Larrabee gave Monks a look that plainly said: It's up to you. Monks hesitated, trying to weigh the Hales' grief against his own need to push this.

"We're also considering that it might not have been accidental," Monks said.

Noni Hale looked like she had been hit in the face. Tom stepped past her with his jaw thrust forward. His eyes were furious, the skin around them screwed up tight.

"What? Why the goddamned hell aren't the police in on this?"

"We haven't approached them yet," Monks said. "We're trying to establish whether we have cause to."

"So you don't have any cause to?"

"What we have at this point is speculation, based on medical knowledge."

Hale pointed a shaking forefinger at Monks. "You know what I think? I think this is a hoax. You let our daughter die, and now you're trying to weasel out of what you've got coming. Get out."

'Tom, wait," Noni said. "I want to know about this."

"We're not saying another word without our lawyer." The finger stabbed at Monks again. "You'd better have one, too."

"I'd advise you to keep everything you took from her apartment," Larrabee said. "Store it carefully, especially medicines, chemicals, anything like that. Oh, and bedding. Towels. Clothes she'd worn recently. It may need to be examined."

Tom Hale stomped out of the room. At the door, Larrabee offered Noni a business card.

"This is not a hoax, Mrs. Hale," he said quietly. She hesitated but took it.

Monks trudged through the heat to the Taurus. All in all, it had gone about as he had expected – no better, no worse. He wondered how much of Tom Hale's anger had to do with losing his daughter, and how much was because the family's dirty laundry was getting an airing.

They were about to pull away from the curb when they saw a young man come hurrying out of the Hales' backyard, at the far end of the house. He was waving at them. He trotted to the car, glancing back over his shoulder as if he feared that someone would stop him.

"I heard you talking to my parents," he said. His speech was hesitant, with some of the syllables forced. Monks got the impression that he had learned not to stutter. His eyes were earnest and filled with appeal. "Eden did have an answering machine."

So – this was one of Eden's brothers. But Monks was pretty sure he was not one of the faces in the living room photographs. He was twenty-two or -three, tall and gangly, with a long, pale face and a vertical crown of hair four inches high, dyed gold. One ear sported a stud that looked like a real diamond.

"When did you talk to her last?" Larrabee asked.

"Just a few days ago." He glanced nervously at the house again.

"What do you say we take a drive?" Monks said. "Come on, hop in."

He got into the backseat and sat with his hands clasped between his knees. Larrabee eased the car out into the street.

"I'm Carroll, and this is Stover," Monks said.

"Josh. Hi."

Eden and Joshua, Monks thought, recalling Noni Hale's concern about her church. The names did suggest a biblical theme. Although in Eden's case, it had taken a twist that clearly had not been foreseen.

"Any place in particular you'd like to go, Josh?" Larrabee asked. "Get a burger, maybe?"

"No, thanks." His lips started to tremble and his eyes dampened. "I can't believe she's dead."

"It's tough, really tough. Were you close?"

"We were like sisters," Josh said, watching their faces anxiously. What he saw, or didn't see, seemed to reassure him. "Well, it's not any secret. I played with her dolls and wore her clothes when I was little. My parents tried like heck to change me, but-"

But they finally started pretending you and Eden didn't exist, Monks thought.

"It sounded like your folks weren't getting along with her," he said.

"They stopped speaking to her after they found out about those movies. Now – they're totally freaked."

"That's sure understandable," Larrabee said. "When you talked to her, what kind of a mood was she in?"

"Good. She seemed happy."

"Not worried about anybody or anything?"

"She was getting ready to have the surgery, and she was a little scared about that. But excited, too." Josh gazed down at his clasped hands. "Do you really think somebody might have k-k-killed her?"

"It's a possibility. Can you think of anybody who might have wanted to?"

"Noooo," he said hesitantly.

"How about her boyfriend?" Monks said. "Fiancée, whatever he is. Ray."

"Well – he's a lowlife."

"I gathered that."

"You know him?" Josh asked, surprised.

"We met. He's a lowlife, but-" Monks prompted.

"He really got off on her being an actress. She used to joke that she never had to worry about him beating her up, because it might hurt her looks."

"Did she ever take advantage of that?" Larrabee asked. "Fool around with other guys, make him jealous?"

"She had sex with people sometimes, to help her career. But Ray didn't care about that. He'd even help set it up. Like those porn movies."

"Ray set up the movies, huh?" Larrabee said.

"When they were living in LA. It was a favor to somebody who was going to give her a part. It was supposed to be kept secret. She used a different name."

"Did she get the part?"

Josh shook his head sadly.

Larrabee cruised on through the curving side streets, where there was not much traffic to require his attention. Sacramento was essentially flat, but they were high enough here to get glimpses of its expanse, mile after mile of tree-lined streets cut by the blue bands of its confluent rivers and the speeding glittering glass and metal streams of the freeways.

"There's one big problem with all this, Josh," Larrabee said. "Your sister was all of a sudden spending a lot of money. She told Ray she inherited it from an aunt. Is that true?"

Josh lowered his eyes, then shook his head again.

"Where'd she get it, then? Do you know?"

He did not answer. His fingers twisted each other anxiously.

"I'll be real straight with you," Larrabee said. "When the police get in on this, the first thing they're going to look for is whether she was blackmailing somebody."

"No!" Josh looked up, starting to go teary-eyed. "She wasn't like that at all."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Eden was sweet, she really was," Josh said, suddenly defensive. "But she believed what she wanted to. Ray latched onto her when she was still in high school. She was the prom queen, and he came on like this big photographer, who was going to make her career. After that, she couldn't get away from him. He talked her into things, like those movies, but just loser things. She never would have done anything really wrong."

Monks hoped it was true, and allowed himself to feel a little better. If this was, in fact, the end of his career, maybe it had not been wasted on a hardhearted gold digger.

"But something was going on with her, huh?" Larrabee said. "Come on, you knew her better than anybody else. Suppose somebody did hurt her. You'd want to help us find out who, right?"

Josh squirmed in his seat. "She made me promise to keep it secret."

"It doesn't matter to her now, Josh. Sorry to put it like that, but it's true."

Finally, he seemed to make up his mind. He glanced somewhat theatrically to both sides, then leaned forward and said in a confidential whisper: "It was the man she went to San Francisco to be with."

"Could you be a little more specific?"

"Her plastic surgeon. Dr. D'Anton."

Larrabee, to his credit, kept driving smoothly, but Monks swiveled in his seat. Josh shrank back, looking a little frightened at his intensity.

"Eden was having an affair with Dr. D'Anton?" Monks said. "Are you positive, Josh?" As he spoke, he remembered her discharge form from the clinic, with method of payment marked: CASH.