Clyde eased himself deeper into the soft leather of the booth, wishing he were somewhere else.

"She has a quiet voice, but with a strange little tinge of sarcasm." Harper sipped his beer. "A peculiarly soft way of speaking, and yet that little nudging edge to it.

"Her first calls seemed to have nothing to do with the Lake trial. She called to tell me she'd slipped a list under the station door, and to explain about it. I had the list on my desk when she called." With his thumbnail he began to press on the wet beer label he'd stuck to the table, pressing at its edges. "It was her list that led us to that burglary up on Cypress.

"We made two arrests, caught them red-handed, impounded a truck full of stolen TVs, videos, some antiques and jewelry, ski equipment, a mink coat.

"The list of residences to be hit was very detailed, showed the times each householder left for work, kind of car, times the kids left for school, time the school bus stops. Right down to if the family kept a dog.

"But no indication of what day the burglaries would come down. She said she didn't know, suggested I set up a stakeout, was almost bossy about it. She put me off, and I almost tossed the list." Harper looked uncomfortable, as if the room was too hot.

"But then she called back, later that same night. Gave me the hit date, said she'd just found out." Harper abandoned the label, lit a cigarette. He had shaped the O'Doul's label into a long oval with a lump at one end. "That second call came maybe an hour after that fuss up at Sicily's gallery, the night those cats got locked inside."

Clyde grinned. "The night my stupid cat got shut in. You saying this woman made the call from the gallery? That the cats got in when she entered?"

"No, I'm not saying that," Harper snapped. He stubbed out his cigarette and fingered the half-empty pack, then laid it aside, started in on the label again, working at it absently with his thumbnail. "I'm not saying that at all. Simply stating the sequence of events.

"And it was that same day," he said, "midafternoon, when the new witness turned up. The one who saw the white van in Janet's drive."

Clyde watched the beer label taking shape, Harper's thumb forming a crude, lumpy head.

Harper finished his beer, draining the glass. "You know I don't believe in coincidence. But the strange thing is-that witness who saw the white van, she turned out to be the mother of one of the burglars."

Clyde frowned, shook his head as if trying to sort that out. He had to swallow back a belly laugh. Despite Harper's obvious distress, this was the biggest joke of all time on his good friend. And he couldn't say a word.

Harper still hadn't told him about the watch. It was the watch that was really bugging Harper.

"Yesterday the informant called, asked if we'd found Janet's paintings. She seemed pleased that we had.

"She told me that when we found Kendrick Mahl's watch, that could wrap up the case. She said it was in a drainpipe up in the hills, that we'd have to dig down and cut through the pipe. She thought if we cut straight down into the pipe, we wouldn't disturb the evidence, could still photograph it before we moved it. She gave me the location of the marker where we were to dig, a little pile of rocks, up the hill from the mouth of the drain."

He looked a long time at Clyde. "The drainpipe turned out to be just up beyond the burglarized house, and not fifty yards from where we arrested James Stamps. He'd run up the hill chasing his dog. Dog bit Thompson real bad."

Harper grinned. "Thompson was crawling around in the bushes taking pictures of these two perps, and the dog jumps him.

"We got Thompson to the hospital, took the dog to the pound for observation. Don't know what it got mixed up with, but its face was one bloody mess, Thompson didn't think he did that. Long scratches down the dog's nose and ear."

Harper gave the head on the O'Doul's label two pointed ears, pushed the wet paper again, starting to form a tail. "No one," he said, "could have known what was in that drain. You couldn't see a thing from the opening, not even with a flashlight. The watch was maybe fifteen feet back inside.

"But my informant knew. Knew where the watch was, knew whose watch it was. She described the stone marker exactly. Little pile of rocks pressed into the earth in the form of an X, where the grass had been scraped away."

"Pretty strange," Clyde said. "Makes you wonder. You don't think she's a psychic or something?"

"You know I don't believe in that stuff. It was some job digging down into the drainpipe, and I didn't believe for a minute we'd find anything. I thought this would end up a big department joke."

"Then why did you do it?"

"There's always that chance. Better to be the butt of a joke than miss something. We dug down seven feet to the metal pipe, then cut through the metal with an acetylene torch, kept the flame small as we could.

"Broke down into the pipe two feet above the skeleton of a dead cat."

Clyde wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"The cat had a collar around its neck with Janet Jeannot's name on it." Harper was very still, looking at Clyde. "Kendrick Mahl's watch was buckled to the collar."

Clyde shook his head, did his best to look amazed. He'd had to listen half the night to Joe bragging about the damned watch, and about the paintings.

"We photographed the watch and got it and the skeleton to the lab. Lab found Mahl's prints on the watch, underneath Janet's prints.

"We have photographs of Mahl wearing the watch a week before Janet was killed. And a shot of him the night of the museum opening wearing a different watch, a new Rolex.

"We found the store where he bought the Rolex, a place on the other side of San Francisco from the St. Francis, little hole in the wall. They sold it the day of the opening. The customer fit Mahl's description. He paid cash." Harper grew still as the waiter brought another round of beers, the round little man moving quietly, leaving quickly.

"After we arrested Mahl we searched his apartment. Found the bolt cutters he used to cut the lock off at the storage complex. Found the keys to Janet's studio and to her van, under the liner of his overnight bag. And he had a set of keys to Rob's Suburban. The way we see Mahl's moves, he had already brought the substitute paintings down to Molena Point, sometime before that weekend, and put them in the locker. On Saturday he checks into the St. Francis and puts his car in the underground parking.

"Saturday night he uses his parking ticket to take out Janet's van-he knew she was out to dinner with friends, probably had a good idea she'd make an early evening of it. He drives down to the village, gets the fake paintings, switches them for Janet's, rigs Janet's oxygen tank, and drops some aspirin in her coffeemaker. Stashes her paintings in the locker and hightails it back to the city before daylight.

"He puts Janet's van back in the parking garage, uses that entry ticket later to retrieve his own car. He'd have had to put the van back in the same slot. Probably he pulled his own car into her slot, to reserve it while he was gone. Counted on Janet's not coming down at some late hour; he knew she didn't like to party.

"Who knows when he missed his watch? We're guessing he didn't miss it until he was back in the city, and then it was too late to turn around and go back. He had to be seen at the St. Francis for breakfast, be seen around town that weekend, and, of course, at the opening Sunday night.

"But when he gets back to Molena Point after the opening late Sunday night he takes Rob's Suburban while Rob's asleep, goes to get his watch."

"But he's too late," Clyde said. "Janet's already up in the studio. And no one saw him switch the paintings, no one saw him around the locker?"