"Hot shower," he ordered in a hard voice, and shut the door. A few minutes later Kate, under a stream of blessedly scalding water, heard the door open.
"Don't put those wet things on again," came another order, and the door slammed. She pulled the curtain to one side and saw jeans, sweatshirt, and thick gray socks folded next to the sink. The urge to shudder subsided, the water began to run cool, and she dressed. When she came out of the steam-dripping room she heard a now-familiar voice shouting in monologue.
"—when it ought to be hauling cantaloupes in the Coachella Valley. You get me a decent four-wheel-drive vehicle in here tomorrow or I'm going to have to make some major waves about the lack of backup here for my people. No, I don't want to hear about your problems. I don't care if you have to break into the goddamn Jeep dealership and steal something. I can't have my partner getting pneumonia because you people don't maintain your equipment, and I'm too old and too ill-tempered to walk. Have I made myself sufficiently clear? Good. Have a nice evening," he added maliciously, and hung up. He rapidly wiped the grin from his face when he saw Kate standing in the doorway, but it crept back in twitches. She was grinning too, in her cuffed and belted jeans and the sweatshirt that reached to her thighs. She felt ridiculously pleased at his use of the word "partner."
"Warmer now?" he asked.
"I should ask the same of you," she said mildly, with a glance at the telephone.
"Yes, well, if they think they're all going to hide behind me, they're very much mistaken. You want something to eat before we go?"
"A cup of coffee would be great, but that's all."
"I gave Tyler's lady your thermos. Anna. She said she'd fill it. I'll just tell Trujillo we're leaving—he's staying here again tonight."
They found Trujillo in the dimly lit great hall with his feet up on a table in front of the huge fireplace, talking to Tyler and sitting next to a woman who was apparently not a stranger. He had a glass in one hand and no tie on, and he jerked upright as they entered.
"Christ Jesus, Trujillo, you seem to think this is some kind of holiday arranged for your entertainment. You're on duty here, mister, or had you forgotten? Maybe you think the people of this county pay you for sitting and drinking whiskey while some bastard is out there murdering children? I don't expect you to stay up all night, I told you that. I don't even expect you to sleep alone. I do expect you to stay sober enough to answer the phone if I feel like having a chat at three in the morning." He snatched up the glass and took it over to the fireplace, paused at the sight of the bottle on the mantelpiece, and looked at Kate. "You driving?"
"Sure."
"Not too tired? Good, it'd be a shame to waste this. I'll bring back your glass tomorrow, Tyler, and from now on put the good stuff away or I'll have to charge you with attempted bribery." He took a small sip and rolled it around his tongue. "We'll overlook it tonight, though. Good night, all."
They detoured through the kitchen and retrieved the thermos from Anna.
"Sorry I didn't have anything smaller," she said, smiling at Kate's attire.
"I did wonder if Tyler went in for lavender," replied Kate. "I'll bring them back tomorrow."
"No hurry. Drive carefully. They're predicting gale-force winds by midnight, I heard on the radio before the power went out."
"A cheery thought."
In the car Kate slipped off her sodden shoes, the second pair for the day, and drove in her stocking feet. Hawkin poured her some coffee and slumped back, nursing the glass.
"You like whiskey?" he asked.
"Not especially."
"White wine." From the scorn in his voice he might have said "soda pop."
"Sometimes. I prefer a red. When I drink, it's usually beer."
He was surprised, and said so.
"It has character," she commented. "And if you want the results of the afternoon, I've written it on that pad in the glove compartment. The final figure should be"—she looked at the glowing figures on her wrist—"four hours, twenty-eight minutes door to door. I didn't run very fast going down, but I doubt she could have done it as fast going up. We'll have to ask Dodson if she seemed out of breath at all. Where is he, by the way?"
"He borrowed Tyler's pickup to go to Sacramento to pick up an engine. His truck has a cracked block, and a friend had one that he was going to sell him cheap. Trujillo checked, too. His engine really is shot." He threw the notebook back into the glove compartment and slapped it shut.
"What else turned up today?" she asked.
"One little lock of brown hair in the back of the Jaguar, one child's ring under the seat."
Kate frowned.
"There was no mention of a ring on any of the girls, was there?"
"No, there wasn't. One of Trujillo's men is going to do the rounds with it tomorrow. Parents sometimes forget just what a kid walked out the door wearing. One of them might recognize it. It was too small for an adult."
"You said a lock of hair. Cut off?"
"No, caught in a door handle, a little twist of twenty, thirty hairs. Brown, straight, about six inches long."
The rain sheeted down the windshield, and even on high speed the wipers managed to clear only brief glimpses of the black roadway and the drops that fell and bounced back up in the headlights. When Kate broke the noisy silence, her voice was flat.
"It doesn't look good for Vaun Adams, does it?"
"No, it does not."
"Do you think she did it?"
"We're not allowed to play favorites, Casey."
"I just want to know what you think."
Hawkin took a minute to answer.
"You know, all day I've been thinking about a case I had, oh, fifteen years ago, maybe. This little, quiet mouse of a woman whose kids and husband disappeared. She came in to report that he'd taken them, filled out missing persons forms, we put out their descriptions. His car was found a few days later near a bus stop, so we went back to talk with her. She was just what you'd expect—teary, worried, furious at her husband, but completely rational. She showed us the kids' rooms, and there was this teddy bear, no eyes, one ear chewed off, all the fuzz gone—you know how a toy looks when it's been loved to pieces. Anyway, this teddy bear was sitting there on the table next to the bed, leaning up against the lamp, and it just struck rne that it looked, I don't know, lonely. It stuck in my mind, and later that night I got to thinking about it, and I got to thinking that really there were kind of a lot of clothes in the closets, that he would at least have taken coats or shoes. The next morning we went and got a search warrant, and found them in the basement, buried deep. And she was such a nice, gentle lady, with absolutely no guilt in her eyes."
"But you can't think that Vaun Adams is stupid, and to bring the bodies to her own backyard, as she put it, would be stupid. Suicidal."
"Maybe that's it. She wouldn't be the first psychopath who arranged to be caught. 'Stop me before I do it again,' that sort of thing."
"Do you honestly think so?"
He squinted out the side window, but saw only the reflection of the dashboard lights and his own unhappy face.
"No, I don't. She looked like a badly beaten ex-con who's trying to decide whether or not to stand up on her feet, not like a murderer who's half afraid of being caught and half afraid of not being caught. She didn't look afraid at all, for that matter. Maybe she really is crazy. I dunno, we'll have to find out what Dodson says tomorrow and see the results from the lab and the prints boys. Oh, hell, I shouldn't have had that Scotch on an empty stomach, it's making me all weepy. Next thing you know I'll be telling you about my ex-wife. I'm tired. Do you need me to keep you awake?"
"No, I'm fine," she lied. "Will it disturb you if I listen to the radio?"
"Nothing disturbs me when I'm asleep," he snorted, and soon proved it.