With Child km-3

by Laurie R. King

  For the first time since August, they began tentatively to explore this new stage in their relationship, with both of them now convinced that Lee was, literally, back on her feet and able to shoulder a real part of the burden. Cautious of hurting each other, careful not to wield grievances, trying hard for a clean beginning, they talked.

  One of the things they talked about was a topic that had lain between them for five months, ever since the argument about Aunt Agatha's letter. Yes, Lee still wanted a child. No, she hadn't forgotten it; she hadn't said it in a fit of madness; it had not been a passing fantasy. She also was not about to go ahead with it unless Kate agreed. If she had a child, that child would have two parents, not a mom and an 'other.'

  She had, she told Kate, gone so far as to research the problems. On the medical side, there were actually a few doctors out there who regarded pregnancy in a woman who had poor use of her legs as something other than a prescription for an abortion. On the legal side, she felt she could now present a case, if called for, that she was competent to perform the tasks of motherhood. She might not be able to run after a two-year-old, but she could hobble fast. The dual legal threat concerning the status of the child of a lesbian and a handicapped woman would remain, but she was as prepared as she could be.

  Kate did not agree with any of this. She did, however, listen.

  All the members of that family - householder, partner, servant, and the ghost of an as-yet-unformed child - spent a quiet two days in their various places of rest, blissfully unaware of the storm that was moving in on two fronts.

  At 1:15 on Sunday afternoon, the telephone in the empty house on Russian Hill began to ring.

  By the time Jon Samson arrived home later that afternoon, relaxed and slightly rosy from the wintery sun beating down on his friends' sheltered swimming pool, the tape on the answering machine was filled, almost entirely with the same message, delivered in Al Hawkin's increasingly frantic voice. When Jon got out of his car, he was pounced upon by a burly but not unattractive uniformed police officer who had been doing drive-bys all afternoon, waiting for a sign of life at the house.

  While Jon was rescuing the salmon from the freezer and preparing to grill it with some tiny red-skinned potatoes for his new friend, Kate and Lee, also sunburned and satisfactorily tired, were approaching the city.

  "Do you want to go somewhere for dinner, or just pick something up?" Lee asked. "If we just go home, Jon will feel obliged to cook."

  (Jon, meanwhile, was trying hard to cook, although the telephone calls were becoming very frustrating, not only because he hadn't the faintest idea where the pictures in the envelope he'd sent had come from but also because they kept interrupting his attempts at conversation with the burly cop. The beeper's intermittent noise also drove him bats, because it was locked into the small table with Kate's gun. He finally had the uniformed officer carry the table into Lee's consulting rooms and shut the door on it, and went back to his charcoal.)

  "I don't feel like a restaurant," Kate said. "Shall we just stop for a burger? In fact - would you like to meet Dio?"

  "I'd love to, but you can't just drop in on him on a Sunday night."

  "Oh yes I can," she said, a shade grimly.

  Wanda Steiner opened the door. "Kate! Hello, dear. Do come in."

  "Hello, Wanda. Sorry to drop in on you like this. I was wondering if Dio was in. I don't know if you've had dinner, but I thought he might like to come out and have a hamburger with us."

  "I'm sure he'd love to - you know how boys his age can eat, and he did seem to enjoy your last meeting - but he's still out at the park with Reg, kicking around a soccer ball." .

  "Oh well, that's okay. Another time."

  "No, dear, why don't you just pop down and see if they aren't nearly finished? Reg won't admit when he's had enough, but he did pull a shoulder muscle the other day playing basketball. That's why they're playing soccer, to give his arm a rest. No, I'm sure he'd be happy for an excuse to quit, and I think Dio wanted to talk with you, anyway."

  "Did he?" Kate said, feeling her pulse quicken.

  "I think so. Anyway, you go see. It's only at the park -that's two blocks up the way you were going and one over to the right. Just have him back by nine. School tomorrow, you know."

