We gave Spike a chewbone and drove to an Indian buffet in Santa Monica that was open all afternoon. Rice and lentils, kulcha bread stuffed with onions, curried spinach with soft cheese, spicy eggplant, hot milky tea. Some sort of chant played in the background-a single male voice keening, maybe praying. The two ectomorphs in the next booth got up and left and we were the only patrons. The waiter left us alone.

Halfway through the pile on her plate, Robin said, "I know I'm harping, but next time you go somewhere like that, please call the minute you get out."

"You were really that worried?"

"Ax murderers and vampires, Lord knows what else?"

I covered her hand with mine. "Rob, the men I saw today were submissive." Except for the bearded fellow on the yard who'd come toward me. The fight in the hall. Plastic windows, S&R rooms.

"What makes them submit?"

"Medication and a structured environment."

She didn't seem comforted. "So you learned nothing there?"

"Not so far. Later we went to Claire Argent's house." I described the place. "What do you think?"

"About what?"

"The way she lived."

She drank tea, put the cup aside, thought awhile. "Would I want to live like that? Not forever, but maybe for a short stretch. Take a nice vacation from all the complications."

"Complications," I said.

She smiled. "Not you, honey. Just... circumstances. Obligations, deadlines-life piling up. Like when I was handling all the construction. Or now, when the orders stack up and everyone wants results yesterday. Sometimes life can start to feel like too much homework, and a little simplicity doesn't sound bad at all."

"This was more than simplicity, Robin. This was... bleak. Sad."

"You're saying she was depressed?"

"I don't know enough to diagnose her," I said. "But the feeling I got from the place was-inorganic. Blank."

"Did you see any evidence she was neglecting herself?" she said.

"No. And everyone describes her as pleasant, dependable. Distant, but no obvious pathology."

"So maybe inwardly she was fine, too."

"Maybe," I said. "The only things she did amass were books. Maybe intellectual stimulation was what turned her on."

"There you go. She trimmed things down to concentrate on what mattered to her."

I didn't answer.

"You don't think so," she said.

"Pretty severe trim," I said. "There was nothing personal in the entire house. Not a single family photo."

"Perhaps she wasn't close to her family. Or she had problems with them. But even so, how different does that make her from millions of other people, Alex? She sounds to me more like... someone cerebral. Living in her head. Enjoying her privacy. Even if she did have social problems, what does any of that have to do with her murder?"

"Maybe nothing." I spooned more rice onto my plate, played with grains of basmati, took a bite of bread. "If she wanted intellectual stimulation, why switch from a research job to Starkweather?"

"What kind of research was she doing?"