6
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Two hours and several residents later Kate pushed back her chair, scrubbed at her face with both hands, and went to join the line outside the toilet. As she walked back towards her desk, a hand from the kitchen thrust a steaming mug at her, and she buried her nose in the life-giving smell of fresh coffee. She carried it through the much-peopled living room and beyond to the long covered porch, where the clean air smelled of salt and trees and the rain that dribbled off the roof. A pile of wet dogs thumped their tails at her, and when she ignored them, tucked their noses back into each other's flanks.
Some thoughtful soul had draped a piece of canvas over the rose bower, and the guard, hearing the front door close, peered out at her, raised his own steaming cup in greeting, and stepped back under the shelter. Beyond his casual canopy she could see that the newsmen had arranged a series of more elaborate tents and marquees, some in bright colors, so that the space across the Road was beginning to resemble a high-class gypsy encampment. She could hear a mutter of voices and after a moment pushed her lethargy aside long enough to move to the far end of the veranda for an unobstructed view of the tent city.
Hawkin was there, talking with the newsmen. He looked every bit the proper police investigator, in a belted trench coat with the requisite crumpled fedora in his hand. He was facing away from her, but she could see that his feet were planted squarely, his back was straight, his gestures few and controlled. He turned his head slightly to listen to a question, and Kate saw him respond with a sharp shake and could see his mouth move in a 'no' before he turned away again for the next question. There was the slightest sag to his shoulders now as they moved with a gesture of his unseen hands. In another few seconds the hat was clapped onto his head, and he turned back to the house with an air of getting back to his job. The reporters lingered until he reached the gate and then began to disperse.
The sag to his shoulders was more pronounced when he appeared on the stone walk. He reached the shelter of the porch and fumbled with belt and buttons until he extracted a large, limp handkerchief, which he proceeded to rub like a towel over face and hands. He shoved it back into its pocket and began to shrug off the wet coat when he saw Kate in her silent corner and grinned.
'I hope to God that's coffee and not some herbal concoction that tastes like dirty straw,' he said.
'Coffee, just made, and strong enough to bite back. Want me to get you a cup?'
'No, it's too cold out here to stand around in wet shoes, thanks.' Still, he made no immediate move for the door. 'How's it going?'
'Nothing yet, if that's what you're asking.'
'It's early still.'
'Can I ask you something, Al?'
'Of course.'
'How much of your method of talking to the media is deliberate?'
'Deliberate? A performance, you mean? Oh, it's all a game. They want the truth, but more than that they want a good story; you want them to shove off, but not completely— they can be useful. And they're not a bad bunch, most of them, just doing their jobs. If you keep them fed, make them feel included, put on a show from time to time, they're not too much trouble. Especially in weather like this. I go out every hour or two and churn out all kinds of exciting nonsense they can work up into a story—keeps them happy. They're having loads of fun with that Cadena woman and her baby. One of them wanted me to tell her that if she could make his deadline there'd be a hundred dollars in it for her.'
'What did you say?'
'I told him that she was trying her best. I also said that you'd come out and talk to them in a while. It'll give my shoes a chance to dry out.'
'Throwing me to the wolves?'
'Propitiating the gods, Tyler would say.'
'How do you feel, really? About the case?'
'It's too early to feel anything, but I don't feel good. And my feet are damned cold. Back to work, Martinelli.'
At four thirty-seven the midwife guided little Amanda Samantha Christina Cadena-Panopoulos into the world, and all the honorary aunts, uncles, and cousins downstairs cheered and kissed and clapped one another's backs when the short, indignant yell trickled down to their ears. At four-fifty Kate and Bob Fischer went out to present a grainy photograph of mother and daughter to the waiting reporters (and collect the new mother's hundred-dollar check), and two sets of grandparents saw their newest granddaughter's wet, squashed features on the six o'clock news. At six-thirty the last question was asked of the last resident. At nine-thirty Kate dropped Hawkin at the station and drove on to the pool for twenty minutes' hard swim. At ten-thirty she walked back into the office, clearheaded, and they worked for two hours at sorting out the mountain of papers. At one o'clock Kate finally fell into bed, and at five forty-five the telephone rang.
She hit the receiver, fumbled and dropped it, retrieved it from the floor, and squinted to see the luminous hands of the bedside clock. She had to clear her throat before any intelligible sound would come.
'Yeah.'
'Casey, pick up some doughnuts on your way in this morning, would you? I've got the coffee on, but the place wasn't open when I came by.'
'Doughnuts.'
'Chocolate glazed, if they have them.'
'God.'
'What?'
'Chocolate glazed doughnuts.'
'Yes, or whatever looks good. See you,' he said cheerily, and the line went dead.
Kate replaced the telephone with the gentle care of a hangover victim, turned to the single eye that scowled up at her from the next pillow, and pronounced the words again.
'Chocolate. Glazed. Doughnuts.'
The eye cringed, closed, and retreated beneath the blankets. Kate made her own toast that morning.
It was a day given over to the computers, those electronic busybodies into whose impersonal clutches fall the bits and pieces of the personal histories of criminal, victim, and Jane Q. Public. Kate's feet echoed in the still quiet hallways, and a thick fug of cigarettes and rancid coffee greeted her when she entered Hawkin's office. She dumped the greasy white bag on the desk next to him, pushed open a window, and went over to inspect the coffeepot. It held a strangely greenish liquid that seemed an inauspicious start to the day, so she started another pot, politely refused the kind offer of a doughnut, and sat at the console. Her mind itself felt not unlike a cold, greasy wad of cooked dough when she looked at the stack of yesterday's papers.
'Where do you want me to begin?' she asked.
'Up to you,' he said around a mouthful of crumbs. 'Alphabetical, geographical, the pin-prick approach, or you can follow hunches. They're all equally bad.'
'In that case I'll proceed with some semblance of logic— start from Tyler's place and work my way up the Road.'
'Why not the other way around?'
'From the far end down? Why?'
He shrugged. 'Look at the farthest point from civilization to find the biggest misfit?'
Kate looked at him closely, but she couldn't tell if he was joking.
'I'll compromise, five from the top, five from the bottom.'
Throughout the long day Kate worked to pull together the information contained in the electronic network on the fifty-seven adults and nineteen (now twenty) minors who lived on Tyler's Road.
Hawkin spent much of the day with the telephone tucked under his chin, and when that failed he read through the assembled reports and printouts with a fierce concentration, made notes, and stared blankly out the window. He disappeared in the early afternoon and came back three hours later looking rested and shaven, and wearing a clean shirt.
At five-thirty Trujillo called in with the statements from three of the residents who had not been at Tyler's
