Dear Mother,

You�ve got to help me. I spent six hours trying to reach you and Ellen, but National Geographic couldn�t give me a number and the operators in Bora Bora didn�t have a clue. Meanwhile, I�m worried maybe Ellen will hear about the Naughten case before I can explain, and maybe she�ll take it wrong.

I mean, it�s not like I think I�m a big deal, but the story�s all over the news here and last night Larry King did a special and I figure even Bora Bora gets CNN. Now, I know you�re thinking I should write to Ellen directly, but this is delicate. It�ll be easier if I tell you and then you tell her. Anyhow, Mother, there�s one point you gotta stress: I didn�t do anything wrong.

The ironic part is that at first I figured this was one case that couldn�t possibly go wrong, not possibly. Bolt and I were hanging around the station Friday, no pressing work to do � and no plans for the weekend, not with Ellen helping you with the Bora Bora shoot and Kevin at Little League camp. We both felt at loose ends. (Bolt always gets droopy when you leave town � keep that in mind next time he proposes.) Anyway, we�d about given up on the movie ads when the captain called us into his office.

A man was perched in a chair near the desk. He looked familiar � not the face so much, but the clothes: white jacket, pink shirt, red tie, white slacks, pink socks, white shoes, white straw hat gripped in clammy hands. I knew I�d met him before but couldn�t have said where. Bolt put it all together immediately.

�Mr. Thomas,� he said, crossing the office to shake the man�s hand. �You seem in good health, sir. And Mrs. Thomas?�

�Oh, very healthy.� John Thomas twitched at the sound of her name. �Always very, very, extremely healthy. But not due for a parole hearing for another twenty years, thank God.� He looked at the captain. �May I go? I�ll cooperate � I�ll leave town now, communicate with no one until Monday. Will that do?�

�Nicely,� the captain said, and John Thomas smacked his hat on his head, obviously eager to get the hell out of there. He did pause for a moment, though, to grab my hand and squeeze it.

�Thank you,� he whispered, and got the hell out.

�Nice guy,� I observed, sitting in the chair Thomas had just vacated. �I send his wife to prison, and he�s still polite.�

�How typically modest of you, lieutenant,� Bolt said, with his approving little smile. �Mr. Thomas�s wife murdered his mistress and his best friend. Had it not been for your inspired detective work, Mr. Thomas might have been next. No wonder he�s grateful. Does he still work at Creative Chromatics, captain?�

�He owns it now,� the captain said. �And yesterday, Mrs. Kelly Naughten hired him to redecorate her mansion. You�ve heard of her husband, right? The painter guy? Naughten?�

I was lost already. �Naughten who?� I asked.

�Yes, Naughten, Hugh,� Bolt said, nodding. �I greatly admired Hugh Naughten � those black and white paintings of his are dazzling. I was sorry to read that he passed away last week.�

�The mayor�s sorry, too,� the captain said sourly. �He was Hugh Naughten�s brother-in-law � the brother of his first wife, not his second. And the mayor thinks the whole deal�s fishy.�

�Fishy?� I said, puzzled. �How do you mean?�

The captain shrugged. �Oh, the same old story � eccentric millionaire artist holes up in his mansion for decades after his first wife dies, finally comes out of seclusion, elopes with an exotic dancer less than half his age, dies in a freak home accident six months later, leaves the dancer almost everything. Happens all the time. But the mayor�s suspicious.�

Sometimes even I�m surprised at how dense I can be. �Suspicious about what?� I asked.

The captain shrugged again. �About whether it was really an accident or whether the dancer did him in to get his dough. Me, I�m not worried. The coroner says the death looked kosher, and she�s damn good; if she says it�s an accident, it is. And Kelly Naughten�s the richest woman in town now � I don�t wanna harass her. But I gotta get the mayor off our backs. So I suggested an undercover operation, and he went for it � as long as you�re involved, Walt. He thinks the world of you � you know that.�

I do know that. The mayor himself tells me that all the time, and it always makes me sweat. The mayor thinks I�m this brilliant detective � like the captain does, like Bolt does, like almost everybody does. But you and I know better, Mother. We know if it weren�t for Bolt tagging after me like a puppy and hanging on my every word and misinterpreting every dumb thing I say and weaving all the misinterpretations into a dead-on solution, I�d never have cracked a single case. I�d still be walking a beat, and that�s probably where I belong. I sure don�t belong on an undercover job in some dead artist�s mansion, trying to worm the truth out of a bereaved exotic dancer. Those exotic dancers can be pretty smart, Mother. They intimidate me.

My palms were sogging up already. �What kind of undercover operation you have in mind, captain?� I asked.

�It�ll be easy,� he assured me. �See, the mayor found out Mrs. Naughten had hired John Thomas. But she�s never met him face to face. And she wants Thomas and his top decorator to spend the weekend at the mansion, sleep over, get a feel for the place. So you and Bolt will pose as Thomas and this decorator��

�Hold it,� I cut in. �We pose as interior decorators? Geez, captain. I don�t want to. I don�t know how to.�

�Thomas isn�t exactly a decorator,� he said. �He�s a color consultant. So all you gotta do is say pink looks nice with blue, purple goes good with green, like that. Bolt will pretend to be the decorator � and you�ve studied that stuff, haven�t you, Bolt?�

�Oh well.� Bolt spread his hands. �I�ve dabbled. A few community college courses in design, a bit of leisure reading � and I do hope your wife is happy with her sunroom, captain.�

�She�s nuts about it. She still raves about how those few remarks you made at the Christmas party taught her how to turn a dump into a showpiece. So Bolt will be the decorator, ramble on about eastern exposures and taking out walls. Meanwhile, you�ll both ask casual-type questions, check out the sauna room.�

The sauna part did sound nice. I�ve been tense lately � I could use a good steam. �Good idea,� I said.

Bolt nodded soberly. �So that�s where he died, captain? A sauna room? I�d wondered how it happened.�

The captain took a stack of photos from his desk. �Naughten had a sauna built in the basement for his second wife � I guess now that she�s not a dancer and doesn�t wiggle as much she�s gotta find other ways to keep fit. But last Friday Hugh Naughten was the one who decided to take a steam after lunch.�

He passed us the photos. It looked like a great sauna: cosy room, sparkling turquoise tile, bench attached to one wall. But I didn�t feel like taking a steam any more � at least, not there.

A man lay on the bench � shortish, sixtyish, slight. He wore a fleecy red robe that went clear to his toes, and his shoulder-length blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. It�s Naughten, I thought � not just because long hair seemed right for an artist but because this guy was dead. That fits Naughten, I inferred. I noticed a red stain on the floor and pointed. �Blood?� I asked.

�Pinot noir,� the captain said. �It was the Naughtens� six-month anniversary � the housekeeper was fixing a turkey dinner. Late afternoon the gardener goes to the wine cellar to get a bottle for dinner. On his way back he notices the sauna window�s all steamed up and the control�s turned too high.�

The captain handed me a photo of the control dial. Yup, too high, but just barely � the needle thing was just past the green �safe� zone, just into the red �caution� zone.

