om Jefferies stares through the windshield of his car as he cruises down the street. With no sign of the private detective who requested his presence, he parks the black Camaro in a space next to a health food store, pulls the key out of the ignition, and walks up to the corner of Fifth and Dartmouth.

He takes a few steps and hears a shout. "Hey buddy, that parking space is for customers only."

He looks up to see a thin, pasty-skinned young man with a brown pony tail wearing a small employee name tag. The kid reminds him of a certain dope dealer, a long-haired, intellectual type he befriended in prison some three years ago. He grins at the recollection, and after turning away from the young man, dismisses the warning. "Don't worry about it, stud. I'll just be a few minutes."

"Okay, tough guy, we'll see about that," the voice whines from behind him. "But don't bitch if you get a parking ticket."

A weak electrical impulse race through his brain, signaling him to stop, to turn around and place a hand around the young man's neck. The thought quickly dissolves in a wash of reasonable discretion and he keeps walking forward.

At the corner he looks down the street of one and two story buildings comprising the quaint downtown area. The late afternoon sun bathes the glass and metal surfaces adorning the brick facades, reflecting bursts of shiny glitter. Colorful canopies lining the east side of the street absorb the late afternoon light and glow inviting as lanterns. From his vantage point on the periphery, the long block of shops and restaurants resembles a magical portal to competing styles and tastes. The once familiar view pleases him, and he finds himself drawn to investigate further. He glances one more time at his watch, and decides to take advantage of the detective's tardiness by retracing his steps.

After spending the day at a construction site several miles away, Jefferies feels his tired muscles finally beginning to uncoil. His back and shoulders relax. He detects a surprising lack of bitterness or anxiety in returning to the crime scene, a location he has carefully avoided for the past year. The last time here his perceptions were colored by an arduous set of circumstances, but the past twelve months have given him the opportunity to carefully reexamine that difficult afternoon. The bitterness and anxiety have been replaced by a clear conscience, as well as a yearning--a wistful desire tempered by the logic of time and distance.

As his search begins, he notes the weight of lingering evidence pointing to her earlier presence, nothing so obvious as a trail of spent brass cartridges, but something vague, like mysterious, dark shadows that cannot be connected to any corresponding visible figure.

He starts by observing the lampposts lining the sidewalk, plastered with yellowing, wrinkled flyers. They advertise a film festival held months ago at the theatre located further down the street. A smudged fingerprint is stamped on a corner of one of the paper remnants. The name of a Spanish director whose films she often mentioned remains stuck on the tip of his tongue.

Walking past the red brick storefront housing the International Folk Music Store, he smells sweet incense and hears the shrill notes of an Inca flute drifting out the door. Weren't they playing that same song the last time we were here, he asks himself. Didn't she say something about a previous vacation in Peru?

A balding man in khaki pants and a blue buttoned down shirt hurries past him from the rear. Two women in long, colorful tie-dye skirts float toward him from the opposite direction. Jefferies continues to move at his own pace--slow, intentional--a jungle cat on the prowl for one of his own species. He's definitely picked up her scent--a refined, foreign sweetness that lures him, suggesting he continue to advance. The trail appears hot and he indulges himself with a fanciful notion. Has she perhaps summoned me here, he wonders. Is the detective merely an unsuspecting accomplice?

To his right there are four separate couples seated at the tables outside the Greek restaurant. He remembers two couples and an old man occupying three tables that particular day. She spoke about her favorite dishes. He recalls her asking, "Do they pronounce it geee-ro, gy-ro, or gear-ro?"

Half way down the block he passes a used bookstore. He stops to examine the tattered covers of paperback books stacked on a case outside the door and spots a novel she once recommended. "Read this book," she said. "It will sear your soul." He is still not accustomed to hearing women talk in such a way. The novel, a story of a man who explores several continents in pursuit of self-discovery, continues to sit on his bed stand. There are several favorite passages that he's read repeatedly during the past year--brief respites from a work grind that has made each day indistinguishable from the next.

A few steps later he stops in front of the Oriental Treasures store. He looks in the display window and spots a sleek cobalt blue vase, next to a small bamboo and stone fountain pumping trickling water. He remembers how she pointed at the same fountain and said, "My husband bought one of those on his last trip to Japan," a comment that made them pause in awkward embarrassment.

Before he can take another step the loud honk of a car horn jars him out the meditative assemblage of clues. His consciousness whipsaws between past and present until his vision suddenly focuses on the bank building—located at the end of the block—and he settles his mental imagery back to that precise moment the crime began to unfold.

