"All right," he said. "Where do I see it?"
"Welles and Julia host events." She pronounced the word like it began with a capital E. "Like parties, but more – focused. There's going to be one tomorrow night. Will you be my date?"
It seemed that there was not going to be any mourning period for Eden at the D'Anton household.
"I'd be honored," Monks said.
"Will it feel awkward to you? Being with a woman who's – well, you know. Been exposed a lot."
"My guess is I'll like it fine."
"You do say the right things," she said, and now her tone was sultry. "Let me give you directions."
He got a pen and wrote them down. The place was near the Marin coast, south of him – a private, very choice area of real estate.
"My God, I hope it cools down," she said. "I'm beaded all over with sweat. What about you?"
"It's actually not bad here. I'm up in the redwoods."
"I meant, is there anyone you suspect?"
"Everyone," Monks said.
She laughed. "You must stay very busy. I'll see you tomorrow, Carroll."
Monks put down the phone, still trying to process what had just happened. The guns lying on the picnic table brought back the enormously different reality of a few minutes before. He felt like he had been walking down the hall to a familiar room, but suddenly found himself in another city. Abruptly, he feared it might be the onset of a malaria attack. But they almost never came anymore, and he had not felt any warning symptoms.
He tasted his drink. It had gotten watered from melting ice. He dumped it over the railing, went inside, and poured another one. The vodka bottle was past the half-empty point.
When he walked back out, a man's voice said, "Doc?"
Monks jerked around, spilling the drink.
"Hold your fire," the voice said. "It's Emil."
"Emil," Monks said, opening his arms expansively. "Come on up."
The voice's owner came into view, a thickset grizzled man in his late sixties. This was Emil Zukich, a neighbor from a couple of miles up the road, the master mechanic who had given Monks the Bronco, then rebuilt it when it had been savaged by gunshots.
"I didn't see your lights," Monks said.
"Mrs. Fetzer called me about some shooting down here. Thought maybe I'd better come in quiet."
Shame touched Monks. Mrs. Fetzer was his closest neighbor, a reclusive middle-aged widow. He had not considered that the shooting might alarm her or drag Emil out to check on him.
"Everything's fine," Monks said. "Just a little target practice."
"Target practice? This time of night?"
"I've got some fine vodka."
I can't stay. How about if I help you put those away?" Emil nodded toward the guns.
Monks was suddenly very tired. He walked to a chair and sat down heavily. "I'm sorry, Emil," he said.
"I ain't going to ask if you're all right, 'cause I can see you're not. That's a bad mix, Doc. Booze and guns."
"I know."
"Maybe I should take them with me."
"I'm all right now."
I'll just check them, then."
Emil cleared the weapons one at a time, making sure they were unloaded, not forgetting to open the Beretta's chamber. A Korean War vet, he had fought at Pork Chop Hill. When he finished, he put them back on the table.
"Anything I can do?" Emil said.
"No. I just need some sleep. Sorry again."
"Not to worry. Things can get that way, I know." Emil faded into the night like a bandit.
It came home to Monks, with force, that he was alone again.
He went into the kitchen and swilled vodka from the bottle. It was warm and its fine flavor was lost to his taste, but he drank it anyway. He pulled food from the refrigerator, salami and cheese and bread, and tore off chunks with his teeth, aware as he bolted it down that he was ravenous.
When his belly was quiet, he made his way down the hall, lurching a little. He stopped in the bathroom to urinate and brush his teeth. Then he fell into bed.
As he reached to turn out the light, his gaze was caught by an illustration in an open book on his nightstand, a work of medieval history. Martine had probably read in it last night, while her deadbeat lover slept on the couch. The picture was an old woodcut by Durer. Several women in a rustic kitchen, surrounded by leering imps and familiars, were brewing a cauldron of magical potion, then flying up the chimney to join the hordes of their sisters, riding their broomsticks through the turbulent moonlit sky to a Walpurgisnacht orgy.
The witchcraft terror had exercised a tremendous hold on the medieval imagination. In Europe, between about 1300 and 1700, tens of thousands, almost all women – some estimates put the number at over a million – were executed for this ultimate heresy, selling their souls to the powers of evil, joining forces with the enemy of mankind.
In practice, beneath the genuine superstition of the times, there were far more tawdry motivations at work: misogyny, cruelty, and greed. The elderly, eccentric, and deformed – offensive to righteous citizens and helpless to defend themselves – were often targeted. But being young and pretty could be dangerous, too. A man suffering from unrequited lust might decide that this could only be because the desired one had cast a spell on him, and have the revenge of seeing her punished for rejecting him. Someone who coveted a neighbor's property might swear that they had seen that neighbor make unexplained trips into the forest at night; the victim's possessions would be confiscated, and given or sold cheaply to the accuser. Many suffered, as at Salem, from the lies of spiteful children.
Once the victims were accused, they were guilty until proven innocent, which almost never happened. Typically, they were tortured into confessing whatever lurid scenarios their inquisitors dreamed up, then burned alive. They were also forced to implicate others, so the process mushroomed. Villages were decimated; victims' entire families were considered contaminated; children were tortured into accusing their parents, then burned along with them. It was all done with the utmost piety.
There was evil in the world, Monks had no doubt of that – pervading human life, in different guises, in every era. During the witch-hunts, it had worn the judges' robes.
The oblivion of sleep came to him with merciful swiftness.
Chapter 21
The laser printer in Stover Larrabee's office whooshed quietly, adding more information to the stack that was accumulating. Larrabee was not an office person, and he had not grown up in the computer generation. He was more comfortable working in old-fashioned ways. But there was no denying that computers saved a lot of time, phone calls, and miles.
Guido Franchi, his SFPD detective friend, had provided a tantalizing piece of information. In 1997, a young woman named Katie Bensen had been reported missing. A routine police check turned up a common scenario. Katie was in her early twenties – no one knew her age for sure, or even if that was her real name. According to what she told friends, she had run away from home in her early teens and drifted ever since. She had no trouble finding places to crash; she was attractive, and willing to trade sex for money or drugs.
Katie had never been found. The police were unable to locate any family. She joined the ranks of young women who frequently went missing like that – drifters, druggies, girls who came to San Francisco looking for something or to get away from something else, living in a shadow world beneath the radar. Usually, they moved to another city because of legal or personal trouble, often changing names. Overworked police departments could not spend time and resources chasing girls who wanted to stay disappeared. But they could easily become throwaways – victims of that dangerous world, which included predators who sought them out.