�So the gardener opened the sauna door?� I asked. �It wasn�t locked?�

�Nah, there�s no lock on that door � who�d want one? They�ve just got big brass handles on the door, inside and out � see? The gardener speaks to Naughten, gets no response, freaks out, drops the pinot noir, yells for the housekeeper to call 911, tries CPR. No luck. Coroner says Naughten died long before he was found.�

I nodded wisely. �Cause of death?�

�Heart attack,� the captain said. �The coroner figures he fell asleep, got dehydrated, died in his sleep. He�d had a minor heart attack last year � he was real overweight then. That scared him, and he lost sixty pounds fast. He generally watched his diet real careful, but that day he and his wife went out for a big anniversary lunch; both ate and drank too much. When they got home, she felt tipsy and took a nap. He evidently decided to steam off some lunch. Poor guy must�ve felt so eager to look trim for his bride that he pushed the control up too high.�

Well, these things happen. You remember how anxious I got about my waistline before my high school reunion, how I did so many situps one night I almost blacked out, how Ellen got mad and said she wouldn�t go to the reunion at all unless I wised up and slowed down. Poor Naughten � dead before his wife could nag him into being sensible. �Why is the mayor suspicious?� I asked.

The captain let out a little deep-in-the-throat, I-think-this-is-dumb growl. �No good reason. The bracelet, mostly.�

Bolt and I looked at each other. �The bracelet?� I said.

The captain handed us a photo of a knock-your-eyes-out bracelet � six huge rubies connected by squiggly gold links � nestled against the sauna door. �The wife has an exercise area in the basement � treadmill, ab machines, the works. She spent every afternoon there while her husband painted. So our guys find the bracelet by the sauna, ask how it got there. She says she has no idea. That is fishy. A bracelet that expensive � you�d figure she�d keep track of it. Plus our guys dusted for prints � just routine � and found plenty, mostly Hugh Naughten�s, on the inside door handle. But the outside door handle � not a print, not a smudge, like it�d been wiped clean. How�d that happen?�

Bolt nodded. �It should have been just the reverse: Mr. Naughten�s prints should have been on the outside handle but not the inside one, since he entered the sauna but supposedly never tried to exit. What is the mayor�s theory? That someone trapped him in the sauna, perhaps by wedging or tying the door shut?�

I got the picture � or at least a picture developed, about as slowly as it would if you dipped film in solution. �So maybe the wife talked Naughten into taking a steam,� I said. �She jams the door, turns up the heat, lets him die. Then, before the gardener goes downstairs, she unjams the door and wipes her prints off the handle, but she�s in such a rush she doesn�t notice when her bracelet falls off. Is that how the mayor figures it?�

The captain smiled. �Leave it to you to see it so fast. We�re nowhere near reasonable grounds, but I see his point.�

Bolt squinted at the photos. �You mentioned a housekeeper and a gardener. Live-in? Any other members of the household?�

�Just Naughten�s daughter from his first marriage,� the captain said. �Blanche, thirty-two � six years older than her new stepmom. That sounds like a touchy situation, but I hear they get along great. And yes, the housekeeper lives in the mansion. The gardener�s got a cottage on the grounds. On the afternoon Naughten died, the wife was napping, the daughter was helping the housekeeper in the kitchen, the gardener was out mowing. No one else around � Naughten had a cleaning service, but they don�t come on Fridays.�

�What were the terms of Mr. Naughten�s will?� Bolt asked.

The captain checked some notes. �The wife got the mansion plus about forty million. Naughten inherited a bundle before he ever picked up a paintbrush, made a second fortune with those black and white doodads. The daughter got ten million. Housekeeper got one million � she�d been with Naughten for decades. Gardener got nothing � he�s a new hire.�

That sounded okay. It�d feel weird to pose as a color consultant, but I�d been lonely with Ellen and Kevin and you gone and a weekend in a mansion sounded fun. As for the case � simple. I�d glance around, chat with folks, confirm that the death was accidental, score easy points with the captain and the mayor. I looked at Bolt. �I�m game if you are,� I said.

He was peering at the photos, pushing his glasses up on his forehead, squinting. �I am definitely game, lieutenant,� he said. �It seems a most fascinating, complex case. I shall enjoy watching you solve it. What time does Mrs. Naughten expect us?�

�Five o�clock,� the captain said. �You�d better go pack.�

Bolt arched an eyebrow. �We had better,� he said, �go shop.�

I didn�t know what he meant by that until I saw the getup he had on when we met back at the station � silky yellow slacks, ruffly white shirt with puffy sleeves, waist-length crimson cape. He wore a raspberry beret, and his scarf � it was apricot.

Startled, I stumbled forward, treading on his deep azure, soft leather footwear. �Bolt!� I cried. �What�s got into you?�

He looked hurt. �I am merely attempting to look the part. People in the interior decorating profession generally dress with a measure of flamboyance. With that in mind, sir, may I respectfully suggest that you reconsider your own ensemble?�

Now I felt hurt. �This is my best suit,� I said. �I got it for my high school reunion. What�s wrong with it?�

�It�s just that you�re so overwhelmingly beige, sir,� he said, �except for the black socks. A color consultant wouldn�t be so � well, so conservative. Just think of Mr. Thomas��

�No,� I cut in. �Pink shirts and � no. No way. Let�s go.�

When we got to the Naughten place, I wasn�t impressed. I�ve seen lots of mansions � it�s funny how many rich people get mixed up in murder � and this one didn�t cut it. The house itself was okay � columns, balconies, all the basics. But the lawn is shaggy in some spots, scalped in others, yellow-brown all over. My yard looks better than that � and while we�re on the subject, would you tell Ellen I finally got the hedge trimmed and it looks fine?

We had to ring the bell three times before Hugh Naughten�s daughter Blanche opened the door. No matter what the papers say, she�s just okay-looking � nothing special, nothing really wrong, just a little too pale, too thin, too wispy altogether. Her light brown hair was pinned back, and she wore a white wool dress and a thick white sweater, even though it was a hot day.

�Are you the decorators?� she asked. �Mr. Thomas and��

�Bolt.� He flipped his cape. Lucky guy � he could use his own name, I had to remember an alias. �Just Bolt. May we come in?�

She winced. �Yes, of course. But you�ve arrived at an unfortunate moment. Nora and Chet � oh goodness!� Something crashed, she shrieked, and we followed as she ran to the kitchen. A big, muscular, thirtyish guy was there, dressed in denim and scowling; a big, muscular, fiftyish woman was there, too, dressed in black and heaving pots. �Never touch things in kitchen!� she shouted. �How often must I tell you?�

He crossed his arms � his impressive arms, which matched the rest of his expertly sculpted body and set off his male-model face. �I just took the potatoes off the stove,� he said. �They�re mush already. How much longer were you planning to cook them?�

�Till they are done,� she cried. Defiantly she lifted a huge, bubbling pot from the counter and plunked it on a burner. �Do not pretend you are helping! You are saboteur, thief! I caught you stealing heavy cream! I caught you stealing nutmeg!�

�I borrowed them.� He seized a pepper shaker. �And maybe now I�ll borrow your pepper. What do you think of that?�

�You would not dare!� the housekeeper screamed, hurling herself at him. But Blanche Naughten stepped into her path.

