"One more question," he said. "How did she dress?"

The waitress shrugged. "Like everybody else here."

"Like a businesswoman? Not flashy?"

"Like she'd just come from the office."

"Did that seem strange, with her acting slutty?" She snorted with amusement. "Are you kidding?" Larrabee handed her one of his business cards. "Keep thinking about it, and ask your friends, huh? If anything turns up, give me a call."

She reached into her purse again, head ducking as her fingers searched, hair spilling around her face. It made her look more vulnerable still. She found the twenty-dollar bill and offered it back to him. "You didn't have to give me money," she said. "Come on. I've been keeping you away from your tips."

"I don't make twenty bucks in five minutes."

"Neither do I," Larrabee said.

She smiled and tossed her hair. "Maybe we should have that drink sometime."

He left with her name, Heather, and her phone number written on another one of his cards.

There were many available women in San Francisco, and Larrabee encountered them frequently through his work. That also gave him a romantic gloss that was more imagined than real. He got his share of come-ons, with the offer of sex usually there more or less immediately. This was fine with him, although, by his own lights at least, he never exploited it. But the need was there in him just like anybody else, particularly when he was in between longer relationships. Like now.

The last one of those had been Iris, the stripper with the stage name Secret, who had left two years ago to dance in Vegas. At first she had come back to stay with him often, and there was a time when it seemed like the relationship could have gotten solid. But she had slipped into another world, or maybe hardened into what she was destined to be from the beginning, with the dancing giving way to hooking and drugs. He had not heard from her in a while.

He was thinking seriously about Tina's offer. The sheer weirdness of it was intriguing, and he was reasonably sure that she wanted exactly what she said and nothing more. As for the waitress, Heather – he had been in those sorts of situations many times, and he doubted he would go for this one. The way it usually went, there would be a few nights of entertaining discoveries about each other's lives, accompanied by energetic lust. Then the unraveling would start – the realization that there were no real common interests or compatibility – and it would take its course, probably with a fair dose of pain and trouble.

Although there would be those first few nights.

He got into the Taurus and punched the number of D' Anton's former nurse again.

This time, a woman answered.

"Mrs. Pendergast? Margaret?"

"I'm not interested. And take my name out of your computer." She sounded middle-aged, with the sharp-edged reply of someone weary of endless solicitations.

"I'm not trying to sell you anything, Margaret. My name's Stover Larrabee. I left you a message earlier."

"Oh? I haven't checked, I just got in."

Larrabee was relieved. At least there was no overt hostility, yet.

"I'm a private investigator. Calling you from San Francisco."

"What about?" she said, cautious now.

"About a young woman named Katie Bensen, who went missing back when you were working for Dr. D'Anton. Do you remember that?"

There was a longish silence. Then she said, "I do. But I don't especially want to."

"Will you give me just a minute, Margaret?" he said quickly. "So I can explain to you why you should?"

Larrabee lowered his voice to a confidential tone, just the two of them in on this delicate and crucial matter, and plied his trade.

Late, after midnight, you find yourself driving toward the clinic. In the past you've returned to the operating room – to linger, to replay the event, moment by frozen moment, in your mind.

But tonight, you drive past. Things have gone very wrong: the word murder has been spoken. It's not about last night, or even the other times. It's what they think might have happened to Eden Hale.

That Monks is prying, and that will bring the wrong kind of attention around. The thought of this – of him – sets off the old fear. You realize you've been grinding your teeth.

You pull over to the curb and close your eyes. Concentrate.

It starts to come to you. What to do, how to set things up, so they'll look at someone else.

You think about who might fit.

Monks slept a surprising ten hours, a sign that he had been exhausted as well as drunk. He awoke hungover, no doubt about that, with his senses operating through a grainy screen. But the sleep made him feel a hell of a lot better than he otherwise would have.

Herded by cats darting between his ankles, he walked down the hall to the kitchen. He put out fresh food for them, started water heating for coffee, then checked the blinking light on his phone machine.

The message was from Larrabee. "I've got something good. Come on down here as soon as you can."

The call had come last night, and it was still early, not yet seven a.m. Monks decided there was time for breakfast. He scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese, browned half a can of corned beef hash, topped it all liberally with jalapeño sauce, and washed it down with strong black French roast. By the time he shaved and showered, it was just eight a.m.

Monks called Mercy Hospital to see if Dick Speidel, the Quality Assurance chairman, had come in yet. He had.

"I looked the case over last night, Carroll," Speidel said. "Personally, I lean toward your side, but I'm going to recommend that it go to committee. It's so unusual, and she did die."

"Fair enough."

"The bottom line is, it seems pretty clear that she was beyond help when she came in. You took a wild swing. I'd probably have done the same, if I'd even thought of it. But you're going to be up against some purists who might consider it an inappropriate procedure."

"I already am," Monks said.

"Well, you won't have long to wait. I've sent out copies to everyone. You're on the docket for Monday."

"I appreciate it, Dick."

"See you then. Good luck."

Monks put down the phone, feeling better than when he had picked it up.

His guns were still on the deck, glistening with dew, a silent accusation of last night's excesses. He dried them, wiped them down with an oily rag, and put each one away, where it belonged.

The fog that had been hovering offshore had moved in during the night, shielding him, at least for a few hours, from the hammering sun. Grateful for its cover, he got into the Bronco and drove down to the city again.

Stover Larrabee was just getting out of the shower when the phone rang, a little after eight a.m. He was groggy, not used to the hours. He usually stayed up late and slept late.

The caller was Tina Bauer. "I found something," she said. "Just a reference to a file, but the complainant's name's on it."

"I'll come get it. When's good?"

"I could bring it over, if you want."

"Well – if you're sure it's no trouble, Tina."

"I've got to run some errands anyway. Half an hour?"

"I'll be here."

While he dressed, he replayed the tape he had made last night, on the phone to Margaret Pendergast – D'Anton's former nurse. Strictly speaking, it was illegal to tape a conversation without the other party's permission, but sometimes expediency outweighed everything else.

It had taken some time to get her going, but Larrabee was a professional sympathetic listener, and Margaret, like a lot of people who hold on to a troubling secret for a long time, was glad for a chance to unburden herself at last.