At her entrance Hawkin’s face was immediately amiable and workmanlike.
“Morning, Kate. No problems last night?” She had been given an escort to the door and had talked to Hawkin after Vaun went to bed, so he meant after that.
“Good morning, Al, Lee. You mean this morning, not last night. No. no problems.”
There had been on Saturday, though, and perhaps that was the source of the look of distaste. Hawkin had come to the house to meet Lee and explain to her why she should leave, and Lee listened attentively and then, when he had finished, told him in the politest of terms that he was a damned fool if he thought she would, and why on earth should the official police assume total responsibility for a human resource like Vaun? The two of them had circled each other warily for the better part of an hour, two fencers testing each other’s psychic foil in feints and flurries, never quite committing themselves to outright combat.
Suddenly Hawkin had stood up and gone out the front door. After a minute a car trunk slammed and he came back in with a familiar armload: Mrs. Jameson’s old curtain wrapped around Vaun’s paintings. He undid the parcel on the dining table, set them up along the wall, and with a sweep of his hand turned to Lee.
“So. You’re an expert. You tell me what sort of a person painted these.”
Lee’s eyes were filled with the wonder of them, and with an air of tossing her sword into the corner she went over to the paintings and knelt down and touched them. She studied Red Jameson and his sweating son and the innocent temptress and the painful young/old girl in the mirror and the slouching young man. After a long time she stood back and ran her fingers through her hair. Her eyes on the canvases, she spoke absently.
“What was it you wanted to know?”
“I want to know what kind of person did these.”
“A woman with the eyes of a witch and the hands of an angel.” She was talking to herself, and Hawkin gave a bark of derisive laughter.
“Is that what they’re teaching in the psych department at Cal these days? Don’t burden me with so much technical jargon, please, Dr. Cooper.”
Lee flushed in anger, and swung around to face him.
“What particular aspect of the artist’s personality interests you? An analysis of the change in her sexual state over the time these cover? The degree of psychosis exhibited? Perhaps a Freudian statement regarding her relationship with her parents?”
“I want to know if she could have committed murder.”
“Anyone can commit murder, given a strong enough motivation. You should know that.”
They glared at each other, and a faint smell as of burning hair reached Kate’s nostrils. Hawkin spoke again, precisely, through clenched teeth.
“In your professional opinion, Doctor Cooper, could the person who did these paintings have committed the cold-blooded murder of a child, under the possible influence of a flashback from a previous dose of LSD?”
Lee pulled her eyes back to the row of images and seemed to draw up a barrier as she collected her thoughts, eyes narrowed.
“In my professional opinion, no. I am not an expert diagnostician, but I would have thought that this woman would be more likely to commit a devastating murder of someone’s self-image on canvas than she would an actual, physical murder, particularly of an innocent. As for the LSD, it’s an unpredictable drug, especially the street kind, but I have participated in sessions of LSD therapy and studied its long-term effects, and I’d say that kind of violent ‘flashback’ would be extremely unlikely. But as I say, I’m no expert. I could give you some names, if you like, of people to see.”
“Who would you suggest?”
She reeled off half a dozen names. “Those are Bay Area people, of course. There’s a man in Los Angeles—”
“No, that’ll do. I’ve seen all of them except for Kohlberg. She’s in France.” He started to gather the paintings together and wrap them in Becky Jameson’s old curtain. Lee watched, and handed him the last one reluctantly.
“What did the experts say?” Kate asked.
“Pretty much the same thing.” He tucked the thick bundle under his arm, paused, then shook his head in frustration, and left.
Kate had felt a sudden rush of exhaustion when he had gone, but Lee had seemed in great good spirits, and burst into snatches of song at odd moments during the rest of the day.
She was in the same aggressively cheerful mood now, Kate could tell, from the line of her back and the rapid, dramatic sweeps of the knife on the cutting board. She was using her self-assurance as a weapon, and Hawkin could only sit sourly and wait for his chance. He turned deliberately to Kate, fished a manila envelope from inside his jacket, and handed it to her.
She pressed open the metal wings and slid four glossy black-and-white photographs and three drawings out onto the tablecloth. Hawkin reached over and arranged them in two lines like some arcane variety of solitaire. She picked up the first photograph and looked closely at the young face, its mouth open in a shout. It had obviously been cropped from a group action shot, with a shoulder across one corner and a leg in the foreground wearing tight white leggings and a cleated shoe.
“Coach Shapiro’s?” she asked.
“Finally. The photographer did a good job on those.”
She concentrated on the other three prints, which showed the same face touched up first to show middle age, then with a moustache added, and finally with a full beard. She puzzled over this last one.
“It doesn’t look quite right,” she said finally. “I only saw him for a minute, but the nose was different, and the shape of the eyebrows.”
“Well done, considering the circumstances. Angie and Tyler agree with you. Susan took the photograph and worked it into the drawing she did last week, and came up with those,” he said, pointing. Susan Chin had also done a good job. The drawing with the beard was the man Kate had seen at Vaun’s house ten days before. Susan had then removed the beard and left the moustache, using the jawbones of the high school picture, and finally shaven him clean.