�Please,� Blanche begged. �Kelly might hear. She might��

�It�s okay,� a woman in a long green robe said, walking in. Personally I think exotic dancers should be more voluptuous � don�t tell Ellen I said that � but Kelly Naughten had a great figure, slim and trim and tight. Her platinum hair clung to her neck, her skin shimmered, and those eyes! Such a deep, pure, magic green, the sort that bring out the poet in a guy.�

She turned to the housekeeper. �What�s wrong, Nora?�

�He is wrong.� Nora pointed at the gardener. �I set potatoes to boil, I am preparing to serve tuna au jus avec pommes de terre for you and these artistic gentlemen, and I return to kitchen and find this � this less-than-gardener, this bouncer has turned off burner, has removed pot, has ruined everything!�

�Well, you just fire up that burner again,� Kelly said soothingly. �Boil those potatoes as long as you like. Chet, never mind about dinner. The decorators are here! They�ll turn this house into a place where people come to enjoy good talk and good food � really good food, Chet. Won�t that be wonderful?�

He looked Bolt over in grudging approval, then looked at me and recoiled. �That guy�s a decorator? Who�s kidding who?�

�Mr. Thomas,� Bolt put in, �is a color consultant. When he takes on a delicate assignment, he restricts himself to beige so the hues of his own clothing � normally wildly but tastefully variegated � will not distract him. Thus, this dismal suit.�

The gardener thought it over, then shrugged.

�Makes sense,� he said. �There�s no other reason a guy would dress like that.�

�There, you see?� Kelly said, beaming. �Everything�s fine. Now, I�ll show you gentlemen to your room and��

�No,� Nora said. �I am housekeeper. I show them to room. Come, men. Pick up suitcases. I will lead way.� I couldn�t tell if she was German or Russian or what. She sounded sort of husky and European, but it wasn�t anything I could place. Maybe she had an accent or maybe she just didn�t like contractions and possessive pronouns and definite articles.

We followed her through a crypt-like living room, up a dark staircase, down a dingy hallway. You know I never pay attention to how places look, Mother. You remember how mad Ellen got when she redecorated my den as a birthday surprise and I never noticed. But this place gave even me the creeps. Lots of black, plenty of brown, generous doses of dirty yellow-white, eighty-seven shades of grey. Wallpaper was faded, paint peeled, floors creaked, dingy windows rebelled against the light. Well, I thought. once Bolt and I leave, I hope they get real decorators.

The housekeeper threw open the door to the chilly, musty room Bolt and I would share. �Here,� she said. �Big room. Two beds. I sewed quilts. Window gives nice view of back. Unpack; ten minutes, come down. I serve cocktails, hors d�oeuvres.�

The last bit was a low growl that didn�t sound anything like French. We unpacked quickly, averting our eyes from mud-brown quilts and time-streaked walls. Within nine and a half minutes we were downstairs seated on the black-grey living room couch.

Chet mixed first-rate cocktails, not flinching when I said I like my martinis stirred, not shaken. As for the hors d�oeuvres, I wolfed down three grapeleaf-roll things before noticing they were stuffed with peanut butter. After that I slowed down.

I was on my second martini when Kelly Naughten joined us. She wore a lime-green silk dress with a slit up the side that went high enough to be interesting but stopped short of getting embarrassing; her hair shone; her emerald-and-squiggly-gold earrings matched her bracelet precisely, and her eyes sparkled so brightly they�d turn St. Patrick green with envy. She was sweet � getting Blanche to trade her milk for chablis, making Chet and Nora sit down, expertly mixing her own daiquiri before perching on a moss-colored armchair and smiling at me.

�It�s good of you to spend the weekend with us, Mr. Thomas,� she said. �Or may I call you John? I feel so guilty about stealing you away from your family. Was your wife upset?�

�She � no.� I wished I�d given more thought to my cover story. Should I tell her about Mrs. Thomas doing twenty-five to life for homicide? Maybe not, since I was here to find out if Kelly was a murderer, too. �We�re separated. Really separated.� That was true. The state pen is a damn effective separator.

�I�m so sorry you�re getting a divorce,� Kelly said. She didn�t look sorry, though: her eyes sparkled more than ever as she turned to her stepdaughter. �Blanche, did I thank you for advising Chet about the petunias? You must come see the petunias, John. Blanche has a genius for flowers � she�s very artistic.�

�I�m sure she is,� I said, and shot Blanche a warm smile.

She looked down, hunching her shoulders up even tighter and lapping at her chablis. �I didn�t want you to have to fuss with petunias, Kelly,� she said in a mumbly near-whisper. �You�re under so much stress already, because of the � the � you know.�

�Yes, she knows,� the housekeeper said darkly, taking a slug of anisette. �At least someone in this house knows, knows all.�

Chet plunked his beer down. �I�m sick of these hints you keep dropping, Nora. Come out with it. What are you saying?�

She stood up majestically. �I am saying, is time for dinner. Come. Do not let potatoes cook too much.�

They had cooked too much maybe two hours ago. Then they had collapsed, and then they had congealed into indistinguishable goo pasting together the undrained canned tuna in Nora�s tuna au jus avec pommes de terre. I forced down a second bite only because you raised me so well I know you have to take two bites of anything a hostess serves. The cucumber souffl� was worse, and the rutabaga au lait � dear God. Blanche and Nora ate heartily; the rest of us mashed things up so they�d look smaller, lifting near-empty forks to our mouths and making insincere yum sounds. Mid-dinner, Nora sprang up, seized the chablis, and made the rounds. I held my glass out. I was already lightheaded, I needed solid food and not more booze, but at that point I�d take calories in any form. Bolt covered his glass with his hand. �I prefer burgundy,� he said. �Would you mind terribly?�

Nora leapt back. �Not in this house!� she declared. �With tuna au jus avec pommes de terre, with any fish, with any poultry, we serve white wine! Where were you raised? In barn?�

�Chablis is fine,� I said, ashamed Bolt had started a fuss, �especially when it�s so nice and icy. So, Mrs. Naughten��

�Kelly,� she cut in. �Please, just Kelly.�

I nodded, liking her even more. �So, Kelly. What do you have in mind for the house? For the redecorating, I mean.�

She waved a hand, displaying lime-tinted fingernails. �Just make it pretty and cheerful � light, airy, open. That�s what Hugh wanted. He hadn�t entertained since Blanche�s mother died, but he wanted to start again. He wanted to transform the house into a place where bright, lively, young people would want to come.�

Nora snorted. �He never wanted that till you came here. He said nothing of it till night before he died, at dinner.�

�No,� Kelly said. �But we�d talked it over between the two of us for months, and of course I�ll honor his wishes. As soon as the place is fixed up, I�ll throw big parties, fill the house with talk and laughter. Doesn�t that sound like fun, Blanche?�

Blanche�s head ducked in a half nod. �I don�t think you�re up to it, Kelly. You�re so emotionally fragile these days, so��

�You�re sweet to worry,� Kelly said, �but I�m fine. John, at our very first party, you and Bolt will be guests of honor.�

I felt shocked. A brand-new widow, talking about throwing parties and bragging about how good she feels! Whether she�d loved Hugh Naughten or not, whether she�d killed him or not, she ought to at least act bereaved. �I was sorry to hear about your husband�s death,� I said. �You hadn�t been married long, right?�

