5

In the darkness of his bedroom, lying awake, Garreth heard the foghorns start. The years living here had taught him to recognize the patterns of a few, like the double hoot of the one on Mile Rocks and the single every-twenty-seconds blast of the one on Point Diablo. Fog moving in, he thought.

He stopped consciously listening when the horns and diaphone on the Golden Gate Bridge joined the chorus. The dial of his watch glowed on the bedside table, but he resisted the urge to look at it. Why see how long he had lain awake?

He sat up, hugging his blanketed knees. What was wrong? Why should he be bothered that their interviews with the manager of the Barbary Now and the singer's neighbors last night and today turned up nothing to connect her with the murders?

"I wish everyone I hired were as dependable," the manager had said. "She's always on time, always polite to even the biggest asshole customers, never drunk or strung out. Lane never causes trouble."

Her neighbors echoed the sentiment. One said, "You'd hardly know she's there. She sleeps all day and comes home from work after we've gone to bed. If she brings anyone home, I don't know it because she never makes a sound. She's away on tour sometimes and it may be a week before I realize she's gone."

"Do you ever see any of her friends?" Garreth had asked.

"Once in a while. They're men, mostly, leaving in the morning, but all very well dressed . . . none of the dirty, hairy, blue-jean types."

Altogether their questions produced a picture of an ideal neighbor and employee. So what did he find so disturbing about that? Maybe just that. He had an innate suspicion of people who kept a profile low to the point of invisibility. Even granting differences between professional images and private lives, he could not quite reconcile such a lifestyle with the sexy, coolly sophisticated young woman from the Barbary Now. The maiden is powerful, l Ching said. One should not marry such a maiden. Beware of that which seems weak and innocent.

And yet, he could not picture her threading a needle into Mossman's jugular, either . . . not with his present knowledge of her.

"I need to know more," he said aloud into the darkness.

The midchannel Golden Gate diaphone sounded out of the fog in its bellow-and-grunt voice, as though replying to his remark.

He would talk to her landlord, he decided, lying back in bed, and then to more of the Barbary Now personnel. He would see if all their opinions matched the ones he had already heard.

That decided, he lay relaxed, listening to the hooting and bel­lowing of the foghorns reverberate through the night. The rhythmic chorus carried him into sleep.