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Rule gave an emphatic nod, a quick, hard down-pull of his
head.

"But I myself"-I sat a little taller, as if that could establish
some authority on my part, which I felt had been sadly lacking in
this interview process so far-"cannot believe spirits have anything
to do with murder. In my opinion, the murder weapon in both these
cases had to have been wielded by a human hand."

"Yes, a human hand," Rule said, looking at me sidewise, "but yet
a malign spiritual influence may have been at work. Abigail had
protected herself from such influences for a long time, with
certain spells and wardings, yet something broke through. And it
must have happened in roughly the same time period when you came to
see her."

Frances shrugged, handling the gesture in a way that was so
ladylike it became almost elegant, as if to say,
What could
things of this nature possibly have to do with a refined female
like me?

I took up her cause again, as I had been doing perhaps far too
often-but at the moment I was unaware of that. I said, "It is my
own belief-and please recall, Mr. Rule, you're paying me to look
into these matters in a professional way-that Frances's
Spiritualistic abilities have nothing whatever to do with the
deaths of the two mediums. That part is simply coincidence.
However, you've seen-and may I say participated in?-a clear
demonstration of her natural abilities in this area and must
therefore be able to understand that she needs a teacher."

Rule didn't want to let it go, to allow me (a woman, after all)
free reign in the case. He wanted to hover over me, pulling
strings. I wasn't going to have that, couldn't have it; to give in
would have established a pattern that would then become the norm
for future cases. So we had a silent battle of wits and wills and
eyes, his eyes having become that flat, clear gray so curiously
devoid of content. He really had the strangest eyes I had ever
seen.

At last he said, "Very well. You take care of the investigation,
Miss Jones, and I will work with Mrs. McFadden to see she receives
guidance. Toward that end"-he turned slightly, addressing himself
to Frances alone now-"I'll need to know more about the automatic
writing I understand you've already done."

I sensed I was no longer needed, and left them to it.

They departed together half an hour later, walking with matching
strides like lovers, her head tipped up to him and his bent down to
her, still talking, talking, in murmurs intelligible I supposed
only to themselves. I watched them out the door, then moved to the
window and watched them down the street.
They belong
together:
impossible not to have that thought. It proclaimed
itself so loudly in my mind that I almost uttered the words aloud.
Yet I knew, somehow I knew, that this was not a match made in
heaven but in hell.

"Fremont Jones, you are losing your mind!" I muttered, a bit
louder than was quite necessary. How could I possibly know
something like that? He was going to help her, he'd be good for
her, and besides, the man she was married to acted like such a
brute-

A low chuckle from behind startled and interrupted me, sending a
chill through my bones.

YOU ARE DOING IT again," I said without turning around,
"sneaking around, and this time scaring me half to death. Wherever
did you get that evil chuckle, Michael?"

He came all the way up behind me. As no one was about, he indeed
moved entirely too close, and as we stood there front to back
looking out the window he became aroused. Even through skirt and
petticoat I could feel him pressed against me.

"They make a handsome couple, I'll grant you that," Michael
conceded, and then took it back in his next breath, "if appearances
were all one had to go by."

I slipped to one side and left the window, for a moment
wondering what had ever possessed me to think I could work in the
same space as this man, the two of us self-professed partners in
love and work. When Michael was in one of his amorous moods it was
terribly hard to get anything done.

"Who are we to be judgmental, Michael?" I asked from the
relative safety of my desk. "He has lost his working partner, who
may have been more than that to him-I mean of course Mrs. Locke-and
she, Frances, is in a loveless marriage that is more like a
lifetime prison sentence than anything else. If they find pleasure
in one another's company, who are we to deny it to them? Or to make
unkind remarks about them?"

Perhaps I had expressed myself a little too strongly; I know I
do that at times. At any rate, Michael froze. His entire manner
changed, and he became more like the Michael 1 had first known at
Mrs. O'Leary's house some years ago, remote and mysterious. He can
do that instantly, tuck his personality so deep inside himself that
even I cannot find it, not even through the windows of his
eyes.

I was in no mood to soften or to placate. He was on the verge of
stepping into my case, I knew that as surely as I knew my first
name was Caroline-and I liked the idea of his doing that about as
much as I liked my first name, in other words, not much at all.

A moment later he confirmed it by saying in a leading tone of
voice, "Of course, you must run your investigation in the manner
you choose. I'm here for consultation, only if you wish it."

"I appreciate your confidence in me," I said both formally and
firmly, "however I do not wish to consult at the present time."

He shot me an impenetrable look and turned back toward his own
little office; then changed his mind and spun on his heel, heading
instead for the front door. Which meant he was going to go out on
his own, for a walk, or to do whatever he did when he was out of
sorts with me.

One hand on the doorknob, he looked back at me over his
shoulder. "You can be cold. Do you know that, Fremont Jones?" he
asked, then opened the door and was gone.

Michael did not come to me that night, nor did I go to him; and
the next morning when I came down there was a note on my desk.
It is seldom wise to take a case on impulse. A judicious
background check on one's potential client is often in order.
MAK.

I sat down abruptly, as if all the wind had fled my sails. I am
never at my best first thing in the morning, and I had not yet even
had my coffee. I was vulnerable, my defenses down, and somehow the
use of all his initials-MAK, for Mikhail Arkady Kossoff- made me
recall in a rush all that I had been through with this man, not to
mention how embarrassingly well he knew me. Or how good he had been
to me. Most of the time. Of course there had been some times . .
.