She sighed. �Six months � and we met just three days before we got married, at a Christmas party at City Hall. Hugh hadn�t gone out in ages, but he�d been restless and when the mayor invited him to the party, it just felt right. When Hugh and I met, that just felt right, too. I was waitressing � dancers don�t make much, we all moonlight � and Hugh and I got to talking. He called me the next morning, we spent the day together, and��

�Kelly, don�t.� Blanche reached over to squeeze her hand. �Those memories must torture you now.�

�Well, I miss him,� Kelly said simply. �And he loved you very much, Blanche. He wanted you to finally get to live your dreams. Like law school. I bet there�s still time��

Blanche shook her head decisively. �Not for this fall. I couldn�t leave you so soon. He wouldn�t want me to.�

Nora snorted again, plunked down her glass, and stood up. �All this talk about what Hugh Naughten wanted! He wanted this, he wanted that, he would not want other. When he was alive, people did not always care so much about what he wanted.�

�That�s enough.� It was the gardener. He stood, matching Nora inch for inch if not pound for pound. �If you�re implying��

�Let it go,� Kelly said, placing a hand on his arm. �Nora�s just upset about Hugh�s death. We all are. Please sit down.�

Glaring, he obeyed. Kelly turned to us. �Chet�s so used to protecting me. He was the bouncer at the club where I worked and had to fight off drunks who � not that you�re like a drunk, Nora, not at all. Well, I�m stuffed! Don�t fuss with dessert.�

�I have already fussed,� the housekeeper said, scowling. �Dessert is made. I serve, you eat. It is jamblon chocolat.�

I had to work hard to take that second bite. The party broke up right away; we all went to our rooms, and I was plenty glad to try to sleep off the memory of that dinner. Three hours later my eyes popped open suddenly, and I saw Bolt pacing.

He sighed with relief. �Good evening, sir,� he said. �It is just short of midnight. Did you rest well? Are you hungry?�

�Starving,� I said. �Maybe we could raid the refrigerator.�

�I made bold to survey the refrigerator an hour ago,� he confessed. �Genuine edibles are in short supply. I did, however, secure the number of a pizza parlor that delivers till one, and I located a secluded phone. If it would not jeopardize our cover��

�Damn our cover,� I said fervently. �Call. Make mine a double-cheese with anchovies.�

Bolt executed the mission. �In ten minutes,� he said, �I will go down to await delivery. Well! What did you think of dinner?�

I was about to start complaining but stopped myself. You always tell me it�s useless to carry on about stuff that�s in the past and can�t be helped. I shook my head. �No point in talking about it,� I said. �It�d be nothing but whine, whine, whine.�

�No point discussing it at all, sir,� Bolt agreed. �As you say, it�s just wine, wine, wine. Probably I needn�t have tested Nora by requesting burgundy with tuna. But I wanted to be sure she followed the standard practice of serving white wine with fish or poultry. So the bottle of pinot noir broken in the sauna is indeed odd. Why, on the day Mr. Naughten died, did Chet fetch red wine from the cellar, when Nora was serving turkey?�

I hadn�t thought pinot noir with turkey was odd. You know me, Mother. I always think red wine goes good with anything � only beer goes better. But now it hit me. For gourmet-type folks, it wasn�t a good combination. �Not very cool,� I agreed.

�Not very cool at all,� Bolt said. �White wine should be refrigerated for hours before being served. Why did Chet wait so long to fetch it from the cellar? An intriguing question � to which, I am sure, you will find an intriguing answer.�

Not feeling so sure about that I wandered to the window, gazed down, saw the petunias Kelly had talked about � and also saw Kelly sprinting past the petunias to the gardener�s cottage.

So. Chet and Kelly � big surprise. He was young and goodlooking, he�d been the bouncer at her club, and she got her husband to hire him even though, judging from the lawn, Chet didn�t know diddly about gardening. I motioned Bolt to the window. �Look,� I said. �Kelly sneaking to Chet�s cottage. How much you wanna bet there�s something cooking in there?�

He nodded. �That,� he said, �is too safe to call a bet � it is a certainty. It confirms what we witnessed in the kitchen.�

It took me less than a minute to figure that one out. Oh, sure � Kelly calming Chet down by talking about the parties she�d throw. She wouldn�t talk that way if he expected to be a mere bartender at those parties. He knew he�d be a guest � or the host. That gave them both a tidy motive for killing her husband. All we had to do was figure out which one had actually done it.

�Come on, Bolt,� I said. �I wanna know what�s going on in that cottage. Maybe we can peek in a window, listen at a door.�

He hesitated. �We have no warrant. Fourth Amendment issues come to mind. Any evidence we secure could be inadmissible if��

�We�re undercover,� I said. �The judge�ll cut us some slack. Let�s go.�

Stealthily we sneaked out of the house, crept past yellowed grass and wilted petunias, made it to the cottage, crouched low in shrubs under a conveniently open window, and listened.

�I defrosted the beef Wellington,� Chet was saying. �We should eat it. It�s been a full week. Time to move ahead.�

Even with the night winds blowing you could hear Kelly sigh. �I suppose,� she said. �But, oh, Chet, I never��

�Time to move ahead with other things, too,� Chet persisted. �You made me a promise. With the old guy gone, why wait any longer? Why can�t I have what I want?�

�I want it, too,� she said. �But so soon after his death � it wouldn�t look right. It wouldn�t be right.�

�Is it right that I have to keep living a lie?� he demanded. �Six months of pretending to be something I�m not, of hiding what I really feel � how much longer do you think I can stand it?�

�Just a little while,� she begged. �Will you � for my sake?�

I wanted to hear his answer. And we would have if I hadn�t glanced down just then and seen the centipede slither across my hand. But I saw it, I yelped, and talk in the cottage stopped. Bolt flicked off the centipede, grabbed my wrist, and led the run back toward the mansion. By the time Chet reached the cottage door we�d flattened ourselves against a toolshed. Chet shone his flashlight around, shrugged, and went back inside.

�I trust he didn�t see us,� Bolt said. �Now, hurry or all will be lost! We must intercept the pizza person!�

We caught up with him at the end of the drive and sneaked back to the mansion with our treasure. But as soon as we started up to our room, Nora appeared at the top of the stairs wrapped in a long black bathrobe, holding aloft a tarnished candelabrum.

�So!� she said. �I hear noises, I investigate � and I find you, awake when you should be asleep, out when you should be in, and carrying � what? What is in boxes?�

�I don�t know.� Don�t ask why she terrified me so much; she just did. My only instinct was to lie. �We heard noises, too, so we came down and found these on the porch. Are they yours?�

Majestically she came down the stairs, flipped open the lid on an oh-so-warm-and-fragrant carton, and sniffed in disdain. �Pizza! In this house! Who had such refuse brought here?�

�Not us,� I said. �That�s for sure. Maybe it was delivered by mistake. Look, I�ll just throw it out in the kitchen��

She took both cartons from us. �I am housekeeper. I throw out. And in case delivery was not mistake, remember: in this house, three proper meals, every day, served at proper times. In this house only wholesome food. In this house � no snacks!�

Watching her stalk off with the pizza about broke our hearts. Hungry and sad, we trudged upstairs to make whispered plans for the morning. We�d say we wanted to wander around, get a feel for the place. And we�d find ways to learn more about the day Naughten died. Glumly we got in bed, tried to snore loud enough to drown out our stomach rumbles, and dreamt of breakfast.

