grandmotherly image to the real woman underneath. 'When you accepted Katherine's three thousand dollars, didn't you also take on certain responsibilities for her?'
'I didn't ask her to come to my place to have her baby,' Mrs. Yancy said. 'My business was worth a whole lot more than three thousand dollars. I wasn't going to throw it all away just for principle. Is that what you think I should have done?' She shook her gray head in disbelief. 'If that's what you really think I should have done, then you're living in a dream world, my dear sir.'
Joshua stared down at the woman, unable to speak for fear he would scream at her. He didn't want to be thrown out of her house until he was certain she had told him absolutely everything she knew about Katherine Anne Frye's pregnancy and about the twins. Twins!
Tony said, 'Look, Mrs. Yancy, shortly after you took Katherine in, when you discovered that she had wrapped herself up in girdles, you knew she was likely to lose the baby. You admit the doctor told you that might happen.'
'Yes.'
'He told you Katherine might die, too.'
'So?'
'A child's death or the death of a pregnant woman in labor--something like that would have closed up your place every bit as fast as having to call in the cops to deal with a woman who was suffering a nervous breakdown. Yet you didn't turn Katherine away when there was still time to do that. Even after you knew it was a risky proposition, you kept her three thousand dollars, and you allowed her to stay. Now surely you realized that if someone died, you'd have to report it to the police and risk getting shut down.'
'No problem,' Mrs. Yancy said. 'If the babies had died, we'd have taken them away in a suitcase. We'd have buried them quietly in the hills up in Marin County. Or maybe we'd have weighted the suitcase and dropped it off the Golden Gate Bridge.'
Joshua had an almost irresistible urge to grab the old woman by her bun of gray hair and yank her out of her chair, jerk her out of her smug complacency. Instead, he turned away and took a deep breath and began to pace along the flower-patterned runner once more, glowering at the floor.
'And what about Katherine?' Hilary asked Rita Yancy. 'What would you have done if she had died?'
'The same as I'd done if the twins had been born dead,' Mrs. Yancy said blithely. 'Except, of course, we wouldn't have been able to fit Katherine into a suitcase.'
Joshua stopped at the far end of the runner and looked back at the woman, aghast. She wasn't trying to be funny. She was utterly unaware of the gruesome humor in that gross remark; she was merely stating a fact.
'If anything had gone wrong, we'd have dumped the body,' Mrs. Yancy said, still answering Hilary's question. 'And we'd have handled it so that no one would have known that Katherine had ever come to my place. Now don't you look so shocked and disapproving, young lady. I'm no killer. We're talking about what I'd have done--what any sensible person in my position would have done--if she or the baby had died a natural death. Natural death. For heaven's sake, if I were a killer, I'd have done away with poor Katherine when she was out of her head, when I didn't know if she'd ever recover. She was a threat to me then. I didn't know whether or not she was going to cost me my house, my business, everything. But I didn't strangle her, you know. My goodness, such a thought never crossed my mind! I nursed the poor girl through her fits. I nursed her out of her hysteria, and then everything was all right.'
Tony said, 'You told us Katherine ranted and raved and babbled. That sounds as if--'
'Only for three days,' Mrs. Yancy said. 'We even had to tie her down to the bed to keep her from hurting herself. But she was only sick for three days. So maybe it wasn't a nervous breakdown. Just a sort of temporary collapse. Because after three days she was as good as new.'
'The twins,' Joshua said. 'Let's get back to the twins. That's what we really want to know about.'
'I think I've told you just about everything,' Mrs. Yancy said.
'Were they identical twins?' Joshua asked.
'How can you tell when they're just born? They're all wrinkled and red. There's no way to tell that early if they're fraternal or identical.'
'Couldn't the doctor have run a test--'
'We were in a first-class bordello, Mr. Rhinehart, not a hospital.' She chucked the white cat under the chin, and it playfully waved a paw at her. 'The doctor didn't have the time or the facilities for what you're suggesting. Besides, why should we have cared whether the boys were identical or not?'
Hilary said, 'Katherine named one of them Bruno.'
'Yes,' Mrs. Yancy said. 'I found that out when he started sending me checks after Katherine's death.'
'What did she call the other boy?'
'I haven't the foggiest. By the time she left my place, she hadn't given names to either of them yet.'
'But weren't their names on their birth certificates?' Tony asked.
'There weren't any certificates,' Mrs. Yancy said.
'How could that be?'
'The births weren't recorded.'
'But the law--'
'Katherine insisted that the births not be recorded. She was paying good money for what she wanted, and we made sure she got it.'
'And the doctor went along with this?' Tony asked.
'He got a thousand bucks for delivering the twins and for keeping his mouth shut,' the old woman said. 'A
