IF I LOVE any one thing about my dad, it is the fact that from our early childhood, he treated my sister and me as full human beings. When the Moonstone family left the commune and Sunny and I entered real life and the public school system, we ran into quite a culture shock with the superficiality of our peers, the twisted pretenses of schoolmates and, of course, the violence, both physical and psychological. It would have been easy for our parents to mediate each school conflict we bought home with teachers or other parents but Dad insisted that it was up to Sunny and me to solve the conflicts on our own. If we asked Mom or Dad for help, they would give it, but not earlier. Sunny and I developed nice independent minds that way and maybe a hard shell, too.

Therefore, I was not astonished that Dad treated the episode as just another Calendar conflict, solvable by her alone. No flippant remarks, no nosey questions.

We walked through the house and into the large back garden where Mom was sitting under the tree, deep into some yoga exercises.

"You want to join us?" Dad asked.

"You are into yoga, lately?" I managed to ask coherently after I swallowed a few sips of green tea lemonade.

"Not any more than you are," Dad smiled his distant smile. I could see that he was torn between his way of giving his daughters free rein and his duty as a helpful dad.

I settled in an ancient deck chair made of driftwood and enjoyed the autumn sun. Dad resumed his book and Mom stretched herself in meditation.

After my nerves had steadied themselves and my heartbeat was back down to normal, I took another swig of ice tea lemonade to see if my hands were in working order. They were.

I sat up and asked, "Where is everyone?"

"Sun and the kids are at Sea World," Dad sighed. "Probably another way of rebelling against her parents."

"Dad, come on. Keith and Jen are growing up as regular Americans. They just want to have fun and Sea World is as much fun as it can get."

Dad gave me a long look. "How many times have you been to Sea World or similar parks?"

"Never, I can't stand to see these beautiful creatures in those bleak surroundings, turning tricks for food."

"See, with you, our education of basic ethic nature values worked out. With Sunny, it didn't."

I hated it when Dad was right, but I had given up fighting Sunny's Americanization. I sat back again enjoying the garden, Mom and Dad were not making conversation. Suspiciously quiet.

Oh, dammit, I almost forgot. "Where is my boyfriend?"

Dad couldn't suppress a smile, my parents had the ways and intuition of the KGB and CIA combined. "Your Mundy told me to give you this and he thanked us profoundly for our hospitality." Dad took out a folded note from his book and handed it to me.

'Dear Callie, thanks for the nice Thanksgiving. Have to work today for the Monday edition of Redondo Daily. Regards to your Mom and Dad, Sunny and the kids. They make a great family to marry into. See you around, LOL, Mun.'

"He is gone and he gives his regards," I simply stated, trying to underplay the situation.

"Is it serious between you and him?" Mom asked from upside down, knotted in a strange yoga-position. No escape.

"Mom, you will be invited to the wedding."

"Sunny and Mundy make a much nicer pair."

"You want to test my level of jealousy, Mom?"

"Mundy is a nice fellow. But he is a little bit too... 'Normal' for your taste. But Sunny and Mundy would be a good fit. Makes a good combination, journalist and lawyer. He pleads the fifth to protect his source and she bails him out."

"Wouldn't that have made a great Redford/Streisand movie in the seventies?" Dad said from behind his book, his mouth and eyes hidden from us.

"You didn't go to the movies once in the seventies!" I exclaimed.

"Weeeelll, you know... " Dad shifted in his seat.

"We sneaked out of the commune without you hippies noticing," Mom said, still upside down.

"Really? Don't shatter my world."

And when Mom and Dad didn't answer, "Come on, you did?"

Then both of them started to laugh, Mom crumbling into a heap from her yoga headstand. I crossed my arms and started sulking. "I will pass on Mundy's number when he and I are through."

"Don't be so sarcastic about it. Don't you love Mundy?" Mom got up and stretched.

"Stop right here!" I exclaimed. "Mom, I am not going to discuss this subject any further."

Sunny and the kids came home and the garden was filled with life again. We had a great farewell dinner with old stories to tell. The commune and the clashes with civilization, as we know it, was an endless source of entertainment to the kids who never ceased to be amazed by the strange family into which they had been born. Even Sunny loosened up a little bit and offered some stories of her own, which was unusual for her, since she had tried so desperately to erase all these tracks from her lifeline.

They had planned to take the Redeye flight back to Dallas that night and I got them to the airport around nine p.m. I saw them off, as we exchanged kisses and the always to be broken promise that I would visit them in Dallas the next year. The American Gem Association had their annual convention in Austin next spring so I could actually make it this time, we would see.

I drove back into the city without the radio on, made a quick spontaneous turn and rode into the Gaslight district. I found a parking lot that charged only five dollars instead of twelve and took a stroll into one of my favorite sports bars. I occupied a stool and ordered a Corona and some peanuts, watched a Jimmy Fallon rerun. Some courageous guy even tried some pick-up lines on me, I simply ignored him until he shrugged and walked back to his friends.

I thought hard about the events of the last days, of Ron and his Sisyphus fight against an unsolvable murder. Thought of Thomas Cornelius and Billy Bounce's threat. And I thought of Andrew Altward, whatever 'Max' dealings he had with Thomas and the affair he had with the night watchman's daughter, Phoebe Eastman. We had learned a lot about the case so far, but nothing that could be called a break.

I gripped the beer bottle harder and decided that I wasn't supposed to be the sucker in this parade. I came to the conclusion that in whichever way the case developed, it was my turn to lose, I was sitting on some hot goods and I couldn't get rid of them. Despite my usual stubbornness to be in the right, I decided to make an exception this time and hand the goods over to Thomas. If he fancied the stuff, he should have it, if it enabled me to work properly on future jobs.

The only thing that posed an uncertainty was the fact that I was convinced that Thomas was after something else and not the particular stones I had in my possession. But that will be played out when I hand Thomas the loot. If he doesn't fancy my loot, maybe I will at least get some information out of him about the true nature of whatever it is that he really wants.

The more I thought about this glimpse of a plan, the more I considered it a bad idea. Billy Bounce was all around me and Thomas sometimes had a very bad temper. It was foolish to go into such a thing alone with a sack full of diamonds.

Maybe I should simply mail them to him, insured, with a courier, hand-to-hand. And then vanish for a while until grass grew over the whole sorry mess.

Suddenly, a thought struck me. And I marveled at Dad's cunningness, smiling over my beer. That old devil. He just happened to mention that Uncle Bernie was in town. Just happened? I bet my Altward loot against this dry slice of lemon that he had evaluated my trouble, decided to stick to his guns and say nothing but offer a solution in an indirect discreet way.

I always hoped that my parents had no idea of what sideline their daughter was in, working as a cat burglar, stealing diamonds and expensive jewelry. But they were intelligent people and must have calculated the economic chances of a well running exotic jewelry craft shop in Redondo Beach. I decided to give Dad an extra big kiss tomorrow.