  TWENTY-FOUR

  At the park, a graying man with the stocky build of a lifelong athlete was running up and down the otherwise-deserted playing field with three boys. What they held over him by young muscle, numbers, and speed was countered by experience and wile, although to Kate's eye, he appeared to be flagging a bit. She got out of the car and walked slowly toward them across the soggy winter grass, enjoying the thud and scuffle and snatches of breathless exclamations across the cold dusk air.

  "Watch out, Jay."

  "He's got —"

  "No you don't!" shouted the older voice, a laugh lodged in the back of it.

  "It's mine!"

  "Pass it, Dio. Pass it!"

  "I - oh shit!" came Dio's voice as he caught his foot on a stray toe and went sprawling.

  "Language," chided Reg's voice.

  "I meant shoot," Dio called, but the action was moving rapidly away from him as Reg ran with the ball in a zigzag pattern down the field, deflecting the teenagers with his broad shoulders, stopping abruptly twice to change direction and run around them, and finally booting the black-and-white ball ahead of him through some invisible goal. He threw up both hands in triumph, but as the boys stood around him protesting his sly maneuvers, he bent over and stood with his hands on his knees, sides heaving.

  Dio looked up at Kate's approach.

  "Did you see that?" he demanded. "He fouled me. It was deliberate."

  "I wouldn't put it past him," she agreed amiably. "Hi, Reg. Still sitting out an easy retirement, I see."

  "That's me." He gasped, and stuck out a hand filthy with sweat, mud, grass, and God knew what else. She shook it.

  "See, she agreed! That was a foul."

  "So maybe next time you won't insist on three against one," Reg said.

  "Cheating old man," Dio protested, without sounding actually angry.

  Reg Steiner ignored him. "What can I do for you, Ms Martinelli?"

  "Wanda told me I could steal Dio for a little. If he wants to join us for dinner," she added, making it a question.

  "Sure," Dio said. "Is that okay, Reg?"

  "Fine. I'll drop Jason and Paulo home. Better get your sweats from the car."

  Sweatpants on and sweatshirt in hand, Dio climbed into the back of the Saab, filling it instantly with the vigorous smell of fresh air, crushed grass, and male sweat.

  "Dio, this is my friend Lee Cooper. Lee, this is Dio, known as Dio Kimbal, for reasons known only to himself."

  Dio absently wiped his right hand on the leg of his sweatpants before putting it over the seat for Lee to shake, but he was looking only at Kate.

  "More third degree, eh?" he asked.

  "I have my truncheon ready."

  "Where are we going?"

  "Someplace quiet, where your screams won't be heard."

  They ended up at a place where indeed screams would barely be heard, but not because of the quiet. There could be little attempt at interrogation over the blare of the jukebox, or even conversation, although Lee's mouth moved a great deal as the music played up and down through the songs of her own adolescence. They had burgers and shakes and apple pie, and it was half past seven when they went back out onto the street, all three of them beaming and replete.

  In the car, Kate paused with her hand on the key. "Wanda said you wanted to talk to me."

  "Maybe you'd like to drop me somewhere first," Lee immediately offered.

  "No, that's okay," Dio said. "I didn't really want to talk."

  Kate wondered if she'd imagined the very slight stress on the final word. "What did you have in mind?"

  "I thought…" He took a deep breath. "I thought I'd show you something."

  "Good," Kate said approvingly. "Showing me things is g
ood. While you're thinking, though, you might also think about where the name Kimbal came from."

  "It's Jules's name."

  "Her name is Cameron," Kate pointed out.

  "Her real father's name was Kimbal."

  Kate whirled around so fast, she nearly strangled herself on the seat belt. "She told you that?"

  "Yeah."

  "Marsh Kimbal?"

  "I don't know. She never told me his first name."

  "What is Cameron, then?"

  "I don't know that, either, but it's not his name. It isn't her mother's name, either. At least that's what Jules said."

  "How did she find this out? Did she come across her birth certificate?"

  "It isn't on her birth certificate, not the one her mother has. There isn't a father listed on that one. Jules hunted it down in the records of some hospital somewhere, over the computer."

  "How long have you known this?"

