“Might as well.” She wrote it down, thanked him, and prepared to hang up, when he interrupted her.
“I also have that list of passages Erasmus was quoting. Shall I send it to you?”
Actually, Kate had forgotten about it. “That would be helpful. Just send it to the address I left with you.”
“There was just one odd thing—it struck me when I was thinking about that conversation. One of his passages was wrong. That’s never happened before, not that I’ve ever caught. Remember when he was getting so worked up about something and cited David’s lament over his son Absalom? Before that he said, ”David made a covenant with Jonathan, because he loved him as his own soul.“ I’m sure he said it in that order. In fact, I was aware of it at the time because it’s wrong. It’s Jonathan who makes the covenant with David.”
“Does that matter?”
“I don’t know. I mean, it would in the biblical context, but I don’t know if it was only a slip. I just wanted to mention it, because it was unusual.”
Kate thanked him, reassured him yet again that she would phone if there was news, and firmly said good-bye. She dutifully wrote the information down, then went out to pick up Al Hawkin so they could tie up the interviews of the people who lived in houses facing Golden Gate Park, on the slim chance they might have noticed, and remembered, the booted man nine days before. The inquiries had to be made, but she was not too surprised when the slim chance had faded into nothingness by the end of the day.
That night she took out her notebook and phoned the three numbers. At the first, a tremulous voice with limited English informed Kate that her granddaughter was away until Tuesday and then hung up. There was no answer at Rabbi Bauer’s number. The number for Dr. Whitlaw was indeed an answering machine, which rattled at her in a woman’s rushed voice: “You’ve reached the Drs. Franklin answering service, please leave your name, number, and a brief description of what you need and we’ll try to get back to you.” That last qualified offer was none too encouraging, but Kate left her name, without any identifying rank, her home number, and the message that she needed to reach Dr. Whitlaw and would the recipients of the message please phone back, whether or not they were able to pass the message on to Dr. Whitlaw, thank you.
When she hung up, she found Lee looking at her, forehead wrinkled in thought. “Was that something to do with your fool case?”
“A rather thin lead to finding an expert, yes. Nobody home.”
“I just wondered, because a couple of the names sounded familiar—Yamaguchi and Whitlow.”
“Whitlaw.”
“Was it? It might not be the same person. Those were a couple of the names I’ve come up with. Jon’s requested a book for me that was edited by a Whitlow or Whitlaw… on the Fools movement of the twentieth century.”
“You don’t have anything yet?”
“Do you want to go up and get the folders and I’ll look? It’s on my desk next to the computer, a manila folder labeled ‘Fools.”“
It was there. Kate came back downstairs with it and handed it to Lee, who opened it on her lap and started sorting through the pages.
“Oh, I meant to mention,” she said without looking up from the file, “Jon has a friend whose brother installs those stairway lifts in peoples’ houses,- he said he’d do it for cost plus labor. The only problem would be that when we want to tear it out, it’ll leave marks on the woodwork. What do you think?”
It was fortunate that Lee was busy with her papers and did not look up—fortunate, or deliberate. Kate felt her face stiffen in an impossible mixture of shock and relief and despair: This was the first time Lee had admitted that her time in the wheelchair might not be brief. The first time, that is, since the early months of complete paraplegia, when suicide had seemed to Lee a real option. Kate turned and walked out of the room, looked about for an excuse, saw the coffee machine, poured herself a second cup, although she hadn’t drunk her first yet, and took it back into the living room.
“Any idea what it would cost?” she said evenly.
“It would still be a lot, several thousand dollars, but there’s an extended-payment program, and they buy it back when you’re finished with it. I don’t really mind going up and down on my butt. Actually, it’s good exercise, but it is slow. I just thought it would save you and Jon a few hundred trips a week up and down, fetching things for me.”
Anything that could increase Lee’s sense of independence was to be snatched at, and Kate’s face was firmly in line when Lee looked up, a paper in her hand.
“Anyway, it’s something to think about. Here’s that printout. D. Yamaguchi, Stanford, and E. Whitlaw—you’re right, it is Whitlaw—Nottingham, England. You said she’s here?”
“Dean Gardner thought she was visiting friends in the city.
“The titles of her articles and the one book look like what you need. I should have some of them Monday or Tuesday, if you want to look through them before you see her.”
“Good idea. If she calls and I’m not here, see if you can get a real phone number or an address from her. Want another coffee?”
“No, this is fine. Could you stick that tape into the machine for me?”
Kate obediently fed the indicated videotape into the mouth of the player, turned on the television, and, while she was waiting for the sound to come up, looked at the box: The Pirates of Penzance.
“Another heavy intellectual evening, I see,” she said, grinned at Lee’s embarrassment, and went off to do the dishes. Lee thought Gilbert and Sullivan hilarious,- Kate would have preferred the Saturday-morning cartoons.
After a while, she heard Jon’s voice above those of the cavorting sailors. A minute later, he came into the kitchen, dressed in his mauve velour dressing gown, and took two glasses and a squat bottle out of the drinks cupboard.
“We really must have a crystal decanter,” he complained, pouring out a thick red-brown liquid. “Would you like a glass?”
“What is it?”
“Port, my dear. I thought it might be fun to reintroduce gout as a fashionable disease.”
“No thanks. Say, Jon? Just now Lee said something about installing a lift on the stairs. Do you know anything about that?”
“Yes, well, I thought it might not be a bad idea.”
“I agree. I suggested it three or four months ago and she nearly bit my head off.”
“Did she? Well, times change. I admit I did bitch—a small bitch, a gentle bitch—about the state of my knees on those stairs. And, er, I also pointed out that she could probably deduct the depreciated cost of it as a business expense, now she’s working again.” Jon studied his fingernails for a moment and then looked up through his eyelashes at her—difficult to do, as he was four inches taller than she. Kate began reluctantly to grin, shaking her head.
“By God, you’re a sly one. And she fell for it. I’d never have believed it.” He laughed and whisked the glasses off the counter. “Jon?” He turned in the doorway. “Good work. Thanks.” He nodded, then went to join Lee in front of the television.
An hour later, Linda Ronstadt was bouncing around a moonlit garden in her nightie, flirting with her pirate, when the phone rang. Kate picked it up in the kitchen, where she had retreated with a stack of unread newspapers.
“Martinelli.”
“This is Professor Eve Whitlaw, returning your call.” The voice was low, calm, and English.
“Yes, Dr. Whitlaw, thank you for phoning. I am the—”
“Is that pirates?”
“Sorry?”
“The music you’re listening to. It is, yes. Not perhaps their best, but it has a few delicious moments. You were saying.”