Breakfast brought no relief. I like scrambled eggs and I don�t mind stewed plums, unless you mix them together and serve them while the eggs are still runny and the plums still clammy. I chickened out after one and a half bites, then gnawed on blackened biscuits while telling Kelly our plans. She agreed, saying she�d be out by the pool � we could come see her whenever.

Not wanting to seem obvious, we postponed the sauna and climbed two flights of stairs to Naughten�s studio. It takes up the whole third floor, and the walls are a regular gallery, hung thickly with paintings and photographs. I gazed at a painting of a hazy street scene � Paris, maybe, or Newark.

�What gives, Bolt?� I said. �You said Naughten painted in black and white, but this picture has lots of colors.�

�It�s an early work,� Bolt said. �In his twenties Naughten used color in conventional ways, having not yet discovered his distinctive means of expression. He traveled widely, his first wife always at his side. See this photograph?�

It was simple but striking � young Hugh Naughten at an easel set up at a cafe, his wife just inches from him pointing at something while she held a baby who must be Blanche. It made my throat ache with sympathy. �How did she die, Bolt?� I asked.

�Cancer,� he said. �A long, cruel illness. Blanche must have been five or six when her mother succumbed. For several years Hugh Naughten painted nothing at all. Then he began painting the black and white works that brought him his true fame.�

We examined the paintings on the opposite wall. These were still lifes and portraits, some so starkly realistic they looked like photographs, some so abstract I couldn�t tell if he�d painted a person or a pastry. They weren�t gloomy, exactly, but an emptiness hung over them � backgrounds left bare, lines angular and harsh. �Why�d he switch to black and white?� I asked.

�To express his grief, most critics say,� Bolt replied. �A reflection of how all color drained from his life when his wife died. I wonder what he was working on just prior to his demise.�

We walked to the easel near the skylight and peered at a full-length portrait of Kelly in the robe she�d worn yesterday, sitting by a window, tilting her head to the side and smiling. The lines in this one were softer than in the others, and despite the lack of color it had a calm, peaceful glow. He�d nearly finished it � just a little more work to do on the eyes.

I looked at a table near the easel. A fresh palette, a new brush, unopened tubes of paint. I picked the tubes up. Blues and yellows � Naughten didn�t use those. Someone must�ve messed with his stuff, planning to take over his studio after killing him. �Look,� I said. �Something shady going on, wouldn�t you say?�

Bolt looked at the paint and sighed. �Very shady. He must have wanted to get the shade of his wife�s green eyes just right. Undoubtedly, he planned to finish the portrait on the night he died, as an anniversary gift. It was to be his first touch of color in decades, to signal the end of his bleak loneliness. And his rediscovered joy was to be reflected in his new wife�s eyes � but he did not live to paint the last strokes. How poignant!�

We headed to the second floor. Obviously the master bedroom had been redone, and redone by Kelly. Everything was shiny and frilly, about halfway between classy and way too much. We peeked in the closets � hers bulging with gorgeous stuff, his containing mostly workclothes plus a few new suits she�d probably talked him into buying � and moved on to Blanche�s room.

Blanche, wearing a longsleeved navy dress and a thick grey sweater, sat at a computer playing solitaire. When we knocked on her half-open door, she gave a little jump, then pulled the sweater around her more closely. She didn�t seem enthusiastic when we said we�d come to get ideas about how to redo her room.

�My room doesn�t need redoing,� she said. �It�s fine.�

�It�s very nice,� I agreed, but didn�t mean it. All the furniture was heavy and dark and old fashioned � probably older than she was. Thick brown curtains were closed tight against the sun; a matching spread was pulled tight across the bed. And it was cluttered: bureaus covered with dusty doodads, stacks of old magazines on the desk, covered baskets stuck in every corner. The only bright spots were the travel posters lining the walls.

�Let�s see,� I said, gazing at the posters. �Paris, Venice, Istanbul, Sydney, Tokyo � wow. You�ve been to all these places?�

�Not since Mother died.� Blanche gazed at the thick brown carpet. �I always dreamed of going back on my own. But Father needed me. He was so dependent on me � I couldn�t leave him.�

Sweet kid. My eyes misting up, I noticed an orange and blue pennant on the wall. �You went to State, here in town?�

�Yes,� she said. �And I lived at home. Father didn�t want me to live in a dormitory. That was all right. I understood.�

�But things are different now,� I said. �I mean, not to be crude, but now that he�s gone, you can travel.�

�Or go to law school,� she agreed. �That�s my other dream � to argue a case before the Supreme Court. Now I can do both � and I will, but for now I have to look after Kelly. She�s � well, I adore her, but she�s not a smart person. She can be so reckless, so impulsive. She needs a stable person around to guide her.�

That sounded okay except I wasn�t sure Blanche was all that stable. She extracted a photo album from a teetering pile and slowly flipped pages. In old fading photos with both parents, the father was always painting, the mother was always holding Blanche in her arms. Later photos looked sadder � Hugh waving as Blanche left for kindergarten, giving her a tiny cake on her tenth birthday, welcoming her when she came home from her college graduation. She�d given up all kinds of chances for him, and he�d never once broken his isolation for her sake � never driven her to school or thrown her a real birthday party or gone to a graduation. Then Kelly comes along, and suddenly Hugh�s buying new suits and going to restaurants for anniversary lunches.

She must�ve felt bitter, like he�d adopted a new daughter � a younger one � and lavished on her everything she�d missed. Maybe Blanche had finally snapped and blocked him in the sauna to let him know how trapped she�d felt all those years. Now, she might feel sorry, might feel she had to make it up to him by taking care of Kelly the way she�d always taken care of her dad.

It gave me the creeps. �We gotta move on, Blanche,� I said. �If you do decide to redo your room, we have creative ideas.�

For the first time, she looked at me straight. �Like what?�

Damn. I hadn�t thought she�d call me on that one. �You�ll see,� I faltered. �We�ll tell you real soon � right, Bolt?�

He nodded promptly. �We shall develop an integrated concept for the house � a holistic vision � and unveil it all at once.�

�Smart move, Bolt,� I whispered as we went downstairs. Now we didn�t have to try to sound like decorators. If anyone asked about our plans, we�d say we were holding back till this holistic deal was ready. �The holding-back part � that was really smart.�

�I agree,� Bolt said. �Blanche�s implication that her father held her back all these years � that was a smart move on her part. Well, sir! Are we ready to visit the kitchen?�

Nora was stooped over the stove, sweating, swearing, boiling livers. She smiled at us, lifting lid after lid from pot after steaming pot. �Here is lunch,� she said. �Here is cow liver, turkey liver, pig liver. I boil, I chop together, I add leftover eggs and plums, I broil all just so � voil�! Liver potpourri!�

I fought a gag. �It doesn�t seem fair,� I said, �you cooking every meal. Couldn�t someone else make dinner? Maybe Blanche��

�Blanche! That one!� She snatched pimentos from the fridge. �That one does not cook. Since she was little girl, I try to get her to help. No. She is busy, she says � busy with what? With computer, magazines, television. All day she is busy in room.�

It sounded grim but not as grim as hanging out in the kitchen with Nora. �I see,� I said. �Now Kelly wants to redo the entire house. What changes do you want in the kitchen?�

