In the end, sitting in front of the fire, they decided that it would have to be Saturday. By then Vaun would be more rested, physically and mentally, Lewis would be feeling safe and anxious to resume, and besides, it would make the Sunday papers.
"I've made preliminary arrangements with a man on the News staff, who's willing to go along with it in exchange for an exclusive and an interview with you," he said to Vaun, who winced. "It will, I'm afraid, mean more photographs, and your privacy all shot to hell. I'm sorry."
"After this afternoon's paper, there's not going to be much of it left anyway. It's a miracle I've managed to get away with it as long as I have."
"We may find Lewis before that, remember. Every cop in California has seen his picture by now." His offer of encouragement sounded thin, and Vaun shook her head.
"No, now be honest, Alonzo Hawkin. If you picked him up tonight, what could you possibly charge him with? I'm no expert, but it sounds to me like you have nothing at all that you could take to a jury. Isn't that right?"
"Vaun, that isn't really our responsibility."
"Of course it isn't, but there isn't much point in arresting somebody if you then have to let him go for lack of any evidence. Don't worry, I do understand what I am to do. There's no point in putting out bait if the tiger doesn't come far enough to make his intent clear, isn't that it? I shall sit and wait for him to come for me, don't worry," she repeated, but none of the other three liked what was in her face, and in each of them a special gnaw of concern started up.
"I want your promise…" Hawkin began, and Vaun laughed, a bleak, brittle sound.
"No, I'm not about to 'do something foolish,' as they say. I will cooperate, I will do what you tell me to do. Four lovely little human beings have lost their lives on account of me, on account of this gift of mine. It must come to an end."
There was a cold, dead undertone in her words. Lee started to speak, and stopped. Hawkin cleared his throat.
"So, we're agreed. On Saturday morning you set off for some public place like Golden Gate Park or Fisherman's Wharf, accompanied by these two and a number of other plainclothes along the way. The three of you are photographed by our pet reporter and his cameraman, and you will appear the following morning on the front page of the Sunday paper. We'll give it three or four days, and if he hasn't appeared by then, we'll do it again. You think you'll be up to it? Vaun?"
She pulled herself back from some distant and unpleasant place and focused on Hawkin.
"Yes, yes, whatever you want. I'm sorry, I was just thinking of those three sets of parents. I wonder if they can bring themselves to read the papers anymore. I wonder what impression my smiling face eating a crab cocktail at Fisherman's Wharf will make on them. I would like to speak with them, when this is all over."
"I think it would do them a lot of good," said Lee. "But it might be very hard on you."
"What does that matter, now?"
"Well," Hawkin broke in, "first there's the minor matter of getting this all over. I suggest that a good night's sleep might help. 'Night, all, and thank you, Lee, for yet another ambrosial feast. Are you wearing your button?"
"I am." She pulled it up from inside her shirt, and dropped it back down.
"Good." He caught himself. "Thank you." He touched Vaun's shoulder lightly in passing, though she seemed not to notice or indeed to notice that he was leaving. Kate stood when he left but allowed Lee to run him through the alarms and waited for the thoughts beneath the black curls to surface. It took several minutes, and Lee was standing in the doorway behind Vaun, also waiting, before Vaun finally spoke.
"You saw that last painting I did, didn't you, Kate?"
"The one with the woman and the child?"
"Yes. You saw it in the studio that day. Gerry had someone bring it to the hospital." Its terrible beauty had been gouged and shredded beyond recognition, and Hawkin had personally seen it put into the hospital incinerator. "That was Mrs. Brand, Jemma's mother. Her face stayed with me for eighteen years, how she looked that night when she realized Jemma was dead. I started to dream about her again, last December, and I finally had to paint her. It was one of the most… difficult paintings I ever did," she said with a terrible calm. "Possibly one of the best. And now it's gone."
"Perhaps—" Kate stopped. She heard the thoughtless insult of what she was about to say but plunged on regardless. "Perhaps you'll do the painting again, one day."
"Oh, no," Vaun looked up at them, with the gentle acceptance of finality in her face. "I said it must come to an end, and it shall. I will not paint again."
27
Contents - Prev/Next
It was a terrifying week. Vaun drifted through the house like a lost soul, her hands in her pockets. She slept a great deal during the day, although her light was often on in the night. She watched the television, sitting down to whatever channel it was tuned to, game shows, old movies, British dramas indiscriminately, and would get up and wander off upstairs at times that made it obvious that she was completely unaware of the machinations of the plot. Only a cartoon would hold her interest until it was broken by a commercial.
She did not go into Lee's therapy rooms.
She ate automatically what was put on her plate, took part in conversations when she was addressed directly, seemed relaxed and good-humored about the necessary inconveniences. She even made a shy joke about being held prisoner for her own good.
Lee recognized it as one of the stages her terminally ill patients would go through on the way to the grave, and she grieved and she understood and she fought it with all her determination and skill, to absolutely no effect.
To Kate it was like watching an intelligent wild thing calmly gnaw off a trapped foot.
On Tuesday John Tyler came to the house. Kate was not quite sure how he had talked Hawkin into it, but he came in an unmarked SFPD car in the afternoon, still in ironed jeans and soft shoes but with a linen jacket as his nod to the formality of the city. No tie. His attitude too was more formal, and he drank a cup of coffee with the three women before following Vaun up the stairs to her room. They remained there all afternoon, their voices an occasional rhythm overhead, and when Tyler came down at dusk he was alone. He came to the door of the kitchen where Kate and Lee were talking as Lee stirred a pot. Lee saw him first.
"John, would you like some dinner? Just soup, almost ready."
"I have to go soon. I told Anna I'd be home."
"A glass of wine first?"
"That would be nice, thanks." Kate got up and poured them each a glass.
"I'm glad you came," Lee said. "She's feeling lost, and far from home."
"I don't think that's anything new for Vaun," he said mildly. "She feels far from home in her own house. Vaun is one of the saddest ladies I know, and where she is or who's with her doesn't make much difference."
"Oh, surely not. She has friends."
"Vaun has friends, but as far as I know the only one to really touch her has been Gerry Bruckner, and he's too central to her to be called a mere 'friend.' "
"I met Gerry. I'd like to meet Angie, too. How is she?"
"Angie is the same, only more so. This latest has not helped her self-esteem any, as you can imagine. 'A woman with worn hands and a hopeful heart,' Anna called her in one of her more poetic moods. And she teams up with a woman whose hands are now still and whose heart is without hope. Somebody better kill that bastard," he spat out. "I'd do it myself, I think, given the chance."
"You knew, didn't you?" Kate asked suddenly. "That Vaun was imprisoned for murdering a child?"