Night work (28 page)

Maj answered before her partner could. "Roz knew. I knew.
About eighty other people knew. And then whoever those people may have
told."

"Eighty people?" Even for Roz, that seemed like a lot of phone calls.

"I preached on it, Sunday morning," Roz explained.

Kate winced. "Mentioning names?"

"Yes."

And on Monday night, Laxman Mehta had been killed.

Maj reached for the passenger door, breaking the staring contest. Roz walked around the car to the driver's side.

"It was good to see you," Maj told Kate. "I hope you're taking care of yourself."

"Lee makes me." To say nothing of her other partner, Al.

"She is looking so well."

"She's doing great." Kate opened her mouth again
to say something further about Roz's threatening letters, and
then closed it firmly. They were big girls, and neither of them naive.

"Shall we go, my Maj?" Roz asked.
Mymy,
her favorite pun on Maj's name.

Maj leaned forward and gave Kate an affectionate kiss on the cheek.
Both women got in and closed their doors, Maj with some difficulty,
which indicated that the Jeep's argument with the Yosemite rock
face had damaged more than paint. The engine ground into life
(something wrong under the hood as well--Roz's pet mechanic
must have left the congregation) and the red car slid off down the hill.

Kate stood for another minute with her face upturned to the faint
impression of stars, then she went back inside, poured the dregs of the
coffee into a cup, and took it upstairs, where she turned on the
computer and then walked away from it, ending up on the small balcony
off the guest room. Half an hour later Lee found her there, sitting and
watching an overhead airplane rise up into the heavens.

"What are you doing?" Lee asked.

"Sitting."

"You okay?"

"I am perfect," Kate told her.

Lee came up behind her chair and leaned down to kiss her on the same
cheek Maj had used earlier. She smelled of soap and toothpaste.
"You turned the computer on. Are you working tonight?"

"You detective, you. Al thought I needed a night off, so I
promised him I wouldn't work until tomorrow morning."

"So you're waiting until midnight," Lee diagnosed. She laughed.

"Tell me something," Kate asked her. "Roz did something in India that gave you the creeps. What was it?"

Lee stood still for a moment, and then with a sigh she put her hands
back through the cuffs of the crutches and shifted over to sit down on
the narrow bench.

"I don't really want to go into detail, but basically
what happened was Roz disappeared from the hotel and went off to live
with a group of
dacoits
for a few days. What we would call, I
don't know, a band of outlaws, I guess. Nasty people. Personally,
I've always thought that she was given some powerful drug, a
hallucinogen I'd say. She swore she wasn't, but it was all
pretty ugly, and it took a major effort to get her out of there, and
out of the country without being thrown in jail."

"I..." Kate shook her head. "I can't picture it."

"Completely uncharacteristic," Lee agreed. "Which
is why I decided she'd been given something. I've never
known Roz to do drugs, other than that time. And at the end of it we
were both more than a little uncomfortable around each other."

"You've never talked about it?"

"Never. She may not even remember it, not in detail."

"Thanks for telling me." Though, Kate reflected, it was
hard to know what, if anything, to make of this long-ago episode of
youthful indiscretion. Except...

"I don't suppose that there was one of the, what do you call them,
dacoots,
in particular?"

"Dacoits," Lee
corrected, the wicked smile on
her face clear even in the dark. "And how did you guess?"
She stood up, kissed Kate's other cheek, and merely said,
"I'm going to bed."

"Okay, sweetheart," Kate said absently. "I'll be there in a bit."

"Don't work too late."

Kate did work late--or rather, early, when a faint light in the
east was bringing definition to the Bay and the northern shore beyond.
Through the night, while the traffic fell silent and the streetlights
dominated the darkness, while the sea haze coalesced into clouds and
set the house's downspouts to their musical tapping, Kate
searched the tangled threads of the Web for three lonely names, and
eventually, working backward from Roz's Web site, using search
engine and Web links, she found them.

"Womyn of the EVEning," they called themselves, and their Web site began with a soliloquy on the night.

Eve was the first, a creature of the darkness, who with her apple
freed her children from the tyranny of the Ruler of paradise. Eve,
whose thirst for knowledge was so great, it changed humynkind. Eve,
whose act was called shameful by males, who stands in pride and
strength as the Mother of us all.

We, too, are creatures of the night. Night is a Goddess who wraps
Her dark cloak around us, allowing us to become invisible as we work
Her will. For too long, womyn has been invisible in the daylight, a
being with no voice, no face, whose labors in the home are only seen if
they are not done, whose birthing and raising of children is only
noticed when she fails.

Males call us weak, males attack us with their stronger muscles,
males try to convince us that the Night is a place of danger, that we
must stay inside, lock our doors against the lurking, unseen threats of
the dark.