“That’s him. He must have had a nose job, and something done to his eyebrows.”
“We also know who Tony Dodson is. Or was.”
“It’s not just a false ID then?” She was surprised.
“Apparently not. There was a man named Anthony Dodson who worked with Lewis, and even resembled him quite a bit: same hair color, eyes, height, only fifteen or twenty pounds heavier. Lewis went north after high school, spent some time in Seattle, then got a job in Alaska on the pipeline. He met Dodson there, they became friends, spent several weekends in Anchorage. After a few months the two of them went off for a week in Seattle and didn’t show up for work again. Lewis wrote a letter to say they’d both got jobs in New Orleans, they were sick of the cold, that their clothes and equipment should be given away, so long. Nothing more is heard of Andy Lewis—nothing—but Tony Dodson, who was from Montana originally, gets a driver’s license in Nevada two months later.”
“And the photo?”
“Is the same man who went to high school as Andy Lewis, given that the photograph on the license is lousy, he’s ten years older and has had facial surgery.”
Food began to move from stove to table to plates—avocado and mushroom omelet and hot buttery toast and orange juice fresh from the machine on the sink and mugs of thick coffee. Kate took a mouthful of the hot liquid and swirled it around her teeth, feeling the distinctive bite of the Yemen Mocha. She raised a mental eyebrow at this but didn’t comment. Lee would not like it pointed out that a special effort was being made at this meal.
The cook sat down with a cup but no plate and picked up the original photograph. Several hundred calories later Kate looked over at her.
“You’re not eating?”
“I had something a while ago. I thought I’d wait and keep Vaun company.”
“That picture bothers you,” Kate noted. Hawkin glanced up sharply and then looked more closely at Lee, whose face revealed nothing other than a slight curiosity.
“It does. I was just wondering if it would bother me if I didn’t know who it was. It reminds me of someone I knew when I was in New York. Not one of my clients, though I’d seen him around the clinic. One day he told his therapist that he’d been beating up drunks, just for the fun of it, and one of them had died. She was really upset after he left, but managed to finish out the day. That night he waited for her and followed her home and killed her. He later said he’d decided it was unwise to have told her, but she’d already reported him to the police, and they were waiting for him when he got home. He didn’t actually look anything like this,” she waved the picture. “Maybe around the eyes.” She gazed at it for another long moment, then with a slight shudder put it away from her. When she looked up it was directly into Hawkin’s eyes, no swordplay now.
“As a therapist I am required to deny the possibility of such a thing as innate evil. There are reasons why people become twisted. As a human being, however, I recognize its presence. This man Lewis must be stopped. I believe that my being here might help you catch him. If I see that I am in the way, I will leave. Immediately.”
It was not put as an offer, a compromise, but Hawkin chose to take it as such. The two women waited as he finished his toast, placed his fork and knife across his plate, took a swallow of coffee. When he spoke it was to Kate.
“All right. I am still very unhappy about having a civilian involved, and if I thought for a minute there was a chance Lewis would get into the house, I’d scrap it now. Yes, it will look more normal to have Lee in the house. Yes, Lee will help with Vaun, and yes, it will, in theory, free up your eyes to have Lee looking after Vaun. I have to trust you on that, that you won’t be distracted by Lee. And I have to trust you,” he jabbed a finger at Lee, “to watch for that, and get out fast if she’s looking out for you instead of Vaun. I don’t like trusting too many people at once, but if we go with this it’ll be your show,” back to Kate, “and your judgment. If you decide to put your friend here at risk, knowing Lewis, then we’ll go ahead with it. If not, or if I’m not satisfied with the safeguards, we make other arrangements. Agreed?”
Kate took a deep breath, and committed herself.
“Agreed.”
“Fine. We start with this.” He took an object from his pocket similar to the button that Kate had given Vaun, and slapped it onto the table in front of Lee. “You will wear this at all times. You push it, and across the street we know something’s wrong. If you take it off, I pull Vaun out of the house.”
Lee smiled sweetly at him and stood her ground.
“I rather doubt you’d have any legal basis for moving her around the countryside if she preferred to stay with me, but I shall be happy to cooperate with any reasonable request.”
Kate busied herself with more coffee while Hawkin glowered and Lee smiled like a steel rose. Finally his lips twitched.
“Dr. Cooper. It would bring me considerable reassurance as to the safety of all in this house if I knew that you were carrying that alarm button with you at all hours of the day and night.”
“I do understand, Inspector Hawkin, and I will be most happy to comply. More coffee?”
“Your coffee, my dear young lady, has been one of the few bright spots of the last two weeks, but I think I’ll have to refuse a fourth cup and make an appearance at work. I thank you also for breakfast.”
He stood up, and Kate followed him to the door.
“Al, I think Vaun was wanting to see you.”
“I have to be in San Jose ten minutes ago. I’ll stop back this evening.”
“Come for dinner.”
“Oh, no, I—”
“Please.”
“All right, I’d enjoy that. If the traffic’s bad it’ll be after seven.”
“I’ll plan for eight. I should warn you, you won’t get food like you just had. I’m a lousy cook.” He smiled. “Will you see the Donaldsons?”
