The eighth book in the Alex Delaware series, 1993

It came in a plain brown wrapper.

Padded envelope, book rate, book sized. I assumed it was an academic text I'd forgotten ordering.

It went on to the mail table, along with Monday's bills and announcements of scholarly seminars in Hawaii and St. Croix. I returned to the library and tried to figure out what I was going to do in ten minutes when Tiffani and Chondra Wallace showed up for their second session.

A year ago their mother had been murdered by their father up on a ridge in the Angeles Crest Forest.

He told it as a crime of passion and maybe he was right, in the very worst sense. I'd learned from court documents that absence of passion had never been a problem for Ruthanne and Donald Dell Wallace. She'd never been a strong-willed woman, and despite the ugliness of their divorce, she had held on to "love feelings" for Donald Dell. So no one had been surprised when he cajoled her into taking a night ride with sweet words, the promise of a lobster dinner, and good marijuana.

Shortly after parking on a shaded crest overlooking the forest, the two of them got high, made love, talked, argued, fought, raged, and finally clawed at one another. Then Donald Dell took his buck knife to the woman who still bore his name, slashed and stabbed her thirty-three times, and kicked her corpse out of his pickup, leaving behind an Indian-silver clip stuffed with cash and his membership card in the Iron Priests motorcycle club.

A docket-clearing plea bargain landed him in Folsom Prison on a five to ten for second-degree murder. There he was free to hang out in the yard with his meth-cooking Aryan Brotherhood bunkmates, take an auto mechanics course he could have taught, accrue good behavior brownie points in the chapel, and bench press until his pectorals threatened to explode.

Four months into his sentence, he was ready to see his daughters.

The law said his paternal rights had to be considered.

An L.A. family court judge named Stephen Huff- one of the better ones- asked me to evaluate. We met in his chambers on a September morning and he told me the details while drinking ginger ale and stroking his bald head. The room had beautiful old oak paneling and cheap country furniture. Pictures of his own children were all over the place.

"Just when does he plan on seeing them, Steve?"

"Up at the prison, twice a month."

"That's a plane ride."

"Friends will chip in for the fare."

"What kind of friends?"

"Some idiocy called The Donald Dell Wallace Defense Fund."

"Biker buddies?"

"Vroom vroom."

"Meaning it's probably amphetamine money."

His smile was weary and grudging. "Not the issue before us, Alex."

"What's next, Steve? Disability payments because he's stressed out being a single parent?"

"So it smells. So what else is new? Talk to the poor kids a few times, write up a report saying visitation's injurious to their psyches, and we'll bury the issue."

"For how long?"

He put down the ginger ale and watched the glass raise wet circles on his blotter. "I can kibosh it for at least a year."

"Then what?"

"If he puts in another claim, the kids can be reevaluated and we'll kibosh it again. Time's on their side, right? They'll be getting older and hopefully tougher."

"In a year they'll be ten and eleven, Steve."

He picked at his tie. "What can I tell you, Alex? I don't want to see these kids screwed up, either. I'm asking you to evaluate because you're tough-minded- for a shrink."

"Meaning someone else might recommend visitation?"

"It's possible. You should see some of the opinions your colleagues render. I had one the other day, said the fact that a mother was severely depressed was good for the kid- teach her the value of true emotions."

"Okay," I said. "But I want to do a real evaluation, not some rubber stamp. Something that may have some use for them in the future."

"Therapy? Why not? Sure, do whatever you want. You are now shrink of record. Send your bill straight to me and I'll see you get paid within fifteen working days."

"Who's paying, our leather-clad friends?"

"Don't worry, I'll make sure they pay up."

"Just as long as they don't try to deliver the check in person."

"I wouldn't worry about it, Alex. Those types shy away from insight."

• • •

The girls arrived right on time, just as they had last week, linked, like suitcases, to the arms of their grandmother.

"Well, here they are," Evelyn Rodriguez announced. She remained in the entry and pushed them forward.

"Morning," I said. "Hi, girls."

Tiffani smiled uneasily. Her older sister looked away.

"Have an easy ride?"

Evelyn shrugged, twisted her lips and untwisted them. Maintaining her grip on the girls, she backed away. The girls allowed themselves to be tugged, but unwillingly, like nonviolent protesters. Feeling the burden, Evelyn let go. Crossing her arms over her chest, she coughed and looked away from me.

Rodriguez was her fourth husband. She was Anglo, stout, bottom-heavy, an old fifty-eight, with dimpled elbows and knuckles, nicotine skin, and lips as thin and straight as a surgical incision. Talk came hard for her and I was pretty sure it was a character trait that preceded her daughter's murder.

This morning she wore a sleeveless, formless blouse- a faded mauve and powder blue floral print that reminded me of a decorative tissue box. It billowed, untucked, over black stretch jeans piped with red. Her blue tennis shoes were speckled with bleach spots. Her hair was short and wavy, corn colored above dark roots. Earring slits creased her lobes but she wore no jewelry. Behind bifocals, her eyes continued to reject mine.

She patted Chondra's head, and the girl pressed her face against a thick, soft arm. Tiffani had walked into the living room and was staring at a picture on the wall, tapping one foot fast.

Evelyn Rodriguez said, "Okay, then, I'll just wait down in the car."

"If it gets too hot, feel free to come up."

"The heat don't bother me." She raised a forearm and glanced at a too-small wristwatch. "How long we talking about this time?"

"Let's aim for an hour, give or take."

"Last time was twenty minutes."

"I'd like to try for a little longer today."

She frowned. "Okay… can I smoke down there?"

"Outside the house? Sure."

She muttered something.

"Anything you'd like to tell me?" I said.

"Me?" She freed one finger, poked a breast, and smiled. "Nah. Be good, girlies."

Stepping out on the terrace, she closed the door. Tiffani kept examining the picture. Chondra touched the doorknob and licked her lips. She had on a white Snoopy T-shirt, red shorts, and sandals with no socks. A paper-wrapped Fruit Roll-Up extended from one pocket of the shorts. Her arms and legs were pasty and chubby, her face broad and puggish, topped by white-blond hair drawn into very long, very tight pigtails. The hair gleamed, almost metallic, incongruous above the plain face. Puberty might turn her pretty. I wondered what else it might bring.

She nibbled her lower lip. My smile went unnoticed or unbelieved.

"How are you, Chondra?"

She shrugged again, kept her shoulders up, and looked at the floor. Ten months her sister's senior, she was an inch shorter and seemed less mature. During the first session, she hadn't said a word, content to sit with her hands in her lap as Tiffani talked on.