know why he would call there.”

“What about the name William Bing, does that mean anything? Could it be a doctor he was recommended to?”

“I don’t know that . . . something about that name is familiar but I can’t place it. It could be a doctor. Maybe that’s where I heard it.”

I waited a moment to see if it came to her but it didn’t. I pressed on.

“Okay, one last thing, where is Terry’s car?”

“It should be over there at Cabrillo, at the marina. It’s an old Jeep Cherokee. There’s a key on the ring I gave you. Buddy also has a key because he uses it sometimes. He basically takes care of it for us. I mean, me now.”

“Okay, I’m going to check that out in the morning, so I’ll need to keep the key. Do you know when the first ferry goes back across?”

“Not till nine-fifteen.”

“Then can we meet at seven-thirty or eight at your house? I want to get those records and also show you a few things. It won’t take too long and then I’ll grab the first ferry.”

“Um, can we make it eight? I should be back by then. I usually walk Raymond to school and take CiCi to day care.”

“No problem. I’ll see you at eight.”

We ended the conversation and I immediately called Buddy