Shadowfires

unapproachable, inconsolable,
clutching a rosary. Juan Hernandez paced agitatedly, jaws clenched,
blinking furiously to repress his tears. As patriarch, it was his
duty to provide an example of strength to his family, to be unshaken
and unbroken by this visitation of muerta. But it was too much
for him to bear, and twice he retreated to the kitchen where, behind
the closed door, he made soft strangled sounds of grief.
    Julio could do nothing to relieve their anguish, but he inspired
trust and hope for justice, perhaps because his special commitment to
Ernestina was clear and convincing. Perhaps because, in his soft-
spoken way, he conveyed a hound-dog perseverance that lent conviction
to promises of swift justice. Or perhaps his smoldering fury at the
very existence of death, all death, was painfully evident in
his face and eyes and voice. After all, that fury had burned in him
for many years now, since the afternoon when he had discovered rats
chewing out the throat of his baby brother, and by now the fire
within him must have grown bright enough to show through for all to
see.
    From Mr. Hernandez, Julio and Reese learned that Ernestina had
gone out for an evening on the town with her best girlfriend, Becky
Klienstad, with whom she worked at a local Mexican restaurant, where
both were waitresses. They had gone in Ernestina's car: a powder-blue, ten-year-old Ford Fairlane.
    “If this has happened to my Ernestina,” Mr. Hernandez said, -"then what's happened to poor Becky? Something must have happened to her, too. Something very terrible.”
    From the Hernandez kitchen, Julio telephoned the Klienstad family
in Orange. Becky-actually Rebecca-was not yet home. Her parents had
not been worried because she was, after all, a grown woman, and
because some of the dance spots that she and Ernestina favored were
open until two in the morning. But now they were very worried
indeed.
1:20 a.m.
    In the unmarked sedan in front of the Hernandez house, Julio sat
behind the wheel and stared bleakly out at the magnolia-scented
night.
    Through the open windows came the susurration of leaves stirring
in the vague June breeze. A lonely, cold sound.
    Reese used the console-mounted computer terminal to generate an
APB and pickup order on Ernestina's powder-blue Ford. He'd obtained
the license number from her parents.
    “See if there're any messages on hold for us,” Julio said.
    At the moment he did not trust himself to operate the keyboard. He
was full of anger and wanted to pound on something-anything-with both
fists, and if the computer gave him any trouble or if he hit one
wrong key by mistake, he might take out his frustration on the
machine merely because it was a convenient target.
    Reese accessed the police
department's data banks at headquarters and requested on-file messages. Softly glowing green letters scrolled up on the video display. It was a report from the uniformed officers who'd
gone to the morgue, at
Julio's direction, to ascertain if the scalpel and bloodstained morgue coat found in the dumpster could be traced to a specific employee on the coroner's
staff. Officials at the
coroner's office were able to confirm that a scalpel, lab coat, set of hospital whites, surgical cap, and a pair of antistatic lab shoes were missing from the morgue's
supplies closet. However, no specific employee could be linked with
the theft of those items.
    Looking up from the VDT, gazing at the night, Julio said, “This
murder is somehow tied to the disappearance of Eric Leben's body.”
    “Could be coincidence,” Reese said.
    “You believe in coincidence?”
    Reese sighed. “No.”
    A moth fluttered against the windshield.
    “Maybe whoever stole the body also killed Ernestina,” Julio
said.
    “But why?”
    “That's what we must find out.”
    Julio drove away from the Hernandez house.
    He drove away from the fluttering moth and the whispering
leaves.
    He turned north and drove away from downtown Santa Ana.
    However, although he followed Main Street, where closely spaced
streetlamps blazed, he could not drive away from the deep darkness,
not even temporarily, for the darkness was within him.
1:38 a.m.
    They reached Eric Leben's Spanish-modern house quickly, for there was no traffic. Night in that wealthy neighborhood was respectfully still. Their footsteps clicked hollowly on the tile walkway, and when they rang the doorbell, it sounded as if it were echoing back to them from the bottom of a deep well.
    Julio