He pressed a button next to the back door. Inside, chimes sounded.

As he waited, Hook surveyed the scene, what he could see of it in the soft yellow light of the twin lantern-type lamps bracketing the driveway. Inside the carport were two sports cars: a maroon Jaguar XK-E and a white Triumph convertible. Behind them, parked in the driveway, was a Volkswagen sedan whose pastel color he could not be sure of in the yellow light, though he could make out the California license plate: 847AOF. Like the other two cars, it had a Douglas for Congress sticker on the bumper. The car was important. It meant that the two women were not alone. Beyond it, on the other side of the driveway, a scraggly lawn led to a row of eucalyptus trees that to Hook’s Midwestern eyes looked like battlefield casualties, blasted and torn, their bark hanging in tatters about the bare bones of their trunks. Through the trees he could see the lights of the other two houses, which, like Mrs. Rubin’s, were low and sprawling and of the same glassy modern design, all probably the work of the same architect.

Now a light came on over the door and someone looked out at him from behind the drapes in a floor-to-ceiling window to his right. Finally the door opened a crack, still chained.

“Yes?” It was a woman.

“I’m the father of Christopher Hook.”

Her face went pale, a cold puffy face sticking out of a fake leopard housecoat. Her hair was wound up in rollers.

“What do you want? What are you doing here?”

Somehow Hook got it out. “My son died here today.”

“We told Sergeant Rider all—”

“Who is it?” It was a man’s voice.

The woman turned away from the door. “It’s the father, for Christ sake!”

“Let me talk to him.” Now the man appeared in the opening, a young man, small, blond, androgynous, wearing an old-fashioned tweed suit with a vest, a button-down shirt and paisley tie. His face was ashen.

“What did you want, sir?”

“I’m not here to hurt anybody,” Hook reassured him. “I just want to see what happened. Where it happened.”

The face relaxed. “Yes. Of course—come in.”

He closed the door to unchain it, but for a time it remained the way it was, closed. Hook could hear the woman protesting. “I just don’t want him in here, that’s all! He’s got no business here! I told the sergeant!”

He heard the young man trying to quiet her and then their voices became almost inaudible as they moved away from the door, but he did catch the young man’s final words: “Think! Dorothy! Use your head!” Then after a few moments Hook heard the chain being slipped out of its rail, and the door opened. The young man smiled apologetically.

“Come in, Mr. Hook. And please forgive us. It’s been a hard day for Mrs. Rubin too—I mean besides yourself. Please accept our sympathy.”

It was an oddly formal little speech, like a child’s rote recitation in Sunday school. Entering, Hook said nothing, and the young man closed the door behind him. He was smaller than Hook had judged from outside, almost a half-foot shorter than Hook’s own six-one. He could have been twenty-four or thirty; Hook could not be sure.