"It's strange. Once I thought the kit was there with me. Then later when I woke in the hospital I thought about leaving the car door open and I worried about her.

Cora Lee smiled. "Detective Garza didn't know how I could outrun the guy as far as I did, could get clear around to the back street- I told him I run at the sports center. When the guy did catch me, when he grabbed me, I really don't remember all of that clearly. I don't remember how I got into the alley where the police found me."

She looked at Wilma, frowning. "Just… him hitting me, grabbing the letters, twisting my hand. I remember falling, doubling up with the pain, and I heard a car take off. I don't know who called the police. A woman, they told me. They said she made two calls. I suppose it was someone in one of the upstairs apartments, but no one knows who. I'd like to thank her."

On Cora Lee's lap, the kit rolled over purring and looked up at her with a little curving smile. And Dulcie thought, Careful, Kit. Be careful. She watched Cora Lee with apprehension.

If Cora Lee, in her deepest mind, remembered that the kit was there with her, licking her face, did she remember, in some lost dream, the kit speaking to her? Remember three cats crowding around her, talking about her? Did unconscious people hear and remember what was said in their presence? Some people thought so, even some doctors thought they did-but Cora Lee mustn't. Enough people already shared their secret, they didn't need anyone else knowing, even a person they liked as much as Cora Lee French.

Besides Wilma and Clyde and Charlie, Kate Osborne knew about them. They didn't see Kate often; and Kate would never ever tell their secret, one that was so close to her own. But one other person knew, as well-a sadist now locked in San Quentin, a man who had broken out once and followed Kate, surely meaning to kill her just as he had wanted to kill Dulcie and Joe.

Dulcie watched the kit, on Cora Lee's lap, licking the last specks of cake and cream from her whiskers.

"I'm surprised she doesn't make herself sick." Cora Lee said. "She ate like that at my house, too."

Wilma laughed. "Nothing seems to bother her. Apparently she has the same cast-iron constitution as Dulcie and Joe."

"Maybe they're a special breed." Cora Lee stroked the kit. "Certainly this little one is more intelligent than most cats, she seems to know everything I'm saying."

The kit glanced up at Cora Lee, then looked at Dulcie guiltily. Cora Lee seemed unaware of having said anything alarming; her expression was completely innocent. Watching her, Dulcie started when the doorbell rang.

Wilma rose to answer it, hurrying Mavity and Susan in out of the cold fog. Mavity's uniform of the day sported pink rickrack around the white pant cuffs and collar. Over this she wore a zippered green sweater, and her frizzled gray hair was covered by a pink scarf damp with mist.

Susan Brittain was snuggled in a brown sweatshirt over her jeans, and a tan jacket, her short white hair curly from the fog. Gabrielle came up the walk behind them, her smart cream pants suit well tailored, probably fashioned by one of her seamstresses. The three women crowded around the fire and around Cora Lee, making a fuss over her, though they had visited her in the hospital only the day before, taking her flowers and the latest magazines that Wilma had good-naturedly carted home again this morning. On the way home, Wilma had driven Cora Lee by the police station to talk with Detective Garza again. Then at home, she had had a nice lunch waiting. Dulcie herself had curled up on the afghan with the kit while Cora Lee had a long nap.

Gabrielle helped Wilma serve the coffee, then sat down at the end of Cora Lee's chaise. "Did the doctor say whether-say when you can go on with the play? I've started your costume."

"Will there still be a play?" Cora Lee said, surprised. "But they won't want me, they'll put out a call for new tryouts. Truly," Cora Lee said, "with Fern dead, in such an ugly way, I feel ashamed to think about the play." Coloring faintly, she looked up at Susan, where she stood before the fire. "Ashamed that I would still want to do Catalina," she confessed softly.

"Feeling guilty?" Susan said.

"I suppose. Because I did so want that part."

"You're not responsible for Fern's death," Susan said.

"I can't help feeling guilty, though, because I surely wished her no good the night of the tryouts."

"Wishing didn't kill her," Wilma said sharply.

"And whatever debt the Traynors owed Fern Barth," Susan told her, "to make them give her the lead, that's over now."

"Well, they won't want me," Cora Lee said. "Vivi Traynor won't."

"What did the doctor say?" Mavity asked. "How soon will you feel right? How soon can you sing again?"

Wilma said, "There's a lot of muscle tightening around the incision. She'll be stiff for a while, and hurting, and fluids will collect there. The doctor wants her to be careful so it doesn't go into pneumonia. He's told Cora Lee not to take any fill-in restaurant jobs until she's completely healed."

Cora Lee touched her side. "If anyone wanted me-if Sam Ladler wanted me bad enough to arrange it, I'd be ready. Two or three weeks, I could be ready to rehearse. But I…" Her face reddened. "That won't happen."

Gabrielle said, "Were you able to help the police? To give them information that would be useful?" She fiddled nervously with her napkin. "I hope Detective Garza doesn't feel that you were involved in Fern's death in some way?"

"Why would Garza say that?" Wilma asked. "Though, in fact, he has no way to know at this point. Until he's sorted through the evidence, he has only Cora Lee's word. He has to wait for the lab tests, has to remain detached."

"I suppose," Gabrielle said. "But Captain Harper knows Cora Lee."

"That really doesn't matter," Cora Lee said. "Wilma's right."

"But," Mavity said, "what exactly did happen? The part you can talk about? It was all so confusing. The paper said there were blood splatters in the back room and on those three wooden chests, that there was a fight back there. I don't-"

Wilma put her hand on Mavity's. "Cora Lee doesn't need to talk about this anymore."

"I'm sorry," Mavity said contritely. "Of course you don't."

"In fact there's very little that Cora Lee is free to discuss," Wilma added.

"But those three carved chests," Gabrielle began, "Catalina Ortega-Diaz's letters…"

"No one knows," Wilma said, "if any of the letters have survived all these years. Those letters could be nothing but dust."

Gabrielle put her hand on Wilma's. "I… have something to tell you." She looked shy and uncomfortable. "I didn't before because… Well, I hadn't intended to do anything about it-I didn't do anything about it, so I didn't think it mattered."

They all looked at her.

"When I was in New York and stopped to see Elliott, he was more than cordial. He fixed lunch for me-Vivi had gone out- and he wanted to talk with me about Molena Point." She sipped her coffee, looking down as if finding it hard to tell her friends whatever was bothering her.

"Elliott told me about the Spanish chests, about the research. He said he had been corresponding with a museum that had one of the chests, and that it had contained three of Catalina's letters. He thought there might be other chests still around, with letters hidden in them-a false bottom, something like that. He told me they would be worth ten to fifteen thousand dollars each.

"He wanted me to look for similar chests when I got back to the coast. He said that if I found any, he would handle selling them to the highest bidder, and we could split the money-that I would be acting as his agent.

"I didn't like the idea. The more I thought about it, the less I wanted to do that. I told him I'd think about it, but when I got home I wrote him a note, said I wasn't interested, that I was sorry he had told me.