Night Work

to quote ‘heal’ gays and dykes.”

Roz laughed aloud. “The last one was in retaliation for an article I’d written and they had obviously not bothered to read, about Hitler claiming to have been a Christian.”

“Did he?” Jon asked, interested.

“I have no doubt that he thought of himself as a good Christian leader.”

“Like those maniacs who bomb abortion clinics, killing to save lives,” Jon agreed. “They’re mostly right-wing Christians. The guy who runs that Web site giving the names and addresses of abortionists that’s little more than a hit list—he calls himself a man of God.”

“We humans have a deep need to justify our behavior, especially the more extreme acts,” Lee commented, pausing in fitting the boot of Italy into the Mediterranean. “We drag God in to stand at our side, even if we have to bend reality to do it.”

“Poor old God,” Jon said. “Must be frustrating having everyone claim your support. Like Albert Einstein being dragged in to advertise everything from Coke to computers.”

“God definitely needs a press agent,” Lee said. Sione was looking ever more puzzled.

“Issuing statements to clarify policy,” Roz agreed.

“Headline: God says, ”I do not support Pat Robertson,“ ” Lee joked.

“God announces: ‘Only gay feminists of color admitted to heaven,” “ Maj suggested.

“God unveils heavenly affirmative action plan: One percent Christian Right to be admitted, qualified or not,” Roz contributed.

The jokes escalated, the intellectual content plummeted, and a couple of minutes later Lee, seeing Sione looking worried and Mina positively alarmed at this incomprehensible adult descent into hilarity, leaned over and spoke to Kate.

“How about some more coffee, hon? Kate?” Lee reached out and put her hand on Kate’s knee, bringing her back to the present from some far-off place.

“Huh?” Kate said, blinking.

“Could you put on another pot of coffee?”

“Sure,” she said, and went off to do it.

Her mind was not on the chore, however. In fact, she had heard nothing of the discussion and joking, nothing after Jon’s mention of the abortion clinic murders, an offhand remark that had sent a small tingle rising up in the back of Kate’s mind, the kind of sensation that carries the phrase, “Listen to me.”

Hit list. Web site. Maniac. Listen.

Kate listened, and speculated in a state of distraction while the coffee was made and drunk, and the dishes were cleaned, and Jon and Sione left to feed Sione’s recently adopted Siamese kitten. She helped gather up Maj’s empty containers and walked with them out to Roz’s car. The night sky was still clear, a rarity in the city of fog, and mild enough that none of them wore a jacket. Maj opened the Jeep’s rear door and took the bowls from Kate, who leaned against the passenger door and addressed herself to Roz’s backside, emerging from the back of the car while she buckled Mina into the car seat.

“There were three women with picket signs in front of Peter Mehta’s house yesterday morning. You know anything about that?”

“I know that they’ve moved on to his place of business. Much more visible. Can you scoot back a bit, honey?” Roz asked, which Kate assumed was addressed to the child in the car seat.

“It’s an interesting question, isn’t it, how much we allow immigrants to keep the customs of their birth country,” Kate noted. “When we have laws to the contrary. Like the conservative groups who refuse to send their kids to public schools.”

“Customs or not, marrying off children is wrong.”

“So is allowing half the kids in the country to go without medical care. So is spending a million dollars for a missile to drop on civilians.”

Roz pulled her head out of the car and grinned at Kate. “Martinelli, we’re going to make a flaming liberal of you yet.”

“Roz, who did you tell about Pramilla Mehta’s death?”

Roz shut Mina’s door and stepped back so Maj could approach the passenger door. Kate too stepped away from the car.

“Why do you ask this, Kate?” Maj’s voice asked, but it was Roz’s gaze Kate held as she answered.

“Someone may have known that Laxman was being investigated for his wife’s death, and decided not to wait for the police. If we can narrow down the people who had that information, it might help us find his murderer. Roz knew of Laxman’s violence against his wife. Roz and Amanda Bonner.”

Maj answered before her partner could. “Roz knew. I knew. About eighty other people knew. And then whoever those people may have told.”

“Eighty people?” Even for Roz, that seemed like a lot of phone calls.

“I preached on it, Sunday morning,” Roz explained.

Kate winced. “Mentioning names?”

“Yes.”

And on Monday night, Laxman Mehta had been killed.

Maj reached for the passenger door, breaking the staring contest. Roz walked around the car to the driver’s side.

“It was good to see you,” Maj told Kate. “I hope you’re taking care of yourself.”

“Lee makes me.” To say nothing of her other partner, Al.

“She is looking so well.”

“She’s doing great.” Kate opened her mouth again to say something further about Roz’s threatening letters, and then closed it firmly. They were big girls, and neither of them naive.

“Shall we go, my Maj?” Roz asked. Mymy, her favorite pun on Maj’s name.

Maj leaned forward and gave Kate an affectionate kiss on the cheek. Both women got in and closed their doors, Maj with some difficulty, which indicated that the Jeep’s argument with the Yosemite rock face had damaged more than paint. The engine ground into life (something wrong under the hood as well—Roz’s pet mechanic must have left the congregation) and the red car slid off down the hill.

Kate stood for another minute with her face upturned to the faint impression of stars, then she went back inside, poured the dregs of the coffee into a cup, and took it upstairs, where she turned on the computer and then walked away from it, ending up on the small balcony off the guest room. Half an hour later Lee found her there, sitting and watching an overhead airplane rise up into the heavens.

“What are you doing?” Lee asked.

“Sitting.”

“You okay?”

“I am perfect,” Kate told her.

Lee came up behind her chair and leaned down to kiss her on the same cheek Maj had used earlier. She smelled of soap and toothpaste. “You turned the computer on. Are you working tonight?”

“You detective, you. Al thought I needed a night off, so I promised him I wouldn’t work until tomorrow morning.”

“So you’re waiting until midnight,” Lee diagnosed. She laughed.

“Tell me something,” Kate asked her. “Roz did something in India that gave you the creeps. What was it?”

Lee stood still for a moment, and then with a sigh she put her hands back through the cuffs of the crutches and shifted over to sit down on the narrow bench.

“I don’t really want to go into detail, but basically what happened was Roz disappeared from the hotel and went off to live with a group of dacoits for a few days. What we would call, I don’t know, a band of outlaws, I guess. Nasty people. Personally, I’ve always thought that she was given some powerful drug, a hallucinogen I’d say. She swore she wasn’t, but it was all pretty ugly, and it took a major effort to get her out of there, and out of the country without being thrown in jail.”

“I…” Kate shook her head. “I can’t picture it.”

“Completely uncharacteristic,” Lee agreed. “Which is why I decided she’d been given something. I’ve never