'You saw her a couple of weeks ago, I think?'
'Ten days ago. She was due to be discharged the following day. How is it going?'
'She's much happier at home, sleeping well. And she seems to be doing better just generally.'
'Changes?' He was as sharply perceptive as ever and picked up the nuance of hope in her voice.
'The doctors say they aren't sure, but you know doctors. She says there's some feeling in her right foot, and the other day she moved it in reflex.'
'Oh, Kate. That is good news. I'm very glad to hear it.'
The sincerity behind the hackneyed phrases stung her eyes, and she looked away at the musicians. Some people were beginning a dance.
'Al, I'm sorry about how I acted when you came to see me. I didn't mean it, I hope you know that.'
'I do. I chose a poor time to come. Forget it. I'll come to see her sometime, shall I?'
'She'd like that.'
'Tell her I said hello, and that I'm glad to hear she's doing better.'
'She's sure she'll be jogging by Christmas. Of course, she never jogged before—I don't know what her hurry is.'
He smiled at her, hearing what lay behind her feeble joke.
'Buy you a beer?'
'A bit early for me.'
'You have to get into the medieval spirit. They drank it all day—no coffee, can you imagine? and no tea other than herbs that they drank as medicine—and got a large part of their vitamin and caloric intake from beer. Why, do you know, court records show that the lady's servants—the women, mind you—were each issued something like three gallons a day?'
'Must have been a jolly castle.' She wondered at this arcane expertise.
'With busy toilets. Speaking of which, I wonder where Jani could be? Oh well, she'll find us.'
And so saying he casually draped an arm across Kate's shoulders, and she was so astonished she could only lean into him as they meandered downhill and joined the line for paper cups (printed with a wood-grain design) of surprisingly decent dark beer.
They found a quiet corner atop a pile of large wooden crates and sat looking at the pulsating, growing crowd of medieval merrymakers. The beer went down well as they sat in the shade on an already hot morning with the taste of dust on their tongues. Kate swallowed and gave herself over to relaxation, feeling small pockets of unrealized tension give way. It was the first alcohol she'd had since what she thought of in capitals as The Night. To drink would have been an act of cowardice, until now.
She didn't realize she had sighed until Hawkin turned to her.
'I almost didn't come,' she said, as if in explanation.
'I was a little surprised to see you,' he agreed.
'Some of Lee's clients are with her today. Jon Samson, as a matter of fact—one of her most devoted. Silly to call them clients, I suppose. If anything, they're the therapists, both physio- and psycho-.'
'Friends, maybe.'
'Friends. Yes. I don't know what I would have done without them.'
'Are you coming back, Kate?' he asked abruptly.
'You know, until ten minutes ago I wasn't sure.'
'And?'
'Yes. Yes, I do believe I'm coming back.'
'Good.' He nodded and drained his cup. 'Good. How soon?'
'I'll have to arrange care for Lee.' He waited. 'Jon offered to move in for a while, to take over the front rooms. I'd have to get in a bed, arrange a relief schedule for him.' Hawkin waited. 'A few days. Four. Maybe three. Why?'
'I could use you now,' he said. His fingers fiddled with the waxy rim of the cup, uncurling it, and his eyes scanned the crowd, and his face gave away nothing.
'Isn't this where you start lighting a cigarette?' she said suspiciously.
'Gave them up.'
'Why do you need me now?'
'I've been given the Raven Morningstar case.'
'Oh, Christ, Al, give me a break!' Ms. Morningstar had been found, very much murdered, in her hotel room in the city the week before. Ms. Morningstar had a list of enemies that would fill a small telephone book. Ms. Morningstar was one of the country's most outspoken, most eloquent, most militant, most worshipped, and most vilified radical feminist lesbians.
'You might be of considerable help.'
'Oh, I can imagine. You could nail me up on the doors of the Hall of Justice and let them throw things at me while you slip out the back.'
'None of them would throw things at you,' he said matter-of-factly. 'There is, after all, a certain amount of renown attached to a female police officer who forces her superiors to give her an extended leave in order to nurse her wounded lover, lesbian variety, and who furthermore makes noises that the departmental insurance policy should be made to include what might be termed unofficial spouses.' He did look at her finally, with one eyebrow raised, to gauge her response. She stared at him, open-mouthed, for a long minute, until she felt a sensation she'd never thought to feel again. A great, round, growing balloon of laughter welled up inside her and finally burst gloriously, and she began to giggle, and laugh, more and more convulsively, until in the end she lay back on the crates and roared, tears rolling down into her hair. His growing look of alarm only made it worse, and it was some time before she could get out a coherent explanation.
'When I… that first day, in your office… you so obviously didn't want to be burdened with me—no, I understood, I was being set up in a prominent place on the case because there were kiddies involved—' She realized where they were and lowered her voice. 'And any case with kiddies has to have a little lady in it, and little old Casey Martinelli was that lady, there to look cute and pat the kiddies on the head. And now'—she started to laugh again—'now I'm the department's representative to the chains-and-leather dyke brigade.' She wiped her eyes and blew her nose, and suddenly the laughter disintegrated and she heaved a sigh. 'Ah, well, as they say: only in San Francisco.'
'So when can you be there?'
'Jesus Christ, Al, you don't give up, do you? Today's Saturday. I'll be in Tuesday.'
'Make it Monday.'
'Nope. There's people I can't reach on the weekend— have to do it Monday morning.'
'Monday afternoon, then.'
'All right, damn it! Late Monday afternoon.'
'I'll set a press conference for three o'clock.'
'A press—you utter bastard,' she swore angrily, and an instant later realized that she was cursing at the man who was still her superior officer.
He swung his face around, looked directly at her, his gray-blue eyes inches from her brown ones, and grinned roguishly.
'That's what all the girls say, my dear.'
A voice came from behind them, a voice low but penetrating, the voice of a woman accustomed to public speaking.
'I go away. I stand in line for one half hour with anachronistic music in my ears for the dubious privilege of using a porta-potty disguised as an eleventh-century privy. I come back to find my escort has disappeared, and when I manage to track him down, I find him guzzling beer and staring into the eyes of another woman.'
Despite the words, the voice did not sound troubled, and the face, when Kate hitched around to face it, was only amused.
Kate nodded seriously.
'You just can't get good escorts these days,' she told the woman.
'My dear,' shouted Hawkin happily, 'this is Casey Martinelli. Kate, this is Jani Cameron.'
'Kate,' said Kate firmly, and held out her hand. Another, smaller hand waved up from behind the crates,
