With Child (16 page)

Then clearly, for the benefit of their recording devices, she said, "For the record, no, I do not know where Jules Cameron is." She hesitated for an instant before adding, "I wish to God I did."

Rolling up the window, she drove off, reflecting that at least "Inspector Martinelli said she did not know where the girl is" sounded slightly better than "Inspector Martinelli refused to comment." Some of them might even relent and include her final phrase. Beyond that thought, her mind refused to look.

It was difficult driving while wearing slippery oversized boots and bulky ski mittens, so before she reached the freeway, she pulled over to strip off various garments and lace on her lighter shoes. Had she not stopped, she would probably not have noticed the olive green car until it pulled up beside her in front of her motel, but in the mirror she saw it brake for an instant before accelerating past her, and when she saw the driver hide his face by lifting an arm as he went by, she knew that some enterprising reporter had decided to tail her. Too bad I didn't think of it earlier, she reflected grimly as she pulled off the gloves and bent down to the soggy laces. I could have led them off like the Pied Piper and given the other searchers a chance to get away. As it is, the search teams are in for a round of Kate Martinelli questions. Casting a mental apology over her shoulder, she struggled out of her boots and drove off in her stocking feet, too tired to bother with other shoes.

With a depressing sense of inevitability, she saw the green car in her mirror, pulling out of a dirt road behind her, keeping well back. It took her half an hour and several illegalities before the reporter's nerve broke and she lost him, but the effort cost her the last shreds of her energy. When she pulled up in front of the hotel, she was trembling with fatigue and her head was throbbing along the line where the pipe had hit her skull. She retrieved her shoes, abandoning the wet boots and gloves, and dropped the car keys twice - once when she pulled them from the car-door lock, then again when she was digging in her jeans pocket for the key to her room - before she made it to the safety of her room. She let her shoes fall to the floor, fumbled with the bolt and the chain until they were fastened, and walked blindly across the sterile room to the bathroom. She went inside, then came back out to look across the room with dull incredulity at the still figure standing near the window. "Lee?"

"Hello, Kate," Lee said in a small voice. "You look... Oh God, Kate. You didn't find her?"

Kate didn't bother to answer, just stood, trying to absorb the sight of the woman standing beside the chipped veneer table, dressed in a flannel shirt, a puffy down vest, khaki trousers, and hiking boots. Her hair was down to her shoulders now, longer than it had been even in university days, and the arm cuffs of her aluminum arm braces had been covered with a solid band of Indian beadwork, a bright, complex pattern that drew Kate's eyes; they were easier to look at than Lee's face. Lee said something. Kate blinked, shrugged off her heavy parka, and tossed it in the direction of the bed, where it fell slowly to the floor.

"Sorry, I have to..." She knew she sounded idiotic, but she could not help it, and so she turned and went back into the bathroom. The toilet flushed, and when she came out again, Lee had not moved.

"I'm sorry," Kate repeated. "I don't seem to be working at top speed. What did you say?"

"Nothing that can't keep. You should have a hot bath and something to eat."

Kate made an effort to rouse herself.

"Sounds heavenly."

"I'll start the bath running." Lee moved then, using the arm braces to steady herself rather than throwing her entire weight on them. Lee was walking, actually walking, not hobbling anymore, moving easily around the end of the bed and past Kate, an arm's reach from her, then going into the bathroom. Kate heard the water start and sat down on the overly soft mattress. She thought about reaching for the phone and checking in with D'Amico, thought about lifting her foot up and peeling off the sodden, filthy socks, thought about Lee actually walking, and then she turned and lay down on the nylon bedspread. Kate was asleep before Lee came out of the bathroom to ask her about room service.

Fourteen hours later, the telephone woke Kate. Lee already had it and was speaking into the receiver in a low voice.

"She's still asleep. Do you think I --"

"I'll take it," Kate said. She put out a hand and said into the phone, "Martinelli here."

"Kate, Al." She sat up sharply on the bed.

"Is there --"

"No news," he was already saying. "Not about Jules. I need to talk to you. I'm coming over."

"What is it? Something's wrong."

"Not on the phone. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

When she had hung up, Kate realized that she was wearing little but her knit cap and her corduroy shirt, which looked clean but stank of old sweat. She wondered how on earth Lee had managed to maneuver her wet jeans and socks off without waking her.

"You were out cold," Lee said, having read her face, or her mind. "The phone rang an hour ago, and you never twitched. Feel better?"

"I feel filthy. Al's coming over. I'd better have a shower first."

"Your clothes are unwearable. Better take something of mine. And don't tell me they won't fit, because they will. Just roll up the cuffs." Kate had her doubts, but it was true, laundry had been fairly low on her priorities the last few days, and her own clothes were so stale as to be offensive. And to her surprise, when she pulled on the jeans after her long and blessed shower, she found that they did indeed fit. The mirror told her the half of it, and a survey of Lee the remainder.

