Kate had seen her coming and moved in front of the two women, who whirled around at the voice. Bob Fischer and his partner stood apart on the other side of the room, looking mildly interested at the disturbance. Kate took Vaun's arm and propelled her firmly out past the group of chattering gawkers. The central figure, the woman Kate had seen at the pier, raised her voice and turned to follow but was pulled to a sudden and unexpected halt by her elbow, upon which a very large and utterly immovable hand was laid. Her face looked up, and up, into the smiling teeth and invisible eyes of Bob Fischer.
'Pardon me, ma'am, I couldn't help overhearing, but could you tell me please who you thought that was?'
His words were faultlessly polite; his stance and dress were definitely, well, big; and the thumb and forefinger grasping her arm were like a clamp. She looked into her own face staring down from his glasses, and quailed.
'I, well, Eva Vaughn, the painter, you know, down on that Road, the little girls——' Her voice drifted off as she realized that her quarry was rapidly getting away from her. She plucked at his fingers with nervous little jabs and looked desperately over her shoulder. Her husband hugged his big video camera bag to his chest and began to protest weakly. The other three ladies and two men in the group faded back a step or two and eyed each other as their leader explained valiantly about artists and pictures and maybe an autograph, for her granddaughter, who was such a clever little artist herself, you know?
After several minutes of this Bob bared his teeth hugely and loosed his clamp.
'Oh, yeah, I see, the artist, she was in the paper, I remember. You remember, Lily, down on that Road where they kept finding them little girls?'
The pale woman nodded and dropped her purse, and by the time the last errant lipstick had been rounded up by the gallant gentleman from Schenectady, Kate had called ahead on her walkie-talkie to have the boat held for them and had taken two precipitous shortcuts across the Road. The pursuers never had a chance.
Kate hustled her two charges aboard, followed closely by the other 'couple' who had dawdled behind Bob and the pale 'Lily' during the morning, and by a solitary older Japanese man who had been sitting on a bench at the landing with a booklet on the history of San Francisco until Kate had spoken into her radio. Kate shoved Vaun into a corner seat as the door swung shut behind them. Ropes were cast off, the engines began to work, and they were well away by the time the cluster of art lovers burst from the tunnel and slowed to a disappointed walk. She smiled grimly and turned to the man with the history booklet.
'Hello, Inspector Kitagawa. Is Tom Grimes waiting for us, then?'
'Oh, indeed, with about five hundred others.'
'Word got out,' he said laconically.
'We won't be able to land, then.'
'It's all right, half the department is there, too. Hawkin has a car there; he wants you to take your ladies right into it. If we let her stop to talk there'll be a riot, so he's arranged to meet Grimes later. Somebody'll take care of your car, if you'll give me the keys.'
She unhooked Lee's ignition key from her ring, gave it to him, and stood up.
'I'd better go talk to the captain or the pilot or whatever he is and let him know what's going on.'
'He knows.'
Half of San Francisco knew, it appeared. Every tourist from Ghirardelli Square to Pier 39 must have heard, and added their numbers to the professional voyeurs. An alarmingly narrow line had been cleared by the uniformed police, a gauntlet of lenses and microphones to be run. Kate looked at Vaun to see how she was taking it and saw the same face she had met all those days ago: achingly beautiful, pale as death, and without the slightest expression or hint of life within. Vaun's hand reached up and removed the sunglasses, folded them, handed them to Kate. Even without them there was no sign of her thoughts about the chaos before them.
'Are you going to be okay?' Kate asked her.
'Probably never again,' she replied calmly.
The boat bumped into the berth. Ropes were made fast, the door opened, and the gangway stretched out towards the crowd, and Vaun stepped out to meet her fate.
She walked slowly through the mayhem of shouted questions and outthrust microphones and the swell of clicking and whirring cameras, looking only at the equipment-laden belt of the chunky policeman who led their small procession through the crowd. She seemed completely oblivious to the uproar, looked only like a woman preoccupied with a minor personal problem, and allowed herself to be guided to the waiting police car and pushed in. Hawkin was there, and while Lee and Kate got in on either side of Vaun in the back seat he raised a bored and authoritative voice to inform the assembled media of their opportunity Tuesday to ask all the questions they might want, but not until then, sorry, no more comments, and with that he climbed into the front next to the driver and off they drove.
The driver spent the next few minutes shaking off several pursuing cars and vans while Kate gave Hawkin an account of the trip onto Alcatraz, Vaun stared unseeing through the front window, and Lee touched Vaun's hand lightly and watched her. The driver was good, and in ten minutes they were on the freeway going south, free of followers.
They drove for twenty minutes to a huge, anonymous motel three hundred yards from the freeway, went directly to room 1046, and ordered a room service lunch. Vaun asked for tea. The food arrived, and on its heels came Tom Grimes and his photographer.
'You weren't followed?' Hawkin asked him at the door.
'I wasn't followed, Al, don't bust a gusset. Is she here?'
'You can have fifteen minutes,' Hawkin growled, and let him in.
Hawkin and Kate stood and munched; Lee picked at a sandwich and watched over Vaun like a mother dog with a litter of one; the cameraman squinted over his cigarette and filled the anonymous room with equipment and harsh white light. Grimes set a small tape recorder on the table in front of Vaun, who sat at the center of it all in a plastic chair, feet together, hands in her lap, as calm as a royal personage on her way to the block. She answered his questions as if she were reading them from a page; she was impersonal, noncommittal, but honest.
She told him that yes, she was Eva Vaughn, and also Siobhan Adams, that yes, she was the Siobhan Adams who had been convicted of murder, and no, she had not committed these recent murders, had in fact nearly been murdered herself. Who did them, then, and why was she involved? She could not comment on that question, not until the police investigation had been completed. Grimes had not expected an answer, and he went on. How long had she been living on Tyler's Road? Almost five years. No, her neighbors had not known who she was, either as artist or as murderess. Yes, she painted there. Yes, some of them appeared in her paintings.
On and on, human interest questions for the most part, as Grimes could fill in the rest for himself. Through it all Vaun maintained an air of polite disinterest, until nearly the end. Hawkin had just stuck his head out the door to signal the driver that they were nearly ready, and the photographer was packing up his lenses and paraphernalia.
'A last question, Miss Vaughn,' said Grimes, casting about in desperation for a quote with some zing to it. 'I'm curious about your name change. Did you have any reason for choosing the name Eva Vaughn?'
This unexpected question caught Vaun's attention, and for the first time she seemed to look at him.
'Adam and Eve were the same person, weren't they? Two halves of a whole. It wasn't really a name change at all.'
'Are you a religious person, then?' Grimes tried not to sound surprised, as if Vaun was about to declare herself a born-again believer, and at that she fixed the full gaze of her remarkable eyes upon him and smiled gently.
'Not church-religious, no. But a person who has been through what I have is not apt to find such thoughts… without interest.'
The camera flashed a final time, and in three minutes they were back on the freeway, going north. The driver went off on the second exit, drove east for a few miles, and joined the other northbound freeway. Hawkin nodded and eased his neck. No followers.
Kate leaned forward in her seat, and Hawkin half twisted to talk with her.
'There were television people in that lot at the pier,' she noted. 'How much do you suppose they'll put on tonight?'
