Encino Reservoir is the remote destination where Bernie Ohls directs Philip Marlowe after reporting that the authorities have found a woman. Marlowe asks whether it is Lynn Peterson; Ohls answers with a sarcastic reference to Lana Turner, then tells him to come to the reservoir and see for himself. The location marks a shift from searching for Lynn to confronting the possibility that a body has been found, without confirming in this scene who it is.

Location and Approach

Ohls gives Marlowe a precise route: take Encino Avenue and turn right at a “No Entry” sign. Marlowe drives there at night, moving slowly because he is reluctant to reach the scene. He nearly collides with the sign before turning; the road beyond it leads toward lights in a lonely stretch beneath sentinel pines.

The Scene at the Reservoir

Marlowe finds two patrol cars parked nose to nose, Ohls’s beat-up Chevrolet, and an ambulance with its rear doors open and light spilling out. Ohls stands with a white-coated man whom Marlowe takes to be either a medic or a coroner’s employee. At their feet lies a body-shaped form under a blanket. The soaked ground, still wet from recent rain, and the resinous smell intensify the scene’s damp, isolated atmosphere.

Narrative Significance

The reservoir is presented through Marlowe’s delayed approach and the stark arrangement of emergency vehicles, officials, and covered shape. Before arriving, he tries to keep his thoughts from the likely discovery and dwells instead on Clare Cavendish, his guilt over having failed to prevent Lynn’s abduction, and memories of Terry Lennox. At the scene, his fatigue and stiff back register the physical cost of the investigation. The location’s narrative force lies in its uncertainty: Ohls’s announcement raises the prospect that the search has ended in death, while the covered body remains unidentified in this passage.