“I’m afraid so.” He sighed. “How many different ways are there to say, ‘Trust me, we’re working on it,’ when she wants to know everything that’s going on? I can’t blame her, but it doesn’t make things any easier.”
“Glad it’s you and not me,” she said frankly, and did the alarm business to let him out. Neither of them looked at the house across and two down, whose upper floor was temporarily occupied by various men and machines. She watched him climb into his car, closed the door, and went to talk to Lee about dinner. As she had expected, Lee insisted on cooking.
That evening Vaun’s photograph was on the front page of the paper. Some enterprising amateur with a powerful lens had caught her staring longingly out of her hospital window, looking for all the world like a prisoner in a cell. It was a very clear picture.
Over hot-and-sour soup, beef in black bean sauce, snow peas with shiitake mushrooms, and fried rice, they hammered out the plans for the next few days. Or rather, Hawkin and Kate hammered, Lee commented and made suggestions, and Vaun picked at her food. She kept glancing at the folded newspaper on the side table, with the expression of a person fingering a bruise.
In the end, sitting in front of the fire, they decided that it would have to be Saturday. By then Vaun would be more rested, physically and mentally, Lewis would be feeling safe and anxious to resume, and besides, it would make the Sunday papers.
“I’ve made preliminary arrangements with a man on the News staff, who’s willing to go along with it in exchange for an exclusive and an interview with you,” he said to Vaun, who winced. “It will, I’m afraid, mean more photographs, and your privacy all shot to hell. I’m sorry.”
“After this afternoon’s paper, there’s not going to be much of it left anyway. It’s a miracle I’ve managed to get away with it as long as I have.”
“We may find Lewis before that, remember. Every cop in California has seen his picture by now.” His offer of encouragement sounded thin, and Vaun shook her head.
“No, now be honest, Alonzo Hawkin. If you picked him up tonight, what could you possibly charge him with? I’m no expert, but it sounds to me like you have nothing at all that you could take to a jury. Isn’t that right?”
“Vaun, that isn’t really our responsibility.”
“Of course it isn’t, but there isn’t much point in arresting somebody if you then have to let him go for lack of any evidence. Don’t worry, I do understand what I am to do. There’s no point in putting out bait if the tiger doesn’t come far enough to make his intent clear, isn’t that it? I shall sit and wait for him to come for me, don’t worry,” she repeated, but none of the other three liked what was in her face, and in each of them a special gnaw of concern started up.
“I want your promise…” Hawkin began, and Vaun laughed, a bleak, brittle sound.
“No, I’m not about to ‘do something foolish,’ as they say. I will cooperate, I will do what you tell me to do. Four lovely little human beings have lost their lives on account of me, on account of this gift of mine. It must come to an end.”
There was a cold, dead undertone in her words. Lee started to speak, and stopped. Hawkin cleared his throat.
“So, we’re agreed. On Saturday morning you set off for some public place like Golden Gate Park or Fisherman’s Wharf, accompanied by these two and a number of other plainclothes along the way. The three of you are photographed by our pet reporter and his cameraman, and you will appear the following morning on the front page of the Sunday paper. We’ll give it three or four days, and if he hasn’t appeared by then, we’ll do it again. You think you’ll be up to it? Vaun?”
She pulled herself back from some distant and unpleasant place and focused on Hawkin.
“Yes, yes, whatever you want. I’m sorry, I was just thinking of those three sets of parents. I wonder if they can bring themselves to read the papers anymore. I wonder what impression my smiling face eating a crab cocktail at Fisherman’s Wharf will make on them. I would like to speak with them, when this is all over.”
“I think it would do them a lot of good,” said
Lee. “But it might be very hard on you.”
“What does that matter, now?”
“Well,” Hawkin broke in, “first there’s the minor matter of getting this all over. I suggest that a good night’s sleep might help. ’Night, all, and thank you, Lee, for yet another ambrosial feast. Are you wearing your button?”
“I am.” She pulled it up from inside her shirt, and dropped it back down.
“Good.” He caught himself. “Thank you.” He touched Vaun’s shoulder lightly in passing, though she seemed not to notice or indeed to notice that he was leaving. Kate stood when he left but allowed Lee to run him through the alarms and waited for the thoughts beneath the black curls to surface. It took several minutes, and Lee was standing in the doorway behind Vaun, also waiting, before Vaun finally spoke.
“You saw that last painting I did, didn’t you, Kate?”
“The one with the woman and the child?”
“Yes. You saw it in the studio that day. Gerry had someone bring it to the hospital.” Its terrible beauty had been gouged and shredded beyond recognition, and Hawkin had personally seen it put into the hospital incinerator. “That was Mrs. Brand, Jemma’s mother. Her face stayed with me for eighteen years, how she looked that night when she realized Jemma was dead. I started to dream about her again, last December, and I finally had to paint her. It was one of the most…difficult paintings I ever did,” she said with a terrible calm. “Possibly one of the best. And now it’s gone.”
“Perhaps—” Kate stopped. She heard the thoughtless insult of what she was about to say but plunged on regardless. “Perhaps you’ll do the painting again, one day.”