�None.� Stolidly she tossed more cloves into the turkey-liver pot. �None changes. For thirty years, more, I cook for Mr. Naughten in this kitchen, all is fine. Now all of sudden he has hotsy-totsy wife, now is talk of changes � but now he is dead. You see connection? Maybe. You are smart, artistic gentlemen. Me, I am simple cook who just boil livers, chop livers.�

I�m not used to having witnesses beg to be interrogated � but she didn�t know this was an interrogation. That made my job easy. I could get used to this undercover bit. �Yeah, it was a shame about Mr. Naughten,� I said. �Too bad no one spotted him in time. Kelly was napping all afternoon? Does she take naps often?�

Nora snorted. �Never. Six months she lives here, never takes nap. Always after lunch she spends hours jumping up and down, pedaling on bike that goes nowhere. That one day she goes upstairs, does not come down.� Nora�s bushy eyebrows did a slow, heavy wiggle. �At least she says she did not. From kitchen I cannot see stairs. I cannot see who goes up, who comes down.�

This was getting interesting. �Poor Mr. Naughten,� I said, leaning on the stove casual-like. �Dying so soon after he started really living again, after he found a wife he loved so much��

Scowling, Nora seized a sponge and swatted me away from the stove. �What did Mr. Naughten need with skinny wife who jump up and down all day? For thirty years, more, I keep him happy. I cook, run house, do everything. I do not need help � I take care of Mr. Naughten � I do it, I. Not skinny wife, not lazy daughter, not stupid gardener who does not know seed from stick � humph!�

Ah yes � the gardener. Nora was right: from the kitchen, she couldn�t see the stairs. If she�d been stooped over the stove all afternoon, Chet could�ve sneaked down to the basement, trapped Hugh, waited an hour or so, sauntered to the kitchen, and asked, innocent-like, if he should get the wine. He could�ve unjammed the door, dropped the bottle to make it look like he was shocked to find the body. It could�ve have happened like that.

Frankly, I hoped it had. I didn�t want to think Kelly had done it. I liked her. Don�t get me wrong. I just liked her because she was nice, I didn�t like her in a bad way, and those stories about what happened in her room Saturday night are plain ridiculous. But when it came to wanting to suspect her versus wanting to suspect Chet � hell. He�d been surly, he�d made fun of my best suit, he�s four inches taller than me and obviously works out more. Who wouldn�t want to suspect him of murder?

But that was unfair, I realized. I made myself take a hard look at my motives for suspecting Chet. I sighed. �Jealousy,� I confessed to Bolt as we headed for the basement. �It can be real powerful. It can lead to big mistakes.�

�Indeed, sir,� he said, nodding, �and this house is full of jealousy. We�ve just seen fresh evidence of that.�

I had to readjust my thinking fast. Well, sure. Nora. All those years cooking for Naughten, running his house, maybe secretly loving him. Then he brings this dancer home, and Nora has to wait on the woman who took the place she�d always wanted. That�d sure lead to jealousy. Maybe it also led to revenge.

From the kitchen Nora couldn�t see what others were doing � that meant they couldn�t see what she was doing. So Hugh comes back from lunch acting lovey-dovey with his wife, turning Nora�s stomach. Kelly goes up to nap, Hugh goes down to steam, and Nora�s left in the kitchen, her jealousy boiling as fiercely as her cow livers and turkey livers and pig livers. She traps Hugh in the sauna, maybe just to scare him, but waits too long before going back to set him free. He�s dead. She unjams the door, figures she�d better let the sauna cool off before sending Chet for the wine. No wonder she waited until late afternoon.

That made sense � and if there was anyone I wanted to suspect more than Chet, it was Nora. He�d just been rude; she�d cooked the worst meals I�d ever eaten. But Kelly still made the best suspect: she�d napped after lunch, something she�d never done before. �A break in pattern,� I remarked. �That can mean a lot.�

�It can, sir,� Bolt said readily. �I am grateful to the housekeeper for making us aware of it. Well! Here we are!�

Kelly�s exercise area was loaded with state-of-the-art equipment, all bright green � custom-made, no doubt. Floor-to-ceiling mirrors covered three walls; smack in the middle of the fourth wall was the door to the sauna. I strolled over, looked through the steamed-up window, and nearly fell over.

It was like the photos the captain had shown us � a robed figure stretched out on the bench. Lord! I thought. Naughten�s ghost! But no. His ghost wouldn�t be this tall, this built � and it wouldn�t wear a robe so short it barely covered the essentials.

I turned to Bolt, embarrassed about the ghost bit. �It�s Chet,� I said. �No matter how steamed-up the window is, there�s no mistaking that body, that robe.�

�Indeed,� Bolt said. �No mistake is possible in this case.�

I knocked politely. Chet turned over, scowled, got up and opened the door. �Why are you down here?� he demanded, pleasant as ever. �This floor doesn�t need redecorating.�

�Oh, probably not,� I agreed. �But we�re working on this visionary whole-type deal, and we gotta integrate our concepts, and � well. We gotta see the whole house. Have a nice steam?�

�It was okay.� He toweled his hair. �Since her husband died, Kelly hasn�t used the sauna at all. I might as well.�

�You bet,� I said. �And this exercise room shouldn�t go unused � it�s so big. Does it take up the whole basement?�

�No, there�s the laundry, the furnace room, and a storeroom.� He paused. �And the wine cellar.�

�That�s right � the wine cellar. Maybe we�ll do something conceptual and creative with that. Could you show us around?�

He looked skeptical but led us through a storeroom full of cardboard boxes to a small room lined with wooden racks. I switched on the light, and Bolt peered at bottles.

�Fine vintages,� he said. �Didn�t you find Mr. Naughten when fetching wine for dinner? What was the selection that evening?�

Chet stared at him. �Champagne, not that it�s any of your business. Kelly loves it, and Nora wanted white for the turkey.�

So how did a smashed bottle of pinot noir end up on the sauna floor? What was this gardener up to? �That must�ve been a shock,� I remarked. �Finding Mr. Naughten�s body, I mean.�

�Yeah, it was a bummer. He was an all-right guy.� Chet yawned. �Well, guess I should go fertilize a tree or something.�

After Bolt and I searched the sauna, I leaned against the treadmill and looked around. A real nice room � and Kelly had had it to herself every afternoon, with a wine cellar right next door. Maybe she hadn�t jumped up and down as much as Nora thought. Maybe she�d sampled champagne from time to time.

I looked at Bolt significantly. �This would be a real good place to tie one on,� I remarked.

Bolt nodded sharply. �An excellent observation, sir.�

I thought so, too. After all, Kelly had worked in nightclubs for years � heavy drinking practically came with the job. Maybe she�d picked up other bad habits, too � like cocaine. Maybe she hid her stuff here and sneaked down to � well, you know, sniff it, or snuff it, or snorkel it, or whatever that slang term is.

