Watchers

was dressed in boat shoes, white slacks, a blue- and white-striped sweater, and a blue windbreaker. Although she was sixty-nine, and though her short hair was snow-white, she looked fifteen years younger.
    He got out of the Mercedes, gave her a hug and a kiss, and said, “Can we go in your car?”
    She blinked, “Are you having trouble with yours?”
    “No,” he said. “I’d just rather take yours.”
    “Sure.”
    She backed her Caddy out of the garage, and he got in on the passenger’s side. As she pulled into the street, he said, “I’m afraid my car might be bugged, and I don’t want them hearing what I’ve got to tell you.”
    Her expression was priceless.
    Laughing, he said, “No, I’ve not gone senile overnight. If you’ll keep an eye on the rearview mirrow as you drive, you’ll see we’re being followed. They’re very good, very subtle, but they’re not invisible.”
    He gave her time, and after a few blocks Della said, “The green Ford, is it?”
    “That’s them.”
    “What’ve you gotten yourself into, dear?”
    “Don’t go straight to the harbor. Drive to the farmer’s market, and we’ll buy some fresh fruit. Then drive to a liquor store, and we’ll buy some wine. By then, I’ll have told you everything.”
    “Have you some secret life I’ve never suspected?” she asked, grinning at him. “Are you a geriatric James Bond?”
     
     
    Yesterday, Lem Johnson had reopened a temporary headquarters in a claustrophobic office at the Santa Barbara Courthouse. The room had one narrow window. The walls were dark, and the overhead lighting fixture was so dim it left the corners full of hanging shadows like misplaced scarecrows. The borrowed furniture consisted of rejects from other offices. He had worked out of here in the day following the Hockney killing, but had closed it up after a week, when there was nothing more to be done in the area. Now, with the hope that Dilworth would lead them to the Cornells, Lem reopened the cramped field HQ, plugged in the phones, and waited for developments.
    He shared the office with one assisting agent—Jim Vann—who was an almost too-earnest and too-dedicated twenty-five-year-old.
    At the moment, Cliff Soames was in charge of the six-man team at the harbor, overseeing not only the NSA agents spotted throughout the area, but also coordinating the coverage of Garrison Dilworth with the Harbor Patrol and the Coast Guard. The shrewd old man apparently realized he was being followed, so Lem expected him, to make a break, to try to shake surveillance long enough to place a call to the Cornells in private. The most logical way for Garrison to throw off his tail was to head out to sea, go up or down the coast, put ashore on a launch, and telephone Cornell before his pursuers could relocate him. But he would be surprised to find himself accompanied out of the harbor by the local patrol; then, at sea, he would be followed by a Coast Guard cutter standing by for that purpose.
    At three-forty, Cliff called to report that Dilworth and his lady friend were Sitting on the deck of the Amazing Grace, eating fruit and sipping wine, reminiscing a lot, laughing a little. “From what we can pick up with directional microphones and from what we can see, I’d say they don’t have any intention of going anywhere. Except maybe to bed. They sure do seem to be a randy old pair.”
    “Stay with them,” Lem said. “I don’t trust him.”
    Another call came through from the search team that had secretly entered Dilworth’s house minutes after he had left. They had found nothing related to the Cornells or the dog.
    Dilworth’s office had been carefully searched last night, and nothing had been found there, either. Likewise, a study of his phone records did not produce a number for the Cornells; if he had called them in the past, he always did so from a pay phone. An examination of his AT&T credit-card records showed no such calls, so if he had used a pay phone, he had not billed it to himself but had reversed the charges to the Cornells, leaving nothing to be traced. Which was not a good sign. Obviously, Dilworth had been exceedingly cautious even before he had known he was being watched.
     
     
    Saturday, afraid the dog might be coming down with a cold, Travis kept an eye on Einstein. But the retriever sneezed only a couple of times and did not cough at all, and he seemed to be fit.
    A freight company delivered ten large cartons containing all of Nora’s finished