"Pearl Ann Jamison," Dulcie said, "is a guy in drag. I believe that he's the killer."

Clyde burst out laughing. "Come on, Dulcie. Just because Pearl Ann's strong, and a good carpenter, doesn't mean she's a guy. You…"

"Are you saying I don't know what I'm talking about?"

"Of course not. I just think you and Joe… Joe's never mentioned this. What would make you think…"

"I know the difference between male and female," she said tartly. "Which is more than you and Wilma seem to have figured out. When you get past the Jasmine perfume, Pearl Ann smells like a man. Without the perfume, we'd have known at once."

"She smells different? You're basing this wild accusation on a smell?"

"Of course he smells different. Testosterone, Clyde. He smells totally male. It's not my fault that humans are so-challenged when it comes to the olfactory skills."

Wilma watched the two of them solemnly.

"Pearl Ann smells like a man," Dulcie repeated. "Half the clothes in her closet belong to a man. The IDs hidden in her room-driver's licenses and credit cards, are for several different men."

Clyde sighed.

"One ID is in the name of Troy Hoke. He was…"

That brought Clyde up short. "Where did you hear mat name?"

"I just told you. Pearl Ann has an ID for Troy Hoke. If you don't believe me or Joe, then ask Greeley-Greeley knows all about Pearl Ann. He let us into her room in the Davidson Building. He showed us the driver's licenses and credit cards hidden in the light fixture. He told us where Hoke parks the car he drives, that none of you have seen. An eight-year-old gray Chrysler."

They were both gawking at her, two looks of amazement that quite pleased her.

"That's where Greeley's been all this time," she said patiently. "Camping in a storeroom at the Davidson Building."

"Why didn't you tell us this before?" Wilma said. "It's not like you to keep something…"

This was really too much. "I just did tell you," she hissed angrily. Clyde's skeptical questions were one thing, she was used to Clyde's argumentative attitude. But for Wilma to question her-that hurt. "We just found out tonight," she said shortly and turned her back on Wilma, leaped off the table, and trotted away to the living room. If they didn't want to believe her, that was their problem. She'd call Harper back at once and tell him about Troy Hoke.

Leaping to the desk, she had just taken the phone cord in her teeth when the instrument shrilled, sending her careening off again.

The phone rang three times before Wilma ran in and snatched it from the cradle. She listened, didn't speak. She patted the desk for Dulcie to jump up, but Dulcie turned away.

"What hospital?" Wilma said.

On the floor, Dulcie stopped washing.

"How bad is she?" Wilma said softly. "Can we see her?" And in a moment she hung up the phone and hurried away to dress and find her keys.

26

MAVITY'S hospital room at Salinas Medical was guarded by a thin, young deputy who had been on duty most of the night. His chin was stubbled with pale whiskers, and his uniform was wrinkled. Sitting on a straight-backed chair just outside Mavity's half-open door, he was enjoying an order of waffles and bacon served in a plastic carton. A Styrofoam cup of coffee sat on the floor beside his chair. He was present not only to assure that the suspect did not escape-a most unlikely event, considering Mavity's condition-but to bar intruders and protect the old woman in case she was not Jergen's killer but was a witness to his death.

Mavity's room was not much larger than a closet. The steel furniture was old and scarred, but the white sheets and blanket were snowy fresh. She slept fitfully, her breathing labored, her left hand affixed to an IV tube, her right hand clutching the blanket. A white bandage covered most of her head, as if she were wearing the pristine headgear of some exotic eastern cult. She had been in the hospital since one A.M., when she was transferred there by ambulance from an alley in Salinas where she had been found lying unconscious near her wrecked VW. She had not been able to tell the police or the nurses her name or where she lived. The Salinas police got that information from the registration of her wrecked car. They had notified the Molena Point PD only after an alert was faxed to them that a woman of Mavity's description was missing and was wanted for questioning in last evening's murder.

Salinas Medical was an hour's drive from Molena Point, lying inland where the weather was drier and warmer. The hospital complex consisted of half a dozen Spanish-style buildings surrounded by a circular drive. It was a training facility for medical staff and a bulwark of specialized medical services for the area, including an excellent cardiac unit and a long-term-care wing for patients in need of intensive nursing. Wilma, Clyde, and Charlie arrived at Salinas Medical at five-thirty A.M.

When Wilma had received Max Harper's phone call at four that morning, she and Clyde left her house in her car, making two stops, the first to drop Dulcie off at Clyde's place, an arrangement about which Dulcie was not happy. The last Wilma saw of the little cat, Dulcie was sulking alone on Clyde's steps, her ears down, her head hanging, looking as abandoned as she could possibly manage.

Wilma knew that the instant she drove away Dulcie would bolt inside to Joe, pacing and lashing her tail, complaining about the indignities a cat was subjected to by uncaring humans.

"They won't let you into the hospital," Wilma had told her. "And I don't want you alone here with Bernine."

"I could go in a shopping bag. They'd think I was extra clothes or homemade cookies. Don't you think I care about Mavity? Don't you think I care that that man might have killed her?"

"Or that she might have killed Jergen?"

"Nonsense. You know she didn't. I would fit in that canvas book tote. You could just…"

"Hospital security checks all parcels. They won't let you in. They'd throw you out in the street."

"But…"

"Stay with Joe," Wilma had snapped, and had unceremoniously tossed Dulcie into the car where she hunched miserably on the front seat.

The second stop had been to pick up Charlie, who was waiting in front of her building before the antique shop, sucking on a mug of coffee and snuggled in a fleece-lined denim jacket. She slid into the front seat between Clyde and Wilma, frowning with worry over Mavity.

"Has she remembered her name? Does she know what happened to her?"

"We haven't talked to the hospital," Wilma said. "All I know is what Harper told me when he called, that she was confused and groggy."

"Was she alone in the car?"

Clyde put his arm around her. "As far as we know, she was. They found the VW smashed against a lamppost, outside a pawnshop in the old part of town. Not a likely place for her to be in the middle of the night."

As they sped east on the nearly empty freeway, the dawn air was damp and cool through the open windows, helping to wake them. On either side of the road, the thickly wooded hills rose dark and solid against the dawn sky. Soon they were inland between flat fields, the crops laid out in long green rows, the dawn air smelling of onions. When they arrived at Salinas Medical, Mavity was asleep, an IV tube snaking up her arm to a slowly seeping bottle. In the corner of the room on a hard wooden chair, Max Harper dozed, his long legs splayed out before him. He came fully awake as they entered.

"I've been here about an hour," he replied to Wilma's questioning look. "Haven't gotten much out of her-she's pretty confused."

Clyde went out to the nursing station to get some chairs, and Charlie went to find the coffee machine, returning with four large cups of steaming brew that tasted like rusted metal.