�And the storeroom � it�s perfect for a stash,� I said, still groping for the right word. �You could � well, you know, nose around plenty in there, and no one the wiser.�

This time, Bolt didn�t nod. He saluted. �I shall carry out your order at the earliest opportunity, sir.�

Had I given an order? I must�ve missed that part. The point was, Bolt thought I was on the right track � and that track led to Kelly. If she�d needed drug money, no wonder she married a rich old guy � and no wonder she killed him once he made out his will. I could dream up motives for the others, but Kelly was the one who inherited bigtime when he died, the one who shed a husband over twice her age and moved on to a live-in boyfriend. I�d been shutting my eyes to the truth. I sighed as we walked to the pool. Sometimes I don�t see the truth because I�m just too stupid; this time I hadn�t seen it because I just hadn�t wanted to.

�There�s more than one kind of blindness,� I confessed.

He gasped and stopped short. �Indeed, sir! Well! It�s all falling into place, isn�t it? Shall we approach Mrs. Naughten?�

Murderer or not, Kelly Naughten was a pleasure to approach. She sat in a deck chair, her long green robe loose around her shoulders. �Hello!� she said, pointing us to chairs on either side of her. �So, you�ve looked around? Do you have plans?�

�Lots.� I squinted artistically. �We�ll tell you after we integrate the vision, like, and conceptualize the whole.�

It didn�t sound as smooth as when Bolt had said it. But she bought it. �Oh, lovely. Hugh would be so pleased.� She put on oversized sunglasses. �I miss Hugh. You know, I loved him more on the day he died than I did on the day I married him.�

It sounded sweet, but I wasn�t going to be blind any more. �Loved him more on the day he died than on the day you married him, huh?� I said skeptically. �That�s really something.�

She shrugged. �Not really. On the day I married him, I didn�t love him at all.�

That one got me. �You didn�t? Why�d you marry him, then?�

She took off the sunglasses and looked at me, her eyes as verdant as dewy lawn clippings in a biodegradable bag. �Why, for the money. Why did you think?� She sighed. �Oh, I liked him. He was kind, and I enjoyed listening to him � I think art�s interesting, don�t you? So when he asked me to marry him, I said, �Well, Hugh, I�d be a fool not to � but I don�t love you.��

I swallowed hard. �And he still wanted to marry you?�

�Of course. He didn�t love me, either. But we got along, and he thought I�d liven the place up. So I said, �Fine. As long as we understand each other, let�s get married. We�ll have fun, I�ll liven up the house, and I can use the security.� Exotic dancing isn�t much of a life. I like this better.�

�Who wouldn�t?� I said. �And it looks like Mr. Naughten was real generous. That was some bracelet you had on last night.�

She nodded. �Hugh gave me one just like it as a wedding present, only with rubies. But it wasn�t right for me. He noticed I didn�t wear it much and asked about it, and I admitted I like emeralds more. He rushed right out and got the emerald bracelet. So sweet.� She sighed. �All I could afford for a wedding present was matching robes � red for him, green for me. Christmas colors, you know, since we met at a Christmas party.�

It sounded genuine. Maybe she hadn�t killed him. �It�s rough,� I said. �You�d counted on spending your life with him��

�Not my whole life,� she cut in. �I mean, he was older, and he had a bad heart � it would�ve been dumb to count on spending my whole life with him. And being a rich widow in ten, fifteen years, when I�m still young enough to have a whole second life with someone else � I could�ve handled that. But after we got married and I got to like him more � well, I wish we�d had more time together. You know how hard it is to lose a spouse, John.�

�I do,� I said fervently, thinking of Ellen in Bora Bora, of how cold this Saturday night would be. (That�s honestly what I was thinking, Mother � be sure to tell Ellen that.) �Nothing beats being with someone you love. Once you find out how good that feels, it�s hard to be alone again. It... well, it hurts.�

She gave me a big smile. �But the hurt doesn�t have to go on forever. Hugh found someone new � I bet you and I will, too.�

She left to dress for lunch. How improper, I thought � a brand-new widow talking about finding someone new. And Kelly had already found someone new, found him before her husband died. That wasn�t just improper. That was wrong. Of course she didn�t realize Bolt and I knew about Chet, didn�t realize that pretty soon everyone would know because it�d be in our report. �People think they can keep secrets forever,� I said to Bolt. �But secrets don�t keep that long. Sooner or later the truth comes out.�

�It does,� he agreed. �And it�s odd how people labor to keep secrets even from those they love, even when their secrets aren�t at all shameful. Well, sir! Shall we go in for lunch?�

I don�t know what shocked me more � Bolt�s idea that there�s nothing shameful about adultery or his willingness to face that lunch. For the first time I wondered if he might not make such a great husband for you after all.

But this wasn�t the time to confront him about it. We went in and saw Kelly forcing a purse into the arms of a head-shaking, downward-gazing Blanche.

�I had a great idea, John.� Kelly beamed at me so brightly I eventually remembered I was supposed to be John. �You and Blanche can go to town and pick up � oh, carpet samples, paint chips, like that. While you�re out, you can have lunch � I�ll treat. There�s a new place called The Lamplight, and I hear it�s divine.�

The thick stench of liver potpourri permeated the room, clung to the curtains, deepened the grime on the windows. I wasn�t nuts about trying to keep up a conversation with Blanche for hours. But I�d do anything to escape that liver.

�Terrific idea,� I said, and cast one pitying glance at Bolt, condemned to liver potpourri while I got off easy. But he smiled smugly, almost like this were part of some plan.

It was a rough afternoon. When we went to paint stores and carpet stores, Blanche barely glanced at stuff, never said more than �I guess.� I had to decide which samples to take, and I�m lousy at that. As for lunch, The Lamplight is fancy and romantic, dusky even at noon � I can�t wait to take Ellen � and the food�s flat-out fantastic. But I couldn�t get anything but mumbles out of Blanche; I had to lean clear across the table to hear her.

The worst moment came during dessert. Mid-mumble, I looked up to see Freddy Barnes, the desk sergeant, standing not two feet away, gaping. He started to come over, but I made a frantic go-away gesture � I couldn�t have him calling me Walt, blowing my cover. His eyebrows twitched first, then his mouth, then his shoulders, then his whole spine. He turned and walked away.

Rats, I thought. Freddy Barnes, the fastest gossip on the force � why�d he have to see me having what looked like an intimate lunch with a woman he knew damn well wasn�t my wife? Well, I�d have a lot of counter-gossip to do come Monday.

By the time Blanche and I got back to the house, the liver fumes had cleared. We found Kelly and Bolt in the living room, him sketching and her bouncing.

�Blanche, John, come here!� Kelly cried. �Bolt has amazing ideas! I asked what to do about this yucky carpet, and he said rip it out � but don�t buy a new one. Instead, buy thousands of tiny, shiny tiles. He�s going to turn the floor into a huge mosaic � giant sunflowers, enormous butterflies! And the whole west wall will be a built-in aquarium with sweet little fishes, and he�ll replace the east wall with humongous picture windows! The room will look like an absolute meadow! Isn�t that fabulous?�

�It�s okay,� I said, a little hurt Bolt had conceptualized without me. �But we picked out all these carpet samples��

�Oh, we�ll carpet other rooms,� she said graciously, looking through the samples. I�d picked out lots of pinks, figuring she�s a girl, she�d like pink. She put the samples down. �Or maybe we�ll tile everything. Shall we get dressed for dinner?�

�I can report progress, sir,� Bolt whispered, slipping into lavender slacks. �Mrs. Naughten swam all afternoon, Nora cooked, Chet pruned � I had no difficulty carrying out your orders. All was just as you thought. And with a camera from Mr. Naughten�s studio, I secured documentary evidence. What is our next step?�

How the hell should I know? I didn�t have a clue about what steps he�d already taken. And I felt miffed that he�d practically redesigned the house without asking my opinion and that Kelly didn�t like my samples. �You don�t need me to tell you the next step,� I said, pouting. �I mean, maybe some people thought you�d wait before talking about ripping out the old and bringing in the new, but you just plunged ahead. I bet you could come back first thing Monday, do the whole job single-handed. Why not tell Kelly that? And me � I�ll stand by and watch, not say a word.�

I�d laid it on pretty thick; I expected him to apologize. He chuckled. �That should stir things up. And you�ll stand by and watch � brilliant. We may well conclude this case tonight.� That didn�t make sense � and neither, if you ask me, did turning a living room wall into an aquarium. But I just shrugged Bolt off, shrugged my beige jacket on, and led the way down.

