"Why don't you bail out?"

"Leave Irene? How am I supposed to do that? Every time I think of leaving, she ends up flat on her back. I can't kick her when she's down…"

I heard a tap at the front window. Dietz was peering in. I let out a deep breath. I was never so relieved to see anyone.

"I'll get that," I said and moved to the front door. Dietz came in, his gaze straying to Clyde, who had leaned his head against the back of the chair, eyes closed, playing dead. Dietz's mere presence caused the tension in the air to dissipate, but he could tell at a glance that all was not well. I lifted my brows slightly, conveying with a look that I'd fill him in once we were alone. "How'd it go?" I asked.

"Tell you about it in a minute. Let's get out of here."

I said, "Clyde…"

"I heard. Go ahead. We can talk later. Irene will sleep for hours. Maybe I'd be smart to get a little shut-eye myself."

I hesitated. "One question. Yesterday, when we were scouring the neighborhood for Agnes… do you remember anyone with a toolshed or a greenhouse on the property?"

He opened his eyes and looked at me. "No. Why?"

"The pathologist mentioned it. I said I'd get back to her."

He shook his head. "I was bumping front doors. There might have been a shed in somebody's backyard."

"If you remember something of the sort, will you let me know?"

He gestured a yes both dismissive and resigned.

I picked up the box and we walked out to the car. Dietz tucked me in the passenger seat.

"What's the matter, she didn't like the tea set?" he said. He shut the door on the passenger side and I was forced to hold my reply until he'd rounded the car and gotten in himself. He fired up the engine and pulled out. I gave him a quick rendition of Irene's collapse.

"What do you think she's sitting on?" he asked when I was done.

"Beats me. I can think of a few possibilities. Abuse of some kind, for one," I said. "She might have been a witness to an act of violence, or maybe she did something she feels guilty about."

"A little kid?"

"Hey, kids sometimes do things without meaning to. You never know. Whatever it is, if she has any conscious recollection, she's never mentioned it. And Clyde doesn't seem to have a clue."

"You think Agnes knew about it?"

"Oh sure. I mink Agnes even tried to tell me, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. I sat with her late one night down in a Brawley convalescent home and she told me this long, garbled tale that I'm almost sure now had the truth embedded in it someplace. I'll tell you one thing. I'm not interested in driving back down to the desert to investigate. Forget that."

"Be pointless anyway after all these years."

"That's what Clyde says. What's the deal on Rochelle Messinger?"

Dietz pulled a slip of paper from his shirt pocket. "I got her number in North Hollywood. Dolan didn't want to give it to me, but I finally talked him into it. He says if we get a line on the guy, we're to stay strictly the hell away."

"Of course," I said. "What now?"

He looked over at me with his lopsided smile. "How about a Quarter Pounder with Cheese?"

I laughed. "Done."

We got back to the apartment at one o'clock, fully carbed up, our fat tanks on overload. I could feel my arteries hardening, plaques piling up in my veins like a logjam in a river, blood pressure going up from all the sodium.

Dietz tried calling Rochelle Messinger. When he got no answer after fifteen rings, he turned the phone over to me. I was aching for a nap, but I thought I'd better find out if Dr. Palchak had seen the slides yet. I didn't like the idea of cruising the neighborhood around the nursing home, bumping all those doors again. With luck, I wouldn't have to.

I put a call through to the pathology department at St. Terry's and had Laura Palchak paged. I had Irene's cardboard box on my lap, using it as an armrest. For ten cents, I would have put my head down and gone to sleep right there. Sometimes I long for the simplicity of kindergarten, which is where I learned to nap on command.

She picked up the phone on her end.

"Hi, Laura. Kinsey Millhone," I said. "I was wondering if you'd had a chance to examine the tissue slides."

"You bet," she said. There was a grim satisfaction in her voice.

"I take it your hunch turned out to be right on the money."

"Sure did. This is one I've never run across myself, but I remembered an abstract on the subject from a few years back. The hospital librarian tracked down the journal, which is on my desk somewhere. Hang on."