Rosemary Tuttle

Rosemary Tuttle is 34 and works the night shift as receptionist and switchboard operator at the Pinecrest Lodge. Born in Fresno, the daughter of a grape picker and a cleaner, she learned to type at school and to answer phones in her first job and was widowed young. She works from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m., six days a week, for forty dollars, and describes herself as the girl no one sees.

She lives in a rented room in Incline Village, a few minutes from the lake, with a narrow bed, an electric kettle, a rocking chair inherited from an aunt and a window onto the pines. She walks to the lodge when the snow allows, hitches a ride when it doesn't. At home, she reads borrowed fashion magazines and allows herself two spoons of sugar in her tea. She likes being alone.

She is thin, with a fine, tired, freckled face and red hair teased into a bouffant bun and held with hairspray. She wears discreet red lipstick and a navy receptionist's uniform with a white collar and a gold badge, and always has a pencil behind her ear. She speaks softly, like someone always on the phone, hears everything and pretends to hear nothing, and chooses each word as if there were a line behind her.

About the night, her account is routine: front desk and switchboard, keys, messages and heating complaints, all noted in a green-covered notebook. About the singer's manager, she remarks that he spends his nights at the dice table and signs marker after marker, and that a man like that ends up owing people who don't send collection letters. About the guests' money, she knows nothing.

Rosemary knows the operator who handles the lodge's desk and line is the first person doubted when a call disappears or arrives late. When the detective says she helped take the boy, she recalls that she earns forty dollars to put calls through and that if she knew how to sell someone, she wouldn't be behind that counter. It could be the resentment of an underestimated employee. It could be someone shielding a small habit behind a soft voice. The detective will have to decide which.