He recalls how the two stood on the sidewalk, across the street from the bank. As they faced each other she fired an unexpected volley. "When we started this thing," she told him, "it took me by surprise. I didn't think we'd enjoy many of the same things. We even came to understand each other. But it's time I acted responsibly and stopped seeing you." She lifted her chin slightly. "Besides, I think I still love my husband."

The words stunned him. "Perhaps you're right," he replied, hoping to at least appear cool. "I didn't mean for this to happen. I certainly don't belong here. And yet--"

He remembers her chin quivering, and the small wrinkles that formed at the sides of her mouth. "If I left now," she said, "I could be back home, in time for dinner. We could pretend the past three months never happened."

Jefferies looks down at the middle-aged private detective, a wiry little man in a white short sleeve shirt and dark, shiny pants standing under the Fifth and Dartmouth street signs. "We used to meet here often," he explains. "For lunch, maybe dinner, sometimes just to stroll past the shops. This was her favorite part of town. I grew to like it as well."

"What exactly do you remember about that day, Mr. Jefferies?" The detective scratches his chin with a notebook, and waits for the response.

He motions down at the sidewalk with both hands. "We stood here and talked. She said her goodbyes, then walked away. I watched as she got in her BMW and drove away. That's the last time I saw her." He leaves out the part about feeling stunned. Instead he looks across the street and points at the bank. "A few seconds later I heard the muffled pops of gun shots coming from over there, from inside the building. No one else out here seemed to notice." How many shots do you remember hearing?" The detective asks.

"Three. I distinctly remember three."

The detective gives a slight nod, as if reluctant to acknowledge the correct answer. "What next?"

"While looking across the street I saw him charge out the door and on to the sidewalk. He was tall, muscular build, in faded blue jeans and a green T-shirt." Jefferies tugs at his own shirt and feels the cloth pull taut against his wide shoulder blades. "I remember a pair of tan boots. The pistol was in his right hand. Two white bags were in his left. He stopped for just a second and looked in my direction. I can still see the sneer on his face, and his five o'clock shadow." He rubs his own coarse jaw line. "Dark hair, combed back." A mild shrug. "But I wasn't scared. I guess I've seen his type before."

"Uh-huh." The detective smiles.

"Then the guy turned left and ran down the street," he says.

The detective tilts his head slightly to one side. "You seems to remember quite a few details, Mr. Jefferies."

"It was a memorable day."

"I reckon so. These kind of things don't happen every day."

"No. They don't."

"So what happened next?" The detective asks.

He waits a few seconds as two shoppers walk by. "I started walking fast, around the corner, down an alley, and past a couple streets. I finally caught up to him. Next to an empty lot. He was ready to get inside a car. In fact, his hand was on the door handle when he saw me."

"Did you tell him to stop?"

"I didn't say a word, but we stared at each other for a couple seconds. Then he pointed his gun at me- I guess he thought I was one of the good guys. That's when I reached under my shirt. He got off one shot. It flew by my ear. I fired back. Got him in the chest." He looks down, tapping his right boot against the sidewalk. "Needless to say, I didn't stick around to claim the good citizenship award."

The detective emits a slight whistle. "Damn, if all this is true, I gotta say, you demonstrated a remarkable presence of mind in such a pressure situation. Are you always that cool?"

Jefferies looks up and shakes his head. "I was anything but cool at the time."

The detective squints while looking down the street, as if trying to imagine the pursuit. "Believe me, Mr Jefferies, the police sure wish someone would have come forward at the time. They had a bloody hold up, a dead suspect found a few blocks from the crime scene, bags of money left undisturbed on the street. And no clues to go on! They labeled this a cold case some time ago. It was quite the mystery."

"Look, the last thing I wanted to do was get in any kind of trouble," he says. "I've really been trying to behave myself. I've stayed away from my old buddies, and my job as a construction superintendent keeps me too busy to go looking for trouble." The realization hits him as he speaks the words. "I've done little else in the past year but work."

The detective remains silent and scribbles in his notebook.

"It was clearly a case of self-defense," he continues. "But the terms of my parole don't allow me to be in possession of a gun." A slight pause as he sucks in his breath and then exhales slowly. "I guess some old habits are hard to break." He recalls throwing the gun in a large trash bin one street away from where he aimed and fired. "I didn't want to risk going back to prison."

"Funny how things work out," the detective says. "The punk who found your gun was arrested a week after the shooting. They got him on a concealed weapons charge. He told the police where the pistol came from. They tried to track its ownership--official and unofficial--but they didn't get very far."