Why do we believe this? In truth, for too many of us, it is the
well-lighted home that places us in danger, the locked and bolted door
that traps us and makes us vulnerable.

In truth it is the dark, all-concealing Night outside that will make
us safe, Night's dark cloak that shields us with invisibility.
Our weakness and our fear shall become our strength and our weapon,
until it is the male who hides in the light, cowering from
womyn's dark vengeance.

The night is ours, to do with as we please.

The dark is ours, to punish the evildoer.

Here are some of the males who would deny us our dark safety.

And then came the names.

GRITTY-EYED AND U N W A S H E D , Kate stumbled off and collapsed
between the sheets for three hours, when she was dragged out of
unconsciousness by a steaming mug and Lee's voice.

"Your hair," Lee purred into her lover's ear,
sinking her fingers into the matted brown tangle on the pillow. "
'Your hair flows like a flock of goats, spilling down the side of
Mount Gilead." "

Kate opened one eye to glare at the face of her partner, who was
convulsed with hilarity at her own wit. "You woke me up to tell
me that?"

"I woke you up to remind you that you have an appointment in Marin at eight o'clock."

Kate looked at the clock, and then nearly knocked the mug out of
Lee's grasp as her own hand shot out for the telephone. She
punched in the number, as familiar as her own, and then grimaced at the
woman's voice that answered.

" 'Morning, Jani," she said carefully. "This is Kate. Have I missed Al?"

"He's in the shower, Kate. Can I have him call you back?"

"Okay. I'm at home. It's kind of urgent, Jani."

"Isn't it always?" Jani commented, and the phone
went dead. Kate put her own phone down, wondering if she should read
anything into Jani's brusque dismissal, and if so, how much. She
had seemed okay on the phone the other night, so maybe it didn't
mean anything.

"What's wrong?" Lee asked, again holding out the
mug. Kate took it gratefully, slurped off the top inch, and arranged a
couple of pillows behind her head.

"Janididn'tsound veryhappy tohear me,"Katetold
her."I'd thought it was calming down with her, but maybe
not." Jani still held Kate to blame for the kidnapping of her
daughter, Jules, while under Kate's supervision just before
Christmas. Since in Kate's opinion Jani was right, she could
hardly complain at the woman's treatment of her. Still, it added
a degree of tension to her partnership with Al that was sometimes
awkward.

Lee, however, had an alternative explanation for the exchange.

"It's probably her morning sickness. Didn't you
tell me she was about ten weeks along? She was probably just trying not
to vomit into the receiver."

"You think so?"

"I think it's possible. You might check with Al before you get het up about nothing."

"Is 'het up' a medical term, Doctor?"

"Definitely. New Age terminology meets the Victorian
era." Lee drew a deep breath, looking down at her hands, and Kate
went instantly wary. "Sweetheart," Lee began,
"I've been thinking about what you said the other
night."

Kate made no pretense at not knowing what Lee was talking about.
There was only one subject at the moment that called for low voice and
lowered gaze.

"About a baby?"

"Indirectly. Or rather, on the way to a baby. I've never
really apologized properly for what I put you through last
summer."

"That's not--"

"Let me say it. I treated you like shit. I made you crawl and
then shoved you away, just to prove I could. And when I finally heard
that you'd been hurt, nearly killed, it was like--oh, I
don't know. Like having a bucket of ice water dumped into my
brain. All I could think of .was, if you'd died, you would have
gone thinking that I wasn't coming back. It was a shock, that
idea, it made me feel... I can't begin to describe how I
felt," admitted the articulate psychotherapist. "I think
about it every day. And I am sorry. Mostly--" she held out a
hand to stop Kate's protest. "Mostly I'm sorry for
what my actions did to us. You've been insecure about us ever
since, which I can understand. But let me say, here and now, that I am
not going anywhere. I love you, and I am staying here with you. If you
can just think of the other as a sort of temporary insanity, I would be
very grateful."

Kate was not exactly proud of the memory of her own response to
Lee's abrupt exit, which had gone from drunken self-pity to
reckless rage for weeks. She had not told Lee, would not tell her now,
but merely took her lover into her arms and held her.

After a minute, Lee stirred. "Now we can talk about the baby
thing. I've found an OB/GYN over in Berkeley who is willing to
work with a disabled lesbian. I made an appointment for early next
month. I'd like you to come with me."

Kate smoothed Lee's own unruly curls. "You're very sure about this?"

Lee sat up again to meet her eyes, taking Kate's hand.
"I think I'm sure, if that makes sense. What I mean is, I
want very badly to try, but if at any point along the way the
difficulties become too major--if the doctor says absolutely not,
if the insemination doesn't take, if problems crop up--I
will back off. You may need to remind me of that promise, by the
way," she said, 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.

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 idly
if
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."