She led them into a living room as bold in its decor as she was in her dress but with undeniable style and taste. A massive white-marble coffee table. Contemporary sofas upholstered in a rich green fabric. Chairs in peach silk moire, with elaborately carved arms and feet. Four-foot-tall emerald vases holding huge stalks of white-plumed pampas grass. Very large and dramatic modern art filled the high walls of the cathedral-ceilinged room, giving a comfortable human scale to what could have been a forbidding chamber. A wall of glass presented a panorama of Orange County. Teddy Bertlesman sat on a green sofa, the windows behind her, a pale nimbus of light around her head, and Reese and Julio sat on moire chairs, separated from her by the enormous marble table that seemed like an altar.
Julio said, “Ms. Bertlesman—”
“No, please,” she said, slipping off her shoes and drawing her long legs up under herself. “Either call me Teddy or, if you insist on remaining formal, it's
“Miss Bertlesman,” Julio continued, “we are most eager to speak to Mr. Shadway, and we hope you might have an idea where he is. For instance, it occurs to us that, being a real-estate developer and investor as well as broker, he might own rental properties that are currently vacant, one of which he might now be using—”
“Excuse me, but I don't see how this falls in your jurisdiction. According to your ID, you're Santa Ana policemen. Ben has offices in Justin, Costa Mesa, Orange, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, and Laguna Niguel, but none in Santa Ana. And he lives in Orange Park Acres.”
Julio assured her that part of the Shadway-Leben case fell into the jurisdiction of the Santa Ana Police Department, and he explained that cross-jurisdictional cooperation was not uncommon, but Teddy Bertlesman was politely skeptical and subtly uncooperative. Reese admired the diplomacy, finesse, and aplomb with which she fielded probing questions and answered without saying anything useful. Her respect for her boss and her determination to protect him became increasingly evident, yet she said nothing that made it possible to accuse her of lying or harboring a wanted man.
At last, recognizing the futility of the authoritarian approach, apparently hoping revelation of his true motives and a blatant bid for sympathy would work where authority had failed, Julio sighed, leaned back in his chair, and said, “Listen, Miss Bertlesman, we've lied to you. We aren't here in any official capacity. Not strictly speaking. In fact, we're both supposed to be on sick leave. Our captain would be furious if he knew we were still on this case, because federal agencies have taken charge and have told us to back off. But for a lot of reasons, we can't do that, not and keep our self-respect.”
Teddy Bertlesman frowned — quite prettily, Reese thought — and said, “I don't understand—”
Julio held up one slim hand. “Wait. Just listen for a moment.”
In a soft, sincere, and intimate voice far different from his official tone, he told her how Ernestina Hernandez and Becky Klienstad had been brutally murdered — one thrown in a dumpster, the other nailed to a wall. He told her about his own baby brother, Ernesto, who had been killed by rats a long time ago in a faraway place. He explained how that tragedy had contributed to his obsession with unjust death and how the similarity between the names Ernesto and Ernestina was one of the several things that had made the Hernandez girl's murder a special and very personal crusade for him.
“Though I'll admit,” Julio said, “if the names weren't similar and if other factors weren't the same, then I'd simply have found different reasons to make a crusade of this. Because I almost
“A wonderful habit,” Reese said.
Julio shrugged.
Reese was surprised that Julio was so thoroughly aware of his own motivations. Listening to his partner, contemplating the degree of insight and self-awareness at which these statements hinted, Reese acquired an even greater respect for the man.
“The point is,” Julio told Teddy Bertlesman, “I believe your boss and Rachael Leben are guilty of nothing, that they may be just pawns in a game they don't even fully understand. I think they're being used, that they might be killed as scapegoats to further the interests of others, perhaps even the interests of the government. They need help, and I guess what I'm trying to tell you is that they've sort of become another crusade of mine. Help me to help them, Teddy.”
Julio's performance was astonishing, and from anyone else it might have looked like exactly that — a mere performance. But there was no mistaking his sincerity or the depth of his concern. Though his dark eyes were watchful, and though there was a shrewdness in his face, his commitment to justice and his great warmth were unmistakably genuine.
Teddy Bertlesman was smart enough to see that Julio was not shucking and jiving her, and she was won over. She swung her long legs off the sofa and slid forward to the edge of it in a whispery rustle of pink silk, a sound that seemed to pass like a breeze over Reese, raising the small hairs on the backs of his hands and sending a pleasant shiver through him. “I knew darn well Ben Shadway was no threat to national security,” Teddy said. “Those federal agents came sniffing around with that line, and it was all I could do to keep from laughing in their faces. No, in fact, it was all I could do to keep from
“Where might Ben Shadway have gone, he and Rachael Leben?” Julio asked. “Sooner or later, the feds are going to find them, and I think that for their sake Reese and I had better find them first. Do you have any idea where we should look?”
Rising from the sofa in a brilliant hot-pink whirl, stalking back and forth across the living room on stiltlike legs that ought to have been awkward but were the essence of grace, looking incredibly tall to Reese because he was still sitting on the moire chair, pausing now and standing provocatively hip-shot in thought, then pacing again, Teddy Bertlesman considered the possibilities and enumerated them: “Well, okay, he owns property — mostly small houses — all over the county. Right now… the only ones not rented… let me see… One, there's a little bungalow in Orange, a place on Pine Street, but I don't figure he'd be there because he's having some work done on it — a new bathroom, improvements to the kitchen. He wouldn't hide where there're going to be workmen coming and going. Two, there's half of a duplex in Yorba Linda..”
Reese listened to her, but for the moment he did not care what she said; he left that part to Julio. All Reese had the capacity to care about was the way she looked and moved and sounded; she filled all his senses to capacity, leaving no room for anything else. At a distance she had seemed angular, birdlike, but up close she was a gazelle, lean and swift and not the least angular. Her size was less impressive than her fluidity, which was like that of a professional dancer, and her fluidity was less impressive than her suppleness, and her suppleness was less impressive than her beauty, and her beauty was less impressive than her intelligence and energy and flair.
Even when her pacing took her away from the window wall, she was surrounded by a nimbus of light. To Reese, she seemed to glow.
He had felt nothing like this in five years, since his Janet had been killed by the men in the van who'd tried to snatch little Esther that day in the park. He wondered if Teddy Bertlesman had taken special notice of him, too, or whether he was just another lump of a cop to her. He wondered how he could approach her without making a fool of himself and without giving offense. He wondered if there could ever be anything between a woman like her and a man like him. He wondered if he could live without her. He wondered when he was going to be able to breathe again. He wondered if his feelings showed. He didn't
“… the motel!” Teddy stopped pacing, looked startled for a moment, then grinned. An amazingly lovely grin. “Yes, of course, that would be the most likely place.”
“He owns a motel?” Julio asked.
“A run-down place in Las Vegas,” Teddy said. “He just bought it. Formed a new corporation to make the purchase. Might take the feds a while to tumble to the place because it's such a recent acquisition and in another state. Place is empty, out of business, but it was sold with furnishings. Even the manager's apartment was furnished, I think, so Ben and Rachael could squirrel away there in comfort.”
Julio glanced at Reese and said, “What do you think?”
Reese had to look away from Teddy in order to breathe and speak. With a funny little wheeze, he said, “Sounds right.”
Pacing again, flamingo-pink silk swirling around her knees, Teddy said, “I