"You've put on weight," she said, sitting on the bed and pulling on a pair of Lee's socks. "It looks good."

"And you've lost some. Rosalyn told me you had a new image, sort of punk, she said. Actually, I think it's more a tough-guy look than punk, with that hat."

"Marlon Brando. Wait'll you see me in my tight T-shirt with the pack of cigarettes tucked in the sleeve. When did you talk to Rosalyn?"

"She wrote me a while back."

"I see. Did she tell you anything else about me?"

"Such as what?"

"Anything. Recently."

"Not recently. And really, it was only a passing mention, a month or so ago. I think she said you'd been there for Thanksgiving dinner."

"I was, yes. We had a good time."

"Did Maj cook?"

"Of course."

"I'm sorry I wasn't... Kate, it's... I'm so... Oh shit," said this woman who rarely swore. "Would you come over here? Please."

Except for the palm of her hand, and a couple of cheek-pecking hugs, Kate's body had not been in voluntary physical contact with another person for four months. It was awkward at first, no denying that. Too much had happened, and too many questions lay unanswered for it to be easy. However, there was no denying that touch, even with a woman Kate had cursed and resented and wanted to do violence to more than once over the past months, was a good and glorious thing. The familiarity of Lee's body slid past her defenses, and she was beginning to relax into the curves and angles when footsteps sounded in the hall outside, followed by a sharp rap at the door.

Flustered, she pulled back, then shot out an arm when Lee swayed insecurely. She steadied her, picked the arm braces off the floor and gave them to Lee, then went to let her partner in.

He came in, his eyes sliding past her to Lee. His tired face lit up.

"Lee! Woman, it's great to see you." He took three steps and enveloped her in a hug of his own, so that when Kate turned back from closing the door, all she could see of Lee was a pair of hands emerging from behind a plaid wool coat. She picked the braces up from the floor again, then waited until Al stepped back, his hand firmly on Lee's elbow until she had her arms in the beaded cuffs.

"You're looking great, Lee. The woods agree with you."

She acknowledged his remark with a nod, but her thoughts were all on him. She put her hand out and touched his arm. "Al, I was devastated when I heard. Is there anything I can do? Can I help Jani?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Can I let you know?"

"Of course. Kate said --"

Lee was interrupted by another knock at the door. Kate answered it and found a young woman in the uniform of the cafe next to the hotel. She was carrying two large brown bags.

"You ordered breakfast?"

"Did we order breakfast, Lee?"

"Yes."

"Come on in," she said. "I didn't know you delivered."

"We don't," said the young woman laconically, dropping the bags on the small table and pocketing the money Lee held out. An expensive breakfast, thought Kate, closing the door.

Lee had ordered for Al as well, eggs and bacon and toast, only slightly leathery from the delay. Al took off his heavy coat and sat on the bed, Lee and Kate took the chairs, and they were silent until the food was nearly gone. Lee looked up first from her Styrofoam plate.

"I assume that if there had been any change, you'd have said something."

"No change. No sign whatsoever."

"There was a rumor yesterday at the search site," Kate said. "Someone may have seen a car?"

"D'Amico thought he'd found someone who saw a pickup with two people in it enter the freeway from the motel ramp just after midnight, the passenger small like Jules, but it's so vague as to be useless. Light-colored, full-sized pickup, it could have been from anywhere other than the motel. By the time the FBI finished questioning him, he wasn't even sure it was this exit."

"She vanished into thin air," Lee said quietly.

"Not under her own power she didn't."

"You're certain of that?"

"The dogs traced her to the back of the motel, period. She got into a car and was driven off."

"Got, or was put. Would the dogs have been able to track her if she'd been carried around the motel rather than walked there?"

"The handlers said yes, but that the animals wouldn't have seemed as confident as they did, if she'd been carried."

"And this killer, the Strangler. Could it be - I'm sorry, Al. You don't want to go over it all again."

Actually, Kate thought, he had seemed more comfortable now than when he had first appeared at the door.

"Lee, you couldn't possibly make it worse than it already is. Yes, it could be the serial killer who's working up here. Jules fits the physical description of his victims. He always takes them from near freeways, and there's no doubt he's moved south from where he first began."

"But?"

"The 'buts' are very thin. This guy normally kills immediately, takes his girls away, and lays them out ritually in a place they're sure to be found within a few days. Always within a twenty-mile radius of where they disappeared. And then a few days later, some police station in the area will receive an envelope with five twenty-dollar bills in it. The first one, two years ago, had a typed note saying it was for burial expenses, but since then it's just been the money. And that, by the way, is a tight secret. You're not to speak of any of this to anyone. You, too, Kate. The FBI would string me up if they knew I'd told you two."

