She began to breathe deeply, calming herself. "I never saw her before in my life," she said in somewhat more ordered tones. "She was crazy. A lunatic. I don't even know how she got in." She paused. The air smelled like cookies.

The policewoman looked up from her notes. "Mrs. Ahlberg, there was no sign of forced entry. It had to be someone who had a key. Have you given a key to anyone in the past? Maybe someone who was house-sitting? Someone who watered your plants when you were away?"

At first Tillie shook her head and then she stopped and shot a look at me, her eyes filled with sudden alarm.

"Elaine. She's the only one who ever had one." She turned to the policewoman. "My neighbor in the apartment right above me. I gave her a key last fall when I took a little trip to San Diego."

I took over then, filling in the rest; Elaine's apparent disappearance and her sister's hiring me.

Officer Redfern got up. "Hold on. I want Benedict to hear this."

It was 3:30 in the morning by the time Redfern and Benedict were finished, and Tillie was exhausted. They asked her to come down to the station later that morning to sign a statement and in the meantime, I said I'd stay with her until she had herself under control again.

When the cops finally left, Tillie and I sat and stared at each other wearily.

"Could it have been Elaine?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said. "I don't think so, but it was dark and I wasn't thinking straight."

"What about her sister? Did you ever meet Beverly Danziger? Or a woman named Pat Usher?"

Tillie shook her head mutely. Her face was still as pale as a dinner plate and there were dark circles under her eyes. She anchored her hands between her knees again, tension humming through her like a wind across guitar strings.

I moved into the living room and surveyed the damage more closely. The big glass-fronted secretary had been tipped over and lay facedown on the coffee table, which looked to have collapsed on impact. The couch had been slashed, the foam hanging out now like pale flesh. Drapes were torn down. Windows had been broken, lamps and magazines and flowerpots flung together in a heap of pottery shards and water and paper pulp. This was what insanity looked like when it was on the loose. That or unbridled rage, I thought. This had to be connected to Elaine's disappearance. There was no way I'd believe it was an independent event, coincidental to my search for her. I wondered if there was a way to find out where Beverly Danziger had been tonight. With her porcelain good looks and her blinking china blue eyes, it was hard to picture her loping around all looney-tunes, but how did I know for sure? Maybe she'd driven up to Santa Teresa the first time on an institutional pass.