Técnicas e instrumentos de recolección de datos

PG

T he room was

“Josh, this is Walter Hazlitt from Heavensent.” Walter had been my last boss at Heavensent. “I don’t know how to ask this, but I have to. Is Lorraine there?”

“I have not heard from Lorraine since October. I can understand why you might think otherwise.” I remembered Walter as a decent guy, so I resisted the temptation to tell him to mind his own business.

“OK . . . Look, the reason I am asking is nobody has seen her for over two weeks.”

“You mean nobody at Heavensent?” I asked.

“Nobody at all as far as we can find out. Three Sundays ago she got on a plane at LAX bound for San Jose. That’s the last we know.”

“Just ran off? That’s hard to believe. Heavensent was important to her.”

“We’ve called everybody we can think of,” Walter said. “Believe me, asking you is a last resort. She’s not been seen at the office, and has blown off a long list of appointments. Customer meetings, even two big TV interviews. This could hit the papers.”

“Did you report her missing to the police?” Listening to my own voice, I sounded strangely matter-of-fact.

“Yes. Frankly, we’ve had some people stake out the apartment and talk to the neighbors. If Lorraine wants us out of her life, wants to get away, that’s fine, but we are starting to worry.”

“What do the police say?”

“They took the report, but there is no evidence of a crime,” Walter said.

“And a missing persons report really should be made by a relative. You don’t know of any family, do you?”

∧

“I don’t. She was on her own very young. She did not talk a lot about how that happened or why.”

“In our files, she put you down as her contact in case of emergency.”

“To be honest, it’s been a while since she and I have talked,” I said.

“Someone else in her life is a possibility.”

“I know this has gotta be damn hard.”

“Who saw her last?”

“A guy sat across from her in the Canadair Jet,” Walter said. “He and the stewardess remember her boarding and sitting down. They do not remember her getting off. She is shown in the boarding records. They do not remember seeing her for the last half of the flight. But they are sure the plane took off with her on it.”

“She might have changed seats.”

“The stewardess thinks she’d have noticed. Though she’s not completely sure. Nobody saw her in San Jose, nobody has seen her since.”

“Maybe she camped out in the lavatory,” I said.

“That is something the stewardess does keep an eye out for. She swears that could not have happened.”

“Well, noticed or not, she didn’t dematerialize. So she landed in San Jose.”

“The airplane is the last place she is known to have been,” Walter said.

“Anyway, it’s our security guys who are working this. Do you remember Oka Ohoma?”

“Sure do. What’s he up to?”

“He’ll be retiring soon, but he is handling this investigation.”

“Oka is leaving?” I said.

“Yes. It’s quite the story. If you are all right with it, we’d like you and Oka to talk. He knows more details and has some questions.”

“Great.”

“I’m going to talk to Oka now.” Walter said. “Expect to hear from him soon. He’s doesn’t stay late, so he may call you from home.”

“I’ll be in all evening.”

“Good, Josh. It’s nice to talk to you. Take care of yourself.”

I’d kept a couple of things back from Walter, which was no big deal. Oka was in charge of the investigation and I could tell him if I decided to come clean.

Lorraine wouldn’t have wanted me telling anyone at Heavensent about

Tuesday was a Bad Day, Part 3

her family. She never knew her birth parents. She’d been put up for adoption as an infant, and ended up in a series of foster homes.

None of the foster homes were really bad, Lorraine had said, in fact most of her foster parents were nice. But she decided to have a grudge against the world, and her way of expressing it was petty theft. Lorraine was headed for juvenile hall just when a circus came through town. When the circus left, she went with it.

Lorraine thought joining that circus was the best decision she’d ever made, but she did have one regret. The couple at her last foster home had been especially nice, and she’d left without a word.

The next of kin issue was a technicality about how to fill out a form. To deal with that, Oka did not need to know the details of Lorraine’s childhood.

The other thing I’d kept back was more likely to be relevant.

At the Bhadrachakra they maintained that Lorraine was a reincarnation of Ocean of Awareness, the great eighth century Tibetan saint. They took that seriously. So did Lorraine, though in the years after Bhadra she’d had to focus on other things.

When I moved to PG, Lorraine began to read about Ocean. Ocean was a frequent topic in our phone conversations. Lorraine’s interest exceeded mine, and after a while I was just letting her talk to be polite. By October, something about Lorraine’s fascination with the teachings of Ocean of Awareness was making me uneasy. In our last conversation, Lorraine talked about little else.

Oka took his time. I gathered my books on the God Proof. They made a small pile. There are many books about Gödel and his work. Almost all of them ignore the God Proof totally. Most of the others say nothing useful — a sentence or two, sometimes just a sneer. In a few places, the notes from 1970 are reprinted. A handful of books and articles actually discuss them.

I was still reading at nine. By then, I knew Oka would not call until morning.