Dinner was a parade of horrors, from the romaine au gratin to the mocha pasta flamb� to the boeuf jerky bourguignon. When Nora served the escargot � la mode, Bolt made his announcement.

�Mr. Thomas and I had a talk.� He winked at me, prying charred pasta from between his teeth. �He says we can begin work Monday morning. We�ll need room for our paints and such � perhaps the storeroom in the basement. May we clear that out tomorrow?�

�Perfect,� Kelly agreed. �Chet can carry the boxes up. I�ll love the chance to sort through them. I�ve got crates of old costumes � perfect for Goodwill. Nora and Blanche have lots of junk down there, too � won�t it feel good to unload some, Nora?�

Nora glared at her. �I own no junk. I own only good stuff. I unload nothing. No one must touch my boxes!�

�Fine,� Kelly said hastily. �But Blanche and I will have fun going through our stuff. Well! Time for bed?�

As soon as we got upstairs, Bolt turned to me with an eager whisper. �Now for the next part of your plan � standing by, watching, not saying a word. Do you prefer up or down?�

Up or down what? Well, you always told me to be optimistic. �Up?� I guessed.

�Then I shall go down,� he said, �and take the camera with me. If I may make a suggestion, I noticed a large linen closet across from Mrs. Naughten�s room. Till we meet again, sir!�

He sped off, not dropping even one more hint about what I was supposed to do. He�d mentioned watching, he�d mentioned the closet � should I hide in the closet, wait to see what Kelly would do? Hell, we knew what she�d do � we saw her sneak out to Chet�s cottage last night. But if Bolt wanted me to see it again, fine. I slid into the closet, keeping the door open a crack.

Maybe two hours later Kelly�s door creaked open. Wrapped in her long green robe, she paused in the doorway, glanced around, then headed for the stairs. I counted to ten and sneaked after her. Generally I sneak well; I would�ve done fine if it hadn�t been for the carpet bump on the last step. But the bump rammed my big toe, and I fell hard, landing facedown.

�Ouch,� I admitted. Kelly, halfway to the dining room, turned around, spotted me, and smiled.

�I know what you want,� she said, her voice deep and tender. �I want it, too. Come, John. We�ll go to Chet�s cottage. I promise you won�t be disappointed. Chet does it just right.�

I�ve been a cop a long time. I don�t shock easy. But that shocked me from the top of my spinning head to the tip of my still-stinging big toe. I tried to get up, made it to my knees, and sagged. How far did this undercover bit oblige a cop to go?

Just then Chet appeared at the far end of the living room. �You�re late,� he said. �And what�s he doing here?�

�I invited him to join us,� Kelly said. �After all, you�ve got plenty to go around. And I�d like to have John on our side.�

Before I could faint, the place was flooded with light from above. I shifted on my knees and looked up to see Nora standing at the top of the stairs, her hand on the light switch.

�At last!� she cried. �For long time I suspect, I know, but I have no proof. Now, degenerate people, I catch you in act!�

That�s when Blanche also appeared at the top of the stairs. �What�s going on?� she asked, rubbing her eyes. �I was sound asleep, I heard shouting, and � oh, my! What is all this?�

Damned if I could tell her. Bolt, though � Bolt could always explain things. And he was down � he�d said he was going down. Still on my knees I gazed at the floor. �Bolt!� I bellowed.

But Bolt wasn�t down. He was up, behind Nora and Blanche, looking grim but satisfied. �I have it, sir,� he said, holding up the camera. �All is just as you suspected. Is it time to reveal our identities � to show our true colors, so to speak?�

Well, after he�d said that much, there wasn�t any point in being coy. I made it to my feet and looked straight at Kelly. �We aren�t decorators, Mrs. Naughten,� I said. �We�re cops. We came in undercover to investigate your husband�s death.�

Those gorgeous green eyes opened as wide as sliced kiwis. �But it�s already been investigated. It was an accident.�

�Evidently not,� Bolt said, flatly. �Evidently, it was murder. Would you like them all to gather in Mrs. Naughten�s room, lieutenant, so you can unveil your deductions?�

What deductions? At such moments, I�ve found, there�s just one thing to do. Stall. �Sure,� I said. �Let�s go to her room.�

It took some persuading to get them all up there � Kelly perched on the edge of her bed, Blanche half hidden behind tall plants in a corner, Chet standing by the window with arms folded, Nora standing by the closet across from him with chin stuck out. I glanced at Bolt, hoping he�d start things off. He just winked.

I cleared my throat. �Well, Kelly � Mrs. Naughten � we�re here to find out if someone trapped your husband in the sauna��

�How?� Chet demanded. �That door doesn�t even have a lock, just a handle. How could you trap anyone in there?�

Frankly, I�d never given it any hard thought � I�d just more or less assumed it could be done. When you got down to how, it did seem unlikely. �It�s a stretch,� I admitted.

�A stretch of precisely eight feet, four inches,� Bolt supplied. �That�s the distance from the door to the treadmill. As the lieutenant observed while leaning against that heavy piece of equipment this morning, it is a perfect place to �tie one on.� Affix one end of a stout rope to the door handle, the other end to the treadmill, stretch it taut, and Mr. Naughten could not pull the door in to open it. But the rope was not tied. It was hooked � even better for speedy execution, speedy escape. Look.�

He pointed to Kelly�s chartreuse laundry hamper, and I opened the ruffled lid. There it was, coiled like a metal-mouthed snake � a long, thick rope with heavy, latched chain hooks tied to both ends. Slowly I lifted the thing up.

Kelly gasped. �I�ve never seen that rope before! You put it there! You�re trying to frame me!�

�Better call a lawyer before you say more,� I said sadly. �We know you sneaked out to Chet�s cottage at night. There was something going on between you two��

�Or as the lieutenant so aptly put it,� Bolt cut in, �there was �something cooking� in that cottage. Was there not?�

�There was!� Nora said, purpling. �Gardener was cooking! Tonight is first time I catch them, but for long time I know he was cooking. And she was sneaking to meet him � for snacks!�

Talk about naive, I thought, smiling. If Nora honestly thought that was why Kelly went to that cottage�

�It�s true,� Kelly sobbed. �I did it. Night after night Chet and I did it together. Tonight, when John came downstairs, I thought he wanted to do it with us. I thought he wanted to � to snack with us. I never meant to hurt you, Nora