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ten minutes a high voice from somewhere in the front asked if anyone had Ivanhoe.
    "Is that a disease?" wondered Kate aloud.
    "It's my baby," the voice answered.
    "Is it hairless and wet?"
    "Probably."
    "Then it's here."
    "Oh, good. I just wanted to make sure he got in. You can keep him until we get to Tyler's."
    "Thank you," said Kate gravely, and tried to decide whether the bouncing was from the ruts or from Hawkin laughing, and if the latter, what she should do about it. In the end she did nothing.
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    The multicolored crowd that whirled in and out of the rooms in Tyler's house was like something from another world, or perhaps several worlds--part Amish, part Woodstock, part pioneer. Children ran yelling and shrieking among the knees and the furniture, dogs wandered in and were thrown out into the rain, the smells of bread and spaghetti sauce and wood smoke mingled with wet clothing, underwashed bodies, and the occasional aura of stale marijuana. Tyler had given the police three rooms downstairs, furnished with a motley collection of tables and desks, where they prepared to take statements. Kate stood in the main room--the hall-- with its fifteen-foot ceilings and the floor space of an average house, and wondered how Hawkin intended to proceed with a murder investigation in this chaos. For the first time she was very grateful that he, not she, was in charge.
    As if he had heard her thoughts Hawkin appeared at her elbow.
    "As I said, a nice straightforward investigation. I'm going to talk with them, and I want you with me. Over at the fireplace." Within two steps he had disappeared, and Kate pushed through the throng in his wake, wishing that her mother had married a taller man. At the massive stone fireplace, beneath a display of broadswords that fanned out in a sunburst, they stepped up onto the high hearthstones and stood looking out over the sea of heads.
    "May I have your attention, please? Please, may I have your attention, there are a few things I need to say." He was not shouting, but he pitched his gravelly voice with a sharp volume that filled the room and reached into the adjoining doorways, and gradually faces turned in their direction and the battering pandemonium began to die down. Children were hushed, kitchen pans stopped crashing, and the assembled residents of Tyler's Road turned to hear what this necessary evil, this representative of oppression, wanted of them.
    "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Alonzo Hawkin. This is Casey Martinelli. As I'm sure you all know by now, we were sent down from San Francisco to coordinate the investigation into the murders of the three little girls whose bodies have been found in this area. I'd like to thank you all for coming down to Tyler's. I know--I have seen--what an inconvenience it is for some of you to get down here, but it is saving us a great deal of time, and after all, time saved may mean a life saved."
    He had their full attention now. A small baby began to whine, and the mother settled it to her breast without taking her eyes off Hawkin.
    "We are here to take statements from you in hopes that the pieces of information you give us can be put together and lead us to the killer. I don't need to tell you that the murderer is somehow connected with your Road. You all know that, and I expect that's why a lot of you are here. It is not nice to think that one of your neighbors might be linked to the murder of three children. Might even be that murderer." Eyes dropped, lips smiled nervously, and fear turned a crowded room into a lot of people trying not to edge away from each other.
    "We are not here, I will say now, to worry about drugs, housing code violations, or who is sleeping in whose bed, unless of course any of those things are related to the murders. We may ask you about drugs or violations, but it's not what we're after. Any of you are free to choose the police officer you want to take your statement. Because there are