"Of course."

"Anyway, no note, no money, they haven't found her --" His forced attitude of detached professionalism slipped, and he choked on the word
body
. He cleared his throat and started again. "There are also indications that she left the motel, if not deliberately, then at least under her own power. Mostly the things that are missing - her shoes and coat she'd have taken even for a short trip out of doors, but probably not her hairbrush, and certainly not her toothbrush and her diary."

What is your word for the day, Jules? Kate wondered, and was hit by a wave of the grief and guilt that had dogged her every moment of the last ten days. To push it away, she shifted in her chair and asked, "You don't think she went off on her own, though?"

"No. She'd have left a note. I think someone took her, and I think he had a weapon, because there was no sign of a struggle and I know Jules would've raised bloody hell unless she had a damned good reason not to."

"How did he get inside her room, or get her to come out?" Lee wondered.

"I don't know."

"What is it, Al?" Kate asked. "You had a reason for coming over here.

His right hand went spontaneously to the pocket in his shirt, and Kate did not need the look of embarrassment on his face to know that it was time to brace herself. Hawkin had been a smoker when she first met him, and she had quickly come to be wary of what that gesture meant.

His hand fell away before reaching the empty pocket, and he raised his face and looked straight at her for the first time.

"I want you to go back to San Francisco."

Until that moment, Kate had managed to forget the question that had been asked at the door of her mud-spattered car the evening before. It had not been difficult to push it away, given the burden of extreme exhaustion, followed by the shock of Lee's appearance and then the heaviest sleep she'd had in weeks, but suddenly all she could see was the knowing look of accusation in the broadcaster's face and the shape of his leather glove spread out against the handle of the car. She waited, and although it was Lee who asked him why, he answered as if Kate had spoken.

"A whole lot of reasons. You need to see your doctor. There're at least three cases pending that one of us needs to work on. And --"

"Pardon me," Lee said. "Doctor? Kate? Have I missed something here?"

"She hasn't told you why she's not at work?" Al asked.

"No," she said slowly. "Somehow it hasn't come up yet."

"It's nothing, Lee," Kate said. "I got hit on the head, and until the headache goes away, I'm on medical leave."

Al Hawkin kept his mouth firmly shut at this vast understatement. Lee looked at him, but he gave nothing away. Finally, she struggled to her feet, picked her way over to where Kate sat, and reached out to pull off Kate's hat. Four weeks of hair did little to cover the scar, and she grunted in pain at the sight.

Kate picked the cap out of Lee's hand and pulled it back over her scalp, ignoring her. "Don't lie to me, Al. What is it?"

"I don't know how to say this."

"Jani wants me gone."

"That's part of it."

"And there's talk."

Hawkin exhaled. "Shit. You heard."

"I haven't heard anything, except one of the most offensive questions I've ever been asked by a newsman."

"Yes, that would be where it'd surface. That's undoubtedly where it started."

Lee said in a plaintive voice, "I'm really sorry, but I'm not following any of this conversation."

"Sweetheart, you'd have been better off staying put with your aunt Agatha. Maybe
I
should go and stay with your aunt Agatha. I was asked yesterday if I knew where Jules was."

"Why would you - Oh. Oh God, Kate, he couldn't have meant... Al?"

He stood up and went over to the window, his hand patting the front of his shirt again before he remembered and thrust both hands into his pants pockets instead. His voice was harsh, painfully so, when he began to push the words out. "I should have known it was coming. I should've gotten you out of here earlier. I mean, of course you're going to be a target. Even before, you would've been, but now, when half of San Francisco knows about the leathers and the bike, you're meat to their gravy. And Jules taking after you, that haircut she got, and the two of you riding around town on the motorcycle."

Lee positively radiated bewilderment, but neither Kate nor Al could spare her a thought. "Al, does Jani think --"

"Jani's not thinking at the moment, but no, not really."

Which meant that she did indeed think something like that, or at least have her doubts.

"And D'Amico?"

"Florey doesn't listen to gossip. Besides, if he thought there was the least chance, he'd've had you down answering questions."

"And what --"

He whirled around, looking very large and extremely angry. "Martinelli, if you ask me whether I believe those filthy rumors, I swear I'll throw something at you."

Kate took what seemed like the first breath in minutes and felt her eyes tingle with relief.

"Thank you, Al."

"But when you get home, I'd leave that leather outfit in the closet for a while, and drive something with four wheels."

"Okay."

"You'll go?" He could not hide his astonishment.

"I don't have any choice. I'm not doing any good here, and if I stay, it'll only make things worse for everyone. It's already enough of a circus." Maybe I can do my Pied Piper act now, she thought bitterly, drag all the reporters back to San Francisco.