"Coach Shapiro's?" she asked.
"Finally. The photographer did a good job on those."
She concentrated on the other three prints, which showed the same face touched up first to show middle age, then with a moustache added, and finally with a full beard. She puzzled over this last one.
"It doesn't look quite right," she said finally. "I only saw him for a minute, but the nose was different, and the shape of the eyebrows."
"Well done, considering the circumstances. Angie and Tyler agree with you. Susan took the photograph and worked it into the drawing she did last week, and came up with those," he said, pointing. Susan Chin had also done a good job. The drawing with the beard was the man Kate had seen at Vaun's house ten days before. Susan had then removed the beard and left the moustache, using the jawbones of the high school picture, and finally shaven him clean.
"That's him. He must have had a nose job, and something done to his eyebrows."
"We also know who Tony Dodson is. Or was."
"It's not just a false ID then?" She was surprised.
"Apparently not. There was a man named Anthony Dodson who worked with Lewis, and even resembled him quite a bit: same hair color, eyes, height, only fifteen or twenty pounds heavier. Lewis went north after high school, spent some time in Seattle, then got a job in Alaska on the pipeline. He met Dodson there, they became friends, spent several weekends in Anchorage. After a few months the two of them went off for a week in Seattle and didn't show up for work again. Lewis wrote a letter to say they'd both got jobs in New Orleans, they were sick of the cold, that their clothes and equipment should be given away, so long. Nothing more is heard of Andy Lewis—nothing—but Tony Dodson, who was from Montana originally, gets a driver's license in Nevada two months later."
"And the photo?"
"Is the same man who went to high school as Andy Lewis, given that the photograph on the license is lousy, he's ten years older and has had facial surgery."
Food began to move from stove to table to plates— avocado and mushroom omelet and hot buttery toast and orange juice fresh from the machine on the sink and mugs of thick coffee. Kate took a mouthful of the hot liquid and swirled it around her teeth, feeling the distinctive bite of the Yemen Mocha. She raised a mental eyebrow at this but didn't comment. Lee would not like it pointed out that a special effort was being made at this meal.
The cook sat down with a cup but no plate and picked up the original photograph. Several hundred calories later Kate looked over at her.
"You're not eating?"
"I had something a while ago. I thought I'd wait and keep Vaun company."
"That picture bothers you," Kate noted. Hawkin glanced up sharply and then looked more closely at Lee, whose face revealed nothing other than a slight curiosity.
"It does. I was just wondering if it would bother me if I didn't know who it was. It reminds me of someone I knew when I was in New York. Not one of my clients, though I'd seen him around the clinic. One day he told his therapist that he'd been beating up drunks, just for the fun of it, and one of them had died. She was really upset after he left, but managed to finish out the day. That night he waited for her and followed her home and killed her. He later said he'd decided it was unwise to have told her, but she'd already reported him to the police, and they were waiting for him when he got home. He didn't actually look anything like this," she waved the picture. "Maybe around the eyes." She gazed at it for another long moment, then with a slight shudder put it away from her. When she looked up it was directly into Hawkin's eyes, no swordplay now.
"As a therapist I am required to deny the possibility of such a thing as innate evil. There are reasons why people become twisted. As a human being, however, I recognize its presence. This man Lewis must be stopped. I believe that my being here might help you catch him. If I see that I am in the way, I will leave. Immediately."
It was not put as an offer, a compromise, but Hawkin chose to take it as such. The two women waited as he finished his toast, placed his fork and knife across his plate, took a swallow of coffee. When he spoke it was to Kate.
"All right. I am still very unhappy about having a civilian involved, and if I thought for a minute there was a chance Lewis would get into the house, I'd scrap it now. Yes, it will look more normal to have Lee in the house. Yes, Lee will help with Vaun, and yes, it will, in theory, free up your eyes to have Lee looking after Vaun. I have to trust you on that, that you won't be distracted by Lee. And I have to trust you," he jabbed a finger at Lee, "to watch for that, and get out fast if she's looking out for you instead of Vaun. I don't like trusting too many people at once, but if we go with this it'll be your show," back to Kate, "and your judgment. If you decide to put your friend here at risk, knowing Lewis, then we'll go ahead with it. If not, or if I'm not satisfied with the safeguards, we make other arrangements. Agreed?"
Kate took a deep breath, and committed herself.
"Agreed."
"Fine. We start with this." He took an object from his pocket similar to the button that Kate had given Vaun, and slapped it onto the table in front of Lee. "You will wear this at all times. You push it, and across the street we know something's wrong. If you take it off, I pull Vaun out of the house."
Lee smiled sweetly at him and stood her ground.
"I rather doubt you'd have any legal basis for moving her around the countryside if she preferred to stay with me, but I shall be happy to cooperate with any reasonable request."
Kate busied herself with more coffee while Hawkin glowered and Lee smiled like a steel rose. Finally his lips twitched.
"Dr. Cooper. It would bring me considerable reassurance as to the safety of all in this house if I knew that you were carrying that alarm button with you at all hours of the day and night."
"I do understand, Inspector Hawkin, and I will be most happy to comply. More coffee?"
"Your coffee, my dear young lady, has been one of the few bright spots of the last two weeks, but I think I'll have to refuse a fourth cup and make an appearance at work. I thank you also for breakfast."
He stood up, and Kate followed him to the door.
"Al, I think Vaun was wanting to see you."
"I have to be in San Jose ten minutes ago. I'll stop back this evening."
"Come for dinner."
"Oh, no, I—"
"Please."
"All right, I'd enjoy that. If the traffic's bad it'll be after seven."
"I'll plan for eight. I should warn you, you won't get food like you just had. I'm a lousy cook." He smiled. "Will you see the Donaldsons?"
"I'm afraid so." He sighed. "How many different ways are there to say, 'Trust me, we're working on it,' when she wants to know everything that's going on? I can't blame her, but it doesn't make things any easier."
"Glad it's you and not me," she said frankly, and did the alarm business to let him out. Neither of them looked at the house across and two down, whose upper floor was temporarily occupied by various men and machines. She watched him climb into his car, closed the door, and went to talk to Lee about dinner. As she had expected, Lee insisted on cooking.
That evening Vaun's photograph was on the front page of the paper. Some enterprising amateur with a powerful lens had caught her staring longingly out of her hospital window, looking for all the world like a prisoner in a cell. It was a very clear picture.
Over hot-and-sour soup, beef in black bean sauce, snow peas with shiitake mushrooms, and fried rice, they hammered out the plans for the next few days. Or rather, Hawkin and Kate hammered, Lee commented and made suggestions, and Vaun picked at her food. She kept glancing at the folded newspaper on the side table, with the expression of a person fingering a bruise.