In the darkness, she saw him stirring. He seemed to be muttering, his voice surprisingly clear. ``Y'all should have let me take that money out,'' Andrus said. ``' Nother minute I'd have been fine. Y'all should have let me do it.''

Laura touched his hand. ``Yes, I know, Fritzie. I should have.''

The heat intensified on Tuesday. Southern California gasped and blinked under an autumn hot spell, drier, more enervating, more laden with man's contrived impurities than the worst days of the summer past. It could continue this way, hitting 106 and more in the Valley, Joe McFeeley knew, into October. He and Irvin Moll were sipping coffee at the breakfast bar. Both had been up since 7: 00 -- Irv on the early morning watch, McFeeley unable to sleep during his four hour relief. The night before, they had telephoned the Andrus maid, Selena Masters, and she had arrived early, bursting her vigorous presence into the silent house with an assurance that amused McFeeley and confounded Moll. The latter, thanking her for the coffee, had winked and muttered, ``Sure ' nuff, honey.'' Selena was the wrong woman for these crudities. With a hard eye, she informed Moll: ``Don't sure ' nuff me, officer. I'm honey only to my husband, understand?'' Sergeant Moll understood. The maid was very black and very energetic, trim in a yellow pique uniform. Her speech was barren of southernisms; she was one of Eliot Sparling's neutralized minorities, adopting the rolling R's and constricted vowels of Los Angeles. Not seeing her dark intelligent face, one would have gauged the voice as that of a Westwood Village matron, ten years out of Iowa. After she had served the detectives coffee and toast (they politely declined eggs, uncomfortable about their tenancy), she settled down with a morning newspaper and began reading the stock market quotations. While she was thus engaged, McFeeley questioned her about her whereabouts the previous day, any recollections she had of people hanging around, of overcurious delivery boys or repairmen, of strange cars cruising the neighborhood. She answered him precisely, missing not a beat in her scrutiny of the financial reports. Selena Masters, Joe realized, was her own woman. She was the only kind of Negro Laura Andrus would want around: independent, unservile, probably charging double what ordinary maids did for housework -- and doubly efficient.