"I bought it from a friend," he admits. "A long time ago."

The detective points his index finger in the direction of Jefferies' chest. "Yep. That's exactly what I found out. When I was hired, I managed to sneak a peek at the case file. Then I set about digging a little harder than the police." A wink. "The gun trail eventually led to a couple of your old crime associates. I managed to have a conversation with them. You might be happy to know they talked about you in glowing terms. How you used to provide the muscle for their scams. How you helped convince people to invest in those shady ventures." The detective eyes him from head to toe. "I have no doubt you were very successful."

"That was a long time ago," Jefferies quickly offers, slightly embarrassed by the compliment. "That person no longer exists. I've changed my act. My old buddies, on the other hand--they possess rigid minds. No imagination whatsoever. They're still running the same old scams, in the same old neighborhoods. Maybe it's time they expanded their horizons."

"In any event," the detective continues, "once your name came up, I kept digging. I rounded up one of your old police mug shots and showed it around here. I eventually found a store clerk who claims you and a certain lady friend, someone he knew by name, used to hang out here."

Jefferies pauses, bothering to listen to the wind chimes hanging outside the nearby gift store. They ping the air like the modulating tones of some exotic language. It's clear to him the detective thinks everything is figured out, and his own mind suddenly rebels at the thought of being misunderstood, portrayed as only one step removed from the man he shot. "It doesn't matter now," he finally says. "I don't mind telling you the truth."

"Yes. Please. Don't worry about telling the truth," the detective says. "You have nothing to fear from my client."

"Well, prison wasn't my only concern," Jefferies explains. "Here's the part you don't understand."

"What's that?"

"At the time I was afraid my confession would involve her. I'm sure the police would have wanted to know what I was doing here, and who I was with. I didn't want to put her in the awkward position of explaining her whereabouts that day. But the circumstances have changed. I understand she left her husband." He's quick to add, "Long after she broke it off with me that is." He rubs his right fist with the palm of his left hand, as if massaging his knuckles after a fight. "I heard she moved out to California to write a screenplay."

The detective's eyes open wide. "Ahh. Yes. You might say there was a penal and penile reason for keeping your mouth shut." A slight chuckle. "But hey, that certainly lends great credibility to your story."

Jefferies places his hands defiantly around his waist, his chest puffs out, and he stares hard enough to melt the sheepish grin off the detective's face.

The wiry little man responds by sticking out his hands, as if to calmly reassure. "Look, Mr Jefferies, don't get me wrong. I appreciate your openess. As I told you before over the phone, my employer is paying me to find out what happened, but he's not interested in turning the information over to the police. And he certainly doesn't want to embarrass anyone. His brother was the security guard shot during the robbery. He's obsessed about finding and rewarding the person who avenged his brother's murder. That's how he was hoping to interpret your action. I've have to admit, I warned him not to expect such a noble act. But after listening to you, I'm confident your explanantion will satisfy his needs."

"Hmm. Most people might not agree with that interpretation."

"Don't worry," says the detective. "My employer is a hard man. Much like you. He wants to believe justice was served, and that you were merely the right man in the right place."

"I'd like to believe that, too," he says, while allowing himself to enjoy a trace of consolation.

"By the way," the detective blurts. "I called her. Your lady friend, that is."

"You did?" A smile. "That's good." He quickly offers an explanation for his enthusiasm. "If you're looking to verify my account, she can obviously place me here that day."

The detective shakes his head sideways. "She wasn't much help. She claims to remember nothing special about that particular day."

"Really? Is that what she said?"

"Yep."

Jefferies releases a sigh, then folds his arms across his chest. "What kind of case did you call this? What's the term you said the police used?"

"A cold case. A case where no further leads are being generated."

"Cold case," he repeats. "That sounds very appropriate. And yet--"

"And yet, what?"

He stares up at the sky. The sun is falling behind the buildings on the other side of the street, and the corresponding dark shadows cloak his immediate surroundings. Cool air rakes his skin, reminding him of night's certainty.

Perhaps I've misread the clues, he thinks. She remains as illusive as ever, her vague presence a simple product of an overactive imagination.

Tom Jefferies then recalls the novel sitting on his bed stand, and wonders if it is one more clue she has left behind--a bread crumb that will lead to some magical portal, allowing him exposure to different styles and tastes. He quickly calculates how far he can travel, the number of continents he can cover in the next few weeks, once he's notified his boss about the need for change, about the soulful requirement to expand his horizons.