Well, the main thing was, he was right. I tucked the note into
my pocket and went to tell him so. But when I got to his side of
the house Michael was not there. In his bedroom the wardrobe stood
open, clothes obviously having been snatched out and packed in
haste, in the leather case that was also missing. He had gone.
Apparently he had decided to take his trip, the one meant to save
me from having to explain our relationship to my father, a week
early.

I felt bereft and shaky, though this was what I had wanted: A
free rein, the autonomy to conduct my first case my way, on my
own.

Wish Stephenson used his old police department contacts to do a
check for me on Mr. Patrick Rule. It was still not an easy thing to
do much by way of looking into the backgrounds of people in San
Francisco, or in California, or in the whole of the American West
for that matter. If the West was the land of opportunity, that was
true in part because here people tended to be taken at face value.
You didn't get introduced to someone new, and then in the next five
minutes find yourself answering questions like,
What was your
mother's family?
and
Where did you go to school, my
dear?
True enough, a stratified society of sorts had grown up
in San Francisco during the fifty-something years since the Gold
Rush, but it was a society based on wealth, not on family;
therefore, anyone could get in.

This was not at all like Boston, where it has been said the
Cabots talk only to the Lowells and the Lowells talk only to God.
(Which was untrue, by the way; the Lowells talked to my mother and
father on quite a regular basis when I was growing up.) For my
immediate purposes the important point was that in Boston, in all
of Massachusetts and the New England states-indeed throughout the
East-records were kept of everything. But here in the West that was
far from the case; and in San Francisco particularly, most of the
records we'd ever had were burned up in the fire after the
earthquake. That fire had destroyed City Hall, and a huge
percentage of all the places of business in the City.

Criminals and opportunists were of course having a field day. I
did sincerely hope Patrick Rule was not one of them. On the other
hand, we San Franciscans have a rather loose definition of what
constitutes a criminal; some crimes are worse than others. . . .
With my thoughts running along those lines, it really was just as
well that Michael was not here.

"Can't find much on Patrick Rule," Wish announced on the
afternoon of the day of Michael's departure.

That was not exactly bad news; it was, in fact, a relief. I
said, "Well, are you going to tell me what you did find?"

"It's more what I
didn't
find: no criminal record, for
instance. Owns no real property-that's as in real estate-has no
visible means of support. That is, no job."

"His job would have been looking after Abigail Locke."

"But, Fremont, that was a personal relationship. Or so you said.
Didn't you?"

"I don't recall." I fell to musing over this, just talking aloud
as I mused-something Wish himself did, as a matter of fact-and I
knew that if he picked up on anything valuable in my musings he
would point it out to me, as I would have to him. "She must have
paid him, because apparently he maintained his own household. At
the very least he had a room he lived in somewhere, he didn't live
at the house on Octavia Street."

I was silent for a few minutes, mulling things over. Then went
on: "But he lives there now. According to the newspapers, Patrick
Rule was the principal beneficiary of Abigail Locke's estate. He
was the only person to benefit financially from her death."

Wish inserted, "The estate wasn't large at all, if the
newspapers are to be believed. If she was paying him, he'd probably
have done better to continue working for her. What are you
thinking, Fremont? That your client has hired you to throw the
scent off himself?"

I studied Wish, who leaned with his elbows on his knees, big
hands dangling down. He had such an earnest, puzzled expression on
his face it was almost comical. I smiled, and in the process became
aware it was the first time I'd smiled since Michael's leaving.
"Wish, I do believe you're even more ready than I am-make that than
I used to be-to take people at their word."

He blushed, but only a little. Not long ago he would have
blushed a lot. After hanging his head for a moment, in what might
have been self-deprecation, he looked up grinning. "I guess that's
true. Always think the best until somebody does something to prove
otherwise."

"That's not a particularly useful philosophy in our profession.
I'm surprised you've been able to stick to it."

"Useful professionally, no. You're right, from that point of
view it's kind of . . . dumb. But personally, it makes me a whole
lot happier. I've gotten pretty good at sorting out the bad apples,
Fremont. You want me to interview this Patrick Rule on some
pretext? Tell you how he comes off to me?"

If Michael had made the same offer, I would have rejected it
instantly. But coming from Wish, I considered it. Why? Why should I
be so prickly only with Michael, whom after all I knew far, far
better than I knew Wish Stephenson? It did not stand to reason.

"Fremont?" Wish prompted.

I widened my eyes, mentally shaking myself. "I'm here. I was
just thinking. . . . Wish, let me think upon it overnight. I'll
speak to you again on that tomorrow. Oh, and Wish? Do you know
anyone, man or woman, who might like a job answering the telephone
here for the next two weeks? And permanently after that if we can
get something worked out?" I had decided to take matters into my
own hands. I would pay out of my own case fees, if necessary, but I
simply could not be tied to that desk any more.

Wish chuckled. "When the cat's away, eh, Fremont?"

"I suppose you could look at it like that. But really, Wish, one
cannot conduct an investigatory business by staying in the office.
Nor can I ask you every time I want to go out. Oh, I can hardly
wait, there is so much to do."

Opening his central desk drawer, Wish (who was very neat)
started putting things away as he did every night before leaving.
He poked at the inside of his cheek with his tongue. "Well," he
said, "about someone to answer the telephone ... I do have an idea.
A couple of them, actually. Leave it to me, Fremont. I'll have
someone here for your consideration tomorrow morning."