They bought deli sandwiches and took them back to Larrabee's, eating while he tracked down the address of Eden Hale's parents. Monks opted for Italian meatballs in a thick red sauce, messy but just the ticket. He finished every bite, swabbing the plate with the last bits of bread. He had not realized he was so hungry. The Hales lived in Citrus Heights, an area of Sacramento. Larrabee called and spoke briefly to Mrs. Hale, asking if she was willing to meet. Monks gathered from what he overheard that she was reluctant – apprehensive at why a private investigator wanted to talk to her. Larrabee assured her, with professional skill, that he would explain. He did not say anything about Monks coming along.

They exchanged the van for Larrabee's Taurus, a car he liked because it was so inconspicuous. The drive to Sacramento was a straight shot on Interstate 80, across the Bay Bridge, through Berkeley and the suburban sprawl east, out into the open of Fairfield and Vacaville. Even though it was early in the summer, the fields and foothills were already brown and parched.

Traffic was bumper to bumper, most of it traveling at eighty miles an hour or trying to, and squeezing even tighter together over the long narrow causeway into West Sacramento. Monks had a musty memory of a lesson learned in physical chemistry classes – that molecules forced closer together by heat and pressure would move faster and faster, until they finally boiled over or exploded.

Neither of them was familiar with the freeways in Sacramento proper. The spiderwebs of interchanges turned into an all-out free-for-all that had them battling their way through the maniacally confident locals. Signs would appear with the suddenness of flashcards, sending them careening across several lanes of traffic, desperate to make an exit or else they'd end up trapped in the speeding streams to Stockton, Tahoe, or Reno.

Finally, with relief, they found their way to Citrus Heights and joined the relatively normal street traffic. It was just before two p.m.

Tom and Noni Hale lived in an upscale area – a tract, like most of the city's suburbs, but older, built in the late fifties or early sixties, and more gracious. The house was ranch style, long and low with a stucco exterior and a red tile roof. It was weathered to a soft brindle color that helped give it a Spanish feel. But most of the comfortable quality came from the yard, large and private, closed in by oleander hedges and a vine-wreathed fence. Monks glimpsed orange and lemon trees in the back. He had a brief mental image of a laughing little girl, the picture of innocence, playing underneath them.

They got out of the car and walked to the door. It was significantly hotter here than in San Francisco – over a hundred, Monks was sure. The air had a different feel to it, an infinitely fine grit that seemed to abrade his skin and teeth. To the east, the snowcapped peaks of the Sierra Nevada looked like clouds through the hazy air. The Sierra foothills looked bone-dry, too.

A woman answered the bell. She was fiftyish, attractive, with carefully applied makeup and coiffed hair tinted auburn. A loose tunic covered a suggestion of spread around her waist, but tight pedal pushers showed off calves that were still slim and firm. Her face was tense with stress.

"Mrs. Hale? My name's Larrabee. I called earlier."

Her mouth made a little grimace. "Yes," she said, and stepped back to let them in. Larrabee did not move.

"This is my associate, Dr. Monks," he said.

She blinked, and then her eyes widened.

"You're – not – the one who-"

"I attended your daughter in the Emergency Room," Monks said.

"I can't believe you had the nerve to come here." Mouth trembling, she wheeled around and called, "Tom. This is that doctor!"

A man came striding into the room from another part of the house. Tom Hale had the look of a jock gone to seed, with thinning hair and a once powerful body turned shapeless. He was wearing a golf shirt and pleated white shorts. His face was red from sun, anger, and possibly booze.

"I did everything in my power to save your daughter's life, Mrs. Hale, and I've been saving lives for more than twenty-five years," Monks said. "I wouldn't dream of coming here if I couldn't say that."

Tom Hale ignored him and glared at Larrabee. "Is that what this is really about? You told us you had questions, but you brought him here to try to soften us up? Well, forget it."

"I came here because I'm willing to explain in detail what happened in the Emergency Room," Monks said. "I'll also tell you that the case will undergo a review by a team of medical specialists in the next few days. If they find that I was negligent, I'll quit practice."

Larrabee glanced at him, astonished. Monks had not known he was going to say that until he did. But he meant it.

Noni Hale's face had gone from outraged to doubtful.

"I did come because I have questions, Mr. Hale," Larrabee said. "Not to try to soften you up."

Slowly, Noni moved aside from blocking the doorway. "You have to understand, this is very hard for us," she said. Monks and Larrabee followed her into the house.

The living room was immaculate, with a leather couch and chairs and a dozen Sunset magazines fanned out in perfect order on the glass-topped coffee table. The photos of two young men were on prominent display. One was wearing the dress uniform of a marine lance corporal; the other was in a tux, with his arm around his beaming bride. They were all clean-cut and good-looking. There were no photos of Eden.

"When you took home Eden's things," Larrabee said, "did you take a phone answering machine?"

"I don't think so. No." Noni turned to her still glowering husband for confirmation. He shook his head sullenly. "I don't remember seeing one," she said.

"Do you know if she had one?"

"I'm – not sure. I suppose so."

Monks remembered that the parents had not known about Eden's breast surgery. It did not sound like there had been much communication between them.

"Did she have a source of income, besides her work?" Larrabee said. "From you? Or an inheritance, anything like that?"

"No. We used to help her out now and then. But not for years." Noni looked puzzled now.

"She must have been doing pretty well, judging from her apartment."

"She'd been on TV. Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, some others. But we don't really know much about that part of her life. The whole acting thing – it wasn't what we wanted. We tried our best to get her into something more respectable. She was very smart, but she didn't care about school."

Larrabee cleared his throat. "Are you aware that she was involved in, ah, adult films?"

Tom Hale, pacing at the room's far edge, made a choked angry sound.

Noni folded her arms. "Eden made some mistakes."

"I wasn't passing judgment," Larrabee said.

"That was years ago," she said, still sharp-edged. Then she sagged. "Some of our friends found out about those films, I don't know how. People at church. It was awful. They wouldn't say anything, but – the way they'd look at us."

Tom Hale's face was getting increasingly ugly. "What's the point of this?" he demanded.

"I'm trying to put together a picture of your daughter's life," Larrabee said.

"Why? What difference does it make now?"

"We're considering the possibility that Eden's death was caused by a toxic substance," Monks said. "Our hospital pathologist – a man I respect a great deal – suggested that."

"Toxic substance? What do you mean?"

"A chemical, probably."

"Something that poisoned her, is what you're saying," Tom Hale said.

"It would have had that effect, yes."

"What does that have to do with the phone machine?"