"You're allergic?" I said.

"Can't be in the same room with one. My eyes water and itch. I begin to sneeze. My throat closes up. It's hideous."

I glanced at Pearl. Susan came back in with a bottle of white, and a bottle of red, three glasses, and a corkscrew. She set it all down on the table in front of me.

"Man's work," she said.

I opened the wine. Susan had red. Elayna had white. I declined.

"Well, isn't she a princess," Susan said.

"Erika?" Elayna said. "I suppose every parent thinks her kid is special, but she really is a darling."

"Where she get all that blond hair?" Susan said. "Her father?"

"I guess so," Elayna said. "I didn't really know him, it was all arranged by the clinic."

"Of course," Susan said. "It must be hard raising a child alone."

"Yes. It's exhausting and demanding, but very rewarding. I'm very pleased that I chose to have her."

Elayna was tall and graceful and her hair was too long for her age. There was a dramatic streak of white in the front, and hints of gray showing here and there as the sunlight through the back window caught it. She was much too advanced to color her hair.

"Do you have help?" Susan said.

"Yes, my mother and my sister live around here. So I almost always have a baby-sitter. Today it happened they were both out and I had to bring her. I hope you don't mind."

"Oh, no," Susan said. "I love seeing her."

"The first year or so she pretty well killed my sex life, she was so demanding and I was so tired, I didn't have the energy, you know?"

"I can imagine," Susan said.

"But once she got off the breast, then I could leave her with my mom or my sister… and I was back in circulation."

She looked at me.

"You got any single straight friends?"

I shook my head. That description fit Hawk, but he and Elayna didn't seem a match. The thought of him with Erika, however, made me smile.

"See, there, you're smiling," Elayna said, "you've just thought of someone."

"No," I said. "It's just inner peace showing through."

Erika came out of the bedroom, shuffling in a pair of Susan's high-heeled shoes, and wearing Susan's black silk robe. The girth wasn't bad because Erika was a chunky girl and Susan was a slim woman, so they measured pretty much the same around. But since Erika was about three feet tall, and Susan was five foot seven, the length was an issue. She kept stepping on the train and from the sound it made, she kept tearing it. She had also found Susan's makeup and applied it to herself lavishly, if somewhat artlessly.

"Erika," her mother said. Her voice hovered on the periphery of a shriek.

Erika kept coming, trying to flounce, stumbling on the high heels, continuing to step on the trailing fabric of Susan's black silk robe, which continued to rip. I had given her that dressing gown last Christmas and it had cost me far more than I generally earned. I looked at Susan. She looked as if she had just swallowed an armadillo.

I said, "Oh boy oh boy," very softly to Pearl, who was sitting straight up again, and flexed for attack.

Elayna jumped up and grabbed Erika and swept her into the air.

"Erika, my God, Erika," she kept saying as she scooted her back into the bedroom. In a moment we could hear Erika howling.

Between howls she kept saying, "I want to wear it, I want to wear it."

I smiled pleasantly at Susan. "Well, isn't she a princess," I said.

"Shut up."

I turned to Pearl and put my mouth close to her ear and did a stage whisper.

"Maybe we could get one just like her if we adopt wisely."

Pearl paid me no heed. Her every desire was focused on dashing into the bedroom and biting Erika. I kept a hand on her collar, to forestall that, though I was embarrassingly eager for it to happen. Susan looked at me very hard.

"I heard that," she said. "And even if I didn't, I know what you're thinking. I knew it from the moment they walked in."

"I'm in the evidence business," I said. "When I see some, I register it."

"You can't generalize from one instance," Susan said.

"No, of course not. But you can register the instance."

I felt Pearl start to tremble slightly. Elayna walked back into the room bringing Erika with her with a firm clamp on her wrist. Erika tugged intensely to get her wrist free. But Elayna was too strong for her. The kid was wearing her own clothes again, and the makeup had been scrubbed off. She was crying determinedly.

"Tell Susan you're sorry, Erika." Erika kept crying. And tugging. "Erika, apologize."

Erika cried. And tugged.

"No need," Susan said. "Really. I've had that gown forever. It was just something to wear around the house."

She was careful not to look at me while she said it. I was quiet, holding Pearl's collar. I did not comment that the robe was pure silk and was meant to be worn in front of a fire while sipping champagne.

"I insist on buying you a new one."

"Oh, hell, Elayna, there's no need for it. It doesn't matter, really. I have plenty of robes."

She had one other one that I knew of, a yellow thing with cats and dogs printed all over it in various colors. I had seen it in her closet, but she only wore it when I wasn't around, along with the flannel pajama bottoms and the oversized tee-shirt.

"No, I absolutely insist," Elayna said. "What size?"

"No," Susan said. "Elayna, really. It's nothing. Don't be silly."

"Size six," I said. "If it's well made. If you buy her a cheap one, where they chintzed on the material, it might have to be an eight."

Erika continued to cry steadily. Elayna and Susan both stared at me. Erika tried to bite her mother's hand to get her wrist free. Elayna swept her up off the ground and held her kicking and struggling and crying and said loudly, "I've got to get her out of here. Susan, I'll call you.

When they were gone, Susan went and stood looking out the living room window for a while. Finally she turned and looked at me.

"Should I have let Pearl go?" I said.

"Do you think she'd really have bitten her?"

"With proper coaching," I said.

"God, wasn't she awful."

"Awful," I said.

"My beautiful silk robe," Susan said.

"Now I guess you'll have to sit around naked and drink champagne," I said.

Susan smiled at me, almost sadly.

"There's always a silver lining," she said. "Isn't there."

Chapter 18

PEMBERTON DID NOT wish to acknowledge crime. The Pemberton Police Station had been moved as far from the center of town as it was possible to move it. It was barely within the town limits, on the edge of Route 128 in an old brick Department of Public Works building they had leased from the state. I parked in the spacious lot out front.

Inside they were still partitioning off some of the rooms, and the carpenters were making a lot of noise. I worked my way past the front desk officer to the detective who'd worked the Henderson case, and sat with him at a desk in a half-finished office, while the sound of power saws and pneumatic nailers competed for attention. He looked about twenty, though he was probably older. You saw a lot of cops like him on suburban forces.