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her smile a bit lopsided. "If I'm becoming fixated, let me know. Loudly."
"That's a deal."
"One more thing."
"Only one?"
"At the moment. We haven't talked about money."
"We'll manage."
"A baby's an expensive addition. And if we commit ourselves to in vitro, it
gets really expensive. Plus, I can't see myself working full-time, either
before or after." Her attitude was not simply one of warning Kate, but of
leading up to something.
"So you want me to rob a bank?" Kate asked lightly. "Or are you and Jon
cooking up a little computer fraud and you want a couple of tips?"
"Uh, no. I think I'll avoid anything that would land one of us in jail. I
hear they're bad places to raise children. No, I was thinking that we might
have to sell this house, move someplace cheaper."
It was not entirely unexpected; in fact, it was a suggestion Kate had made
any number of times over the years since Lee had inherited the property
following the death of her authoritative and strongly disapproving mother, but
it still sent a sharp pang of regret through her. Objectively speaking, it was
worth a small fortune, but Kate had put herself into this house, her sweat and
her commitment, and she loved it as she never thought she would love a mere
building. She also knew without question that they were both well and truly
spoiled for any lesser house they might find to replace it.
She kissed Lee and smiled at her. "I'll miss the view of the Bay," she said,
and left it at that.
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Al's return call found her about to step into her own shower. She turned off
the water and sat down on the toilet in front of the glowing bars of the
ancient wall heater.
"Jani said you needed to talk."
"Look, Al, is Jani okay with me?" she asked bluntly. "She sounded pissed
off."
"Jani?" Al's surprise was all the answer she needed. "No, she's not pissed
off with you. With life in general, maybe, and with hormones and a dry cracker
diet in particular, but she's good with you."
"I'm glad."
"We're both waiting for the second trimester to get under way. It usually
settles down then."
Hawkin the expectant father, Kate thought in amusement, and wondered idlyif
she and he would share hints and complaints when and if Lee was in Jani's
condition. The thought brought the entire possibility of Lee and a baby into
abrupt focus, and for a long moment Kate sat naked on the toilet seat, bemused
by the whole situation. Al's growl jerked her to attention.
"Martinelli, is that all you phoned to ask?"
"No, Al, sorry. Didn't get much sleep last night. Do you have a minute?"
"Go ahead."
"Okay. Last night we had Roz and Maj over, and got to talking about religion
and the conservative Right with their anti-gay programs and the bombing of
abortion clinics. And then Jon mentioned that Web site that everyone was
talking about when the doctor back East was shot, the Web site that lists
doctors and clinic directors, their families and home addresses, all kinds of
things nobody would want a nut to get ahold of."
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"The hit list."
"Exactly."
"Do I see where this is going?" Al asked slowly, and Kate knew him well
enough to hear the excitement in his voice. She hugged herself to keep warm.
"You do. It took me forever, but I found one that is a kind of mirror image.
It's called Womyn of the EVEning that's w-o-m-y-n, and the e-v-e in evening is
capitalized. It's only been online since January, which may be why nobody's
heard about it. It isn't one of those governmental lists, notifying residents
they might have a sex offender as a neighbor. This one's a list of suspects
who are known to beat their wives, abuse kids physically or sexually, or rape
women. Each guy is given a case history, his arrest and conviction record, and
a list of the things he's suspected of that he didn't get taken down for
because the courts weren't able to prove anything further. You know the
routine tainted evidence, a withdrawn statement by a victim or witness,
circumstantial evidence without direct corroboration, that sort of thing.
There were a couple of plea bargains for lesser offenses. God knows where all
their information came from, though it looks to me like somebody's getting
into things they shouldn't."
"Hackers?"
"Or an inside source."
"How many on the list?"
"Two hundred fourteen names."
"What? In four months? Christ, Martinelli."
"Makes you think, doesn't it? It's compiled by a woman who seems to be
somewhere in Nebraska. People send her names, and if they match her
criteria that's what she calls it she adds them to the list, with their phone
numbers and addresses. I've sent her an imaginary case, to see what she does
with it, what kind of checks she runs."
"Are any of our " Al started, but Kate was already there.
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"They're all on it. All three."
Al was silent, then said what was on both their minds.
"That takes it out of our hands for sure. Have you called Marcowitz yet?"
"My next call, after I talked to you."
"The feds ll be embarrassed that you found it first," he said, pleased at the
idea.
"I thought I might point that out, if they try to cut us out of the loop
completely."
"Blackmail, Martinelli? Not nice."
"Just doing my job, Al."
"Sure you are. Find anything else interesting on the list?"
"Don't know about interesting, but there's going to be a hell of a lot of
work there. But Al? There are a bunch of connecting sites, things like legal
information for victims, do-it-yourself PI work, how to go underground, that
kind of thing. I haven't been through all of them yet, but I had two
interesting hits. One of them was a self-defense site that talked about, among
other things, buying and using various kinds of taser." Hawkin grunted in
reaction. "The other frankly, I don't know what to think. Roz Hall's church
has a Web site two links away."
Chapter 16
KATE HAD NOT BEEN inside Roz and Maj's house since the previous Thanksgiving.
It looked as if she was not about to enter it today, either, since there was
no response to either doorbell or knuckles. She had thought she was early
enough to catch them, and Roz's red Jeep stood in the driveway, but the house
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was empty. Try again later.
She had her car door open when Maj's boxy white BMW rounded the corner,
lights on and wipers going against the morning drizzle. It signaled its turn
to an empty street and pulled sedately into the drive. While Kate waited for
the doors to open, she reflected that either cars were no indication of
personality, or else a certain degree of incompatibility was no bad thing in a
relationship: Whereas Roz drove a big, battered, once-flashy but still new
vehicle that already had a dozen political stickers superimposed in layers on
the back bumper, Maj stuck to the car she had bought new twelve years before,
a car as immaculate and scrupulously maintained as its owner, which usually [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]