  He wouldn't meet her eyes. "Since last summer," he said in a small voice.

  "Shit, Dio." She turned and smacked her hand hard against the steering wheel. "How could you keep this kind of information to yourself? I've been trying —"

  "Kate," Lee said quietly. "He's given it to you now. Work with it."

  Kate grasped the wheel firmly with both hands and took several slow breaths. "Okay. I'm sorry, Dio. Thank you for telling me. I'm glad the hamburger torture worked. Now I'm going to have to find a phone." She pulled the keys out of the ignition and began to peer at the surrounding buildings, but she was interrupted by Dio's hand tentatively touching her shoulder.

  "Could the phone wait?" he asked. "I promised Reg I'd be back by nine, and I'd really like to give you the other thing tonight."

  "What is it?"

  "An envelope Jules gave me last month, with something lumpy in it. I didn't open it."

  "Where is it?"

  "At the squat. It was the only place I could think of to hide something."

  She looked at the clock. To the squat and back across town would indeed leave little time for hunting down first a telephone and then Al Hawkin.

  "Why didn't you ever have a car phone put in?" she complained to Lee, starting the engine and pulling out with a squeal onto Van Ness Avenue.

  The three of them sat in the silent car and looked at the dark, dreary bulk of the warehouse.

  "We don't haye a key for the padlock," Kate said, "and they've nailed the metal sheet down."

  "I got in another way last month," Dio told her. "It'll only take me a minute."

  "I'll go with you."

  "You don't have to."

  "Yes, I do." She left the keys in the ignition and turned to Lee. "If anyone comes, anyone at all, lean on the horn. I'll be here in twenty seconds."

  "Be careful," was all Lee said.

  "I wonder if my tetanus shots are up-to-date," Kate muttered, reaching under the seat for the flashlight.

  The boy's alternate entrance was around the back of the building. He dragged a crate from its resting place against the wall to a position under the metal fire escape and boosted himself up onto it. To Kate's relief the box proved itself sturdier than it looked by not collapsing as Dio jumped up to catch the lowest rung. He pulled himself up, Kate following with a good deal more effort. Halfway up the stairway, he swung his leg over the handrail and onto a narrow decorative ledge on the building. Kate kept the light shining on his feet as he picked his way along to a small window half a dozen feet away, which easily pushed open. He turned and grinned at Kate, his teeth gleaming in the indirect glow of the flashlight.

  "I was afraid they'd fastened it shut." He placed both hands on the sill and pulled himself up and over. After a muffled thump, he reappeared and stretched his hand out for the light, then guided Kate's steps until she, too, had dropped into the strategically placed mattress. She coughed violently at the dust raised, and moved away.

  "Let's hurry this up. I'd rather not have to explain what we're doing to the local patrol."

  They went down the hall, passing the room where Kate's head had been bashed in, and down the stairs past the communal living quarters to the ground floor. It was still filthy, and there were still heaps of decaying carpet filling one of the rooms and sagging Sheetrock on the walls.

  "Can I borrow the light?" Dio asked. Kate handed it to him, watching as he picked his way across the floor to one bit of ruined wall, where he shone the light up into the dust-colored studs and then worked his hand up into the recesses. When he drew out the envelope, Kate released a breath she had not known she was holding: She did not like spiders.

  He came back and handed her the dirty white envelope. She took it by one corner and looked at it curiously. The back had been opened and then taped shut. "It was like that when Jules gave it to me," he said. "Look at how it's addressed."

  She turned it over. On the front was typed:

  JULIE KIMBAL

  (JULES CAMERON)

  "Can we open it?" he asked eagerly.

  In answer, she patted her clothing, found a lack of anything that would do as an evidence bag, and shook her head. "Not yet. Jesus, I hope this case never comes to trial; the defense will have a field day. No, Dio, we can't look at it yet. Give me the light."

  Still holding the lumpy envelope by the same corner, she retraced her steps upstairs to the small window and peered down in dismay. One-handed and backward, it was an ugly proposal.

