'They could have inherited the same voice.'
'Maybe a low-pitched voice could be inherited,' Tony said. 'But that special gravelly quality you described? Could that be inherited, too?'
'Why not?'
'Last night you said the only way a person could get such a voice was to suffer a serious throat injury or be born with a deformed larynx.'
'So I was wrong,' she said. 'Or maybe both brothers were born with the same deformity.'
'A million-to-one shot.'
'But not impossible.'
Tony sipped his beer, then said, 'Maybe brothers could share the same body type, the same facial features, the same color eyes, the same voice. But could they also share precisely the same set of psychotic delusions?'
She took a taste of her own beer while she thought about that. Then: 'Severe mental illness is a product of environment.'
'That's what they used to think. They're not entirely sure of that any more.'
'Well, for the sake of my theory, suppose that psychotic behavior is a product of environment. Brothers would have been raised in the same house by the same parents--in exactly the same environment. Isn't it conceivable that they could develop identical psychoses?'
He scratched his chin. 'Maybe. I remember....'
'What?'
'I took a university course in abnormal psychology as part of a study program in advanced criminology,' Tony said. 'They were trying to teach us how to recognize and deal with various kinds of psychopaths. The idea was a good one. If a policeman can identify the specific type of mental illness when he first encounters an irrational person, and if he has at least a little understanding of how that type of psychopath thinks and reacts, then he's got a much better chance of handling him quickly and safely. We saw a lot of films of mental patients. One of them was an incredible study of a mother and daughter who were both paranoid schizophrenics. They suffered from the same delusions.'
'So there!' Hilary said excitedly.
'But it was an extremely rare case.'
'So is this.'
'I'm not sure, but maybe it was the only one of its type they'd ever found.'
'But it is possible.'
'Worth thinking about, I guess.'
'A brother....'
They picked up their sandwiches and began to eat again, each of them staring thoughtfully at his food.
Suddenly, Tony said, 'Damn! I just remembered something that shoots a big hole in the brother theory.'
'What?'
'I assume you read the newspaper accounts last Friday and Saturday.'
'Not all of them,' she said. 'It's sort of ... I don't know ... sort of embarrassing to read about yourself as victim. I got through one article; that was enough.'
'And you don't remember what was in that article?'
She frowned, trying to figure out what he was talking about, and then she knew. 'Oh, yeah. Frye didn't have a brother.'
'Not a brother or a sister. Not anyone. He was the sole heir to the vineyards when his mother died, the last member of the Frye family, the end of his line.'
Hilary didn't want to abandon the brother idea. That explanation was the only one that made sense of the recent bizarre events. But she couldn't think of a way to hold on to the theory.
They finished their food in silence.
At last Tony said, 'We can't keep you hidden from him forever. And we can't just sit around and wait for him to find you.'
'I don't like the idea of being bait in a trap.'
'Anyway, the answer isn't here in L.A.'
She nodded. 'I was thinking the same thing.'
'We've got to go to St. Helena.'
'And talk with Sheriff Laurenski.'
'Laurenski and anyone else who knew Frye.'
'We might need several days,' she said.
'Like I told you. I've got a lot of vacation time and sick leave built up. A few weeks of it. And for the first time in my life, I'm not particularly anxious to get back to work.'
