with a glass of water and eyed her as he would a suspect. “Hard day, kid?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know anymore. Since we found that guy yesterday and Tanya’s fingerprint in his shower, nothing much else has turned up. Maybe that’s good. We’re not up to our armpits in new bodies. But it doesn’t feel like we’re winning.”
“It never does until it’s over,” said her father. “I was betting she would be recognized by now, though.”
Catherine’s mother seemed to be more and more agitated as her husband and daughter talked. She said, “How about your life outside of work? Anything interesting happening?”
“Not that I’ve noticed. I seem to be the same bitter divorcee I’ve been for years.”
“We haven’t seen you much. Has Joe Pitt been around?”
Catherine’s father seemed to remember something else he had to do. He took his glass of water with him to another room.
“A couple of weeks ago. He’s back in Los Angeles doing his own cases. We call each other a lot.”
“What do you talk about?”
“Meaning what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think I mean, are you serious about him?”
“Or is he serious about me.”
“Both ways.”
“Headline: Mother Wants Daughter to Settle Down.”
“Or not,” said Martha Hobbes. “Maybe you’re getting too settled as it is. Is being a cop all you ever want to do?”
“Is that such an odd idea?”
“It’s a big joke on me, I can tell you. I spent twenty-five years waiting for your father to get to retirement age without any holes in him. And now I worry about you. Marriage might not be so bad compared to having murderers burning your house down around your ears.”
“I was married, remember? That’s how I realized I should be a detective. I detected that my husband was screwing everybody he could reach.”
Her mother stared at her. “Is that funny to you?”
“Funnier than it used to be,” said Catherine. “Believe me, I’ve come a long way toward your way of thinking in the past few weeks.”
“You mean you really are serious about him?”
“Yes, I’m very serious. But I’m not making plans for any weddings. I wasn’t going to go out with him at all until I purposely forgot everything my mother had told me about men.”
“He lives in Los Angeles, doesn’t he? What would you do if he asked you to move there?”
“He hasn’t.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to put off thinking about it until he does.”
“I don’t get it. Have you decided you want me to move to L.A., or that you don’t want me to?”
“I want you to be happy.”
“Good. I’m happy.”
“I mean really happy.”
“Mother, make yourself happy. Make Daddy happy. I’m not in a position to be ‘really happy’ right now. I have a reasonable facsimile of a boyfriend. We’re seeing where it goes, but at the moment it’s not going anywhere. Long-distance relationships are everything they’re cracked up to be, which is horrible. We tell jokes and say ‘I miss you.’ Half the time when I talk to him I’m sure he’s watching some game on television with the sound off.”
“There. Was that so hard?”
“What?”
“Telling me what I asked you in the first place.”
Catherine closed her eyes and took two deep breaths, then opened them again. “No, I guess it wasn’t.”
Her father came in, carrying a newspaper. “Have you tried the emergency rooms?”
“Huh?”
“She killed this big fellow, right? Sometimes while they’re killing somebody, they get hurt. Wood or glass chips fly, people you think are dead aren’t. She could be hurt.”
“She’s not. This one was blindfolded, lying naked in bed. All the blood in the apartment is his.”
“Oh,” he said. “How about parking tickets? I picked up a few suspects by seeing what cars got ticketed near the scene. There’s a description of the car and the license number on the summons.”
“Tried it.”
“How about security videotapes? That apartment is in a neighborhood that’s mostly commercial.”
“Tried that too.”
“That’s my girl.” He wandered off again.
Catherine’s mother said quietly, “Does he ever make any sense?”
“Always. He’s trying to think of a way to shortcut this for me.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” she muttered. “It’s hard to tell if you’re just humoring him.”
“I’m not, but I would.”
Her mother put a piece of cherry pie on a plate and set it in front of Catherine. Catherine cut it in half and returned half to the pan without comment. Then she ate the other half and listened to her mother talk about the past few days in the neighborhood.
The stories were a peculiar comfort to Catherine. They calmed her and reassured her that the rhythms of the real world were intact. The sun dried the rain-soaked gardens, the roses bloomed, and Lydia Burns put a letter in a mailbox and accidentally dropped her car keys in with it.
At eleven Catherine went into the living room, where her father was watching the local news. He looked up. “Have you had uniformed officers circulate her picture to the mom-and-pop stores?”
Catherine said, “What am I missing?”
“She’s got to buy food and toothpaste somewhere. Supermarkets are full of people standing in line staring at one another, and four or five assistant managers watching customers. Maybe instead, she shops at one of those little stores run by immigrant couples who can’t tell one young American woman from another, or are afraid to cause trouble.”
“I’ll give it a shot. Thanks, Daddy.” She kissed his cheek.
He said, “Are you going?”
“Yeah. I’ve had my free slice of pie, so I guess I’ll be on my way.”
“I drove by to check out your apartment building.”
“And you hated it?”
“I don’t work for
“They’re all interns,” she said. “The ones that are old enough to be keepers must all have houses.”
“When you park in that lot behind the building, look around before you get out of your car, and then watch your back.”
“I always do,” she said. “Good night.”
“Good night, kid.”
She went out and stepped onto the porch. Her eyes took in the configuration of trees and houses that were so familiar to her they were the landscape of her dreams. She could see it was all as it had been for as long as she could remember, and there was no shadow that she had not memorized. She walked toward her car slowly, looking up and down the quiet street.
The day after Tanya had burned her house, Catherine had requested that a plain car be posted a hundred feet below here, on the curve of the road, so that an officer could get a close look at the face of anyone who drove or walked by. After a week there had been no adequate justification for keeping a car any longer. There had been no indication that Tanya had looked for Catherine’s parents, but tonight something felt wrong.
She continued her walk to her car, stopped beside it, and reached into her purse, pretending to search for her keys while she watched and listened. There was no unfamiliar sound, no sign that anything was out of place. She stood there a bit longer, waiting, giving Tanya a chance to move. Nothing happened.
Catherine got into the car and started it, then turned on the lights and drove farther up the hill. She turned
