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going to gain anything by following him back to his doorstep. She was parked on Beach, not a block away, so she would wait until he was out of sight and then she would go home to a little television and a long evening of contemplating her assorted sins.
    When Tregear drew even with her car he seemed to slow a trifle. Right in front of her bumper he stepped off the sidewalk and, before crossing to the other side of the street, he lifted the driver side windshield wiper and slid the newspaper underneath it. Then he walked away, without ever looking back.
    The son of a bitch had made her. He had been toying with her the whole time. Even while she was still sitting in her car, trying to decide what she should do about him, he had spotted her. It was one of the most humiliating moments of her life.
    The newspaper was folded to show two columns of print from the second page. The article was headlined: BODY DISCOVERED NEAR COAST ROAD.

 
    5
    Inspector Sergeant Sam Tyler did not look convinced.
    â€œThis is the guy,” Ellen said to him, not for the first time. “Don’t look at me that way, Sam. Stephen Tregear is not some innocent civilian. He’s in this up to his belt buckle.”
    â€œYou followed Mr. Tregear…”
    â€œWill you stop calling him that?”
    Sam paused for a second, subjected her to his best deadpan stare, and then started over, as if she hadn’t uttered a syllable.
    â€œYou followed Mr. Tregear from his place of residence to the patio of the Cannery, where he feloniously drank a cup of coffee. He spotted you, which somehow I have no trouble believing, and, just because he didn’t want you to imagine you were invisible, he decided to let you know he knew you were there. Very humbling I’m sure, but doubtless good for the soul.”
    â€œHe’s teasing us, Sam. He’s having his little joke. Remember what you said, ‘a villain with a sense of humor’?”
    â€œSticking a newspaper under your windshield wiper doesn’t qualify as much of a joke—not really up to Our Boy’s standards. However, if it would make you feel better, I suppose we could arrest Mr. Tregear for littering.”
    They were sitting in Sam’s car. It was eight-fifteen in the morning and he had just picked her up for work. When she didn’t answer immediately, he opened the paper bag that was on the seat beside him and brought out a Styrofoam cup with a plastic lid. He handled it gently, with the tips of his fingers, since the coffee was still hot.
    Ellen took it from him, cracked open the little tab on the lid and took a tentative sip.
    â€œWhere did you buy this stuff?” she asked. “It’s even worse than usual.”
    â€œYou want me to bring it all the way from Daly City? If you’d find yourself an apartment in a decent neighborhood, instead of this slum, then just maybe I could find a place nearby that sells decent coffee.”
    â€œWe have to take life as it comes to us, Sam.”
    He didn’t reply. He just extracted his coffee from the paper bag, drained off about an inch, and put the cup in a plastic holder attached to his dashboard. Then he shifted out of park and they were rolling.
    â€œYou know what you’ve done, don’t you?” he said, once they had crested the hill and Market Street was in sight. “You’ve tipped him. Now he knows we’re looking at him as a suspect, so he’s going to be very careful. It was a mistake. You shouldn’t have gone anywhere near him.”
    â€œYou’ve got it backwards, Sam. He tipped us.”
    This answer seemed to focus him morosely on his driving. For two blocks, through heavy morning traffic, the very stripes on the crosswalks were the objects of his dark and unpitying concentration. In perfect silence, he glowered as if he wanted to arrest every pedestrian in sight.
    â€œSometimes I think you have too much imagination to be a cop,” he said at