“Yeah, I got that impression too. With her behavior tonight, I doubt you’ll have to see her again. Captain Paulette will probably tell her lieutenant she couldn’t keep herself professional. The last thing the SFPD needs is your lawyers taking them apart for her behavior toward you.”

She shrugged. “Why bother?”

“Yeah, if I were you, I’d rather clip her in the chops.”

She looked perfectly serious and clenched her hands. “That would be nice.”

He laughed, picked up the tray, and preceded her out of the vast kitchen, their footsteps echoing on the tile.

Ten minutes later Captain Paulette let in the police artist, Danny Otis. “Hey, Captain, do you know the Warriors came this close”—Danny’s fingers were nearly touching—”to beating the Lakers? Well, okay, they fell quite a ways behind after the second quarter, but it wasn’t a total wipeout like I expected.”

Captain Paulette grunted. “Yeah, right, that’s great news. You got your computer? Good, come on in, Danny, let’s see what you can get from Mrs. Ransom.”

By ten o’clock the Oreos were gone, two pots of coffee were history, and the two sketches Danny got from Julia Ransom and Agent Cheney Stone were done, and surprisingly similar to each other. The detail in Julia’s was impressive.

Cheney said, “There are a few differences—but since Mrs. Ransom saw him up close and personal, believe her over me. Do you want me to run with this, Frank? Send it off to Dillon Savich in Washington?”

“Let’s make copies first, then yeah, let’s see what he can come up with. Okay, guys,” he added to the two inspectors, “we’ll be able to add this sketch to the APB on this perp. Let’s make sure we get it out to the whole Bay Area.” He turned to Julia. “Mrs. Ransom, if you think of anything more, call me,” and he gave her his card.” I’m having a patrol car sit out in your driveway tonight, all right?”

“Thank you.” Julia showed all of them out, then turned to face Cheney, who’d remained standing next to her. “I’ll need your address, Agent, so I can return your clothes after they’ve been cleaned.”

He pulled out one of his FBI cards, wrote his address on the back as well as his cell number, and handed it to her. “You’re looking a bit on the pale side, Julia. Get yourself to bed. I’ll check with you in the morning. Oh yeah, turn on the alarm after I leave.” He turned back to her in the open doorway. “Rub Vitamin E, on the bruise, it might help.”

“Will I see you again, Agent?”

“Oh yes, I’m sure you will, Mrs. Ransom.” He nodded to the officers in the patrol car, climbed into his Audi, and drove home to what he once thought was his good-sized Belvedere Street condo, nestled in among town houses and small apartment buildings not a quarter mile above Haight-Ashbury.

CHAPTER 7

MAESTRO, VIRGINIA

Sheriff Dixon Noble took the call from his father-in-law, Chappy Holcombe, at three twenty-five on a Thursday afternoon. It was a moment he knew he’d never forget until he was stretched out dead.

“Dix? Chappy here. I’ve got to talk to you. This is really important. Can you come out to Tara right now?”

There was something about his voice that kept Dix from telling his autocratic father-in-law whatever it was would have to wait, that he was a working stiff, that the people of Maestro expected their sheriff—”What is it, Chappy?”

All Chappy would say was, “It’s about Christie. Hurry, Dix, hurry.”

Dix went cold. Christie, his wife, had been gone for well over three years, literally with him one day and gone the next. There had been no word of any kind, not a single lead in all this time. But Chappy wouldn’t say anything more over the phone. “Get here, Dix, fast as you can.”

He made it to Chappy Holcombe’s Tara, a southern mansion built along the lines of the fictional Tara as described by Margaret Mitchell, in under thirteen minutes. Dix was a mess by the time he pulled into the large circular driveway in front of the house.

Chappy’s butler, Bernard, as old as the gnarly pine tree on Lone Tree Hill just outside of Maestro, or one of the sessile oaks in front of Tara, greeted Dix, his bald head shiny in the watery early spring afternoon sunshine. He said, his words spewing out fast, tumbling over one another, “Dix, he’s in his study. Hurry, something’s bad wrong, but I don’t know what it is, just that it’s about Christie.” Dix hurried after him, not saying a word.

Bernard opened Chappy’s study door and stood aside for Dix to enter.