  "Isn't there another way out?" she asked.

  "The top of the fire escape is at the roof, but there's a padlock on the door. This window's so small, nobody bothered."

  "The hell with it. Let's see if we can break the padlock."

  It was a small lock and a thin chain, held on by a couple of feeble staples. Kate raised a leg and kicked it, and the whole thing went flying out onto the roof. She had Dio prop the door shut against the wind when they left:

  "Why didn't you guys ever take that off?"

  "Weldon said it wasn't right to break things in the squat." Kate turned to stare at him, but he was serious. She followed him, shaking her head at the logic of a man who would shoot a cop but not break a lock.

  At the car, he asked again, "Are we going to open it?"

  "I'm going to take you home."

  "Please. I really want to see what's in it."

  Oh hell, Kate thought, he deserves it. And I'm not about to take it into the lab without opening it, anyway.

  She cut the envelope open on Wanda Steiner's kitchen table. Wanda had placed a paper towel down to protect the scrubbed wood from the dirty paper, and she'd given Kate a lethally sharp kitchen knife with a long, narrow blade. Kate slit the paper, leaving the tape intact, lifted the slit open with the tip of the knife, and slid out the thing inside.

  It was a small, lumpy wad of tissue paper wrapped around something. With the tip of the knife and the end of a fingernail she began to undo it. The object whispered slightly inside the paper, the metallic whisper of a chain shifting, and with a shudder of premonition she knew what would be inside the envelope.

  She was right: dog tags.

  A set of dog tags, scratched and dull from long wear.

  The name stamped onto them was KIMBAL, MARSHAL J.

  Kate stood up. Her body felt numb with cold, but she was vaguely aware of relief that her brain was still functioning.

  "I've got to talk to Al," she said, looking at Lee.

  "Do you have his number?"

  "It's at home. I left everything at home."

  "Jon's probably back, if you don't want to wait."

  "He'll find it for me." Kate went to the phone on the kitchen wall, and only when she had begun to punch in her home number did she realize that it was a strange phone, and then she noticed that she had an audience. Awkwardly, she held out the receiver to the Steiners. "Do you mind if I…"

  "Of course not."

  She turned to complete the dial sequence and remembered something. "None of you touch that paper or the dog tags," she ordered. After a minute, she frowned. "He's got
the answering machine on."

  "He may be screening calls. Leave a message."

  Kate nodded, and when the recorded message had played to the end, she started to say in the stilted tones of someone speaking into a recording device, "Jon, it's Kate here. Lee and I will be home in —"

  The others in the room heard the phone give forth a whoop, and then a loud and vastly relieved voice was shouting into Kate's ear.

  "Kate, darling! My God, it's been like Grand Central Station around here. Where on earth are you?"

  "Why? What's wrong?"

  "Something about some pictures you sent to Al Hawkin. You've stirred up a veritable ant's nest there, dear. I thought he —"

  "Pictures? What pict - B.J. Montero's photographs. Jon, what about them?" she said urgently.

  "I don't know; he wouldn't tell lowly old me. Just said that there's a man in them who shouldn't be, or something."

  "Was it Lavalle?"

  "Well, you know," said Jon, "I really don't think so. Anyway, you'd better call the poor man before he ruptures a blood vessel or something. He was sounding a wee bit stressed."

  Al wasn't the only one, Kate thought. She hadn't heard Jon this arch in months.

  "Right. Did he give you a number?"

  "Only a few dozen times. Do you have a pen?"

  "Just a minute. Lee? Hand me that pencil? Okay," she said to him. He gave her a Portland number. She repeated it, hung up, punched in the lengthy sequence that would bill it to her credit card, and when it rang she asked for Al Hawkin. He was there in a matter of seconds.

  "Kate? Thank God. Where the hell did you get those pictures?"

  "It's a long story, but they were taken at a rest stop south of Portland where Jules and I went - in the afternoon, a few hours before she disappeared. Some people were there, taking pictures of one another, and I tracked them down. I sent them to you on the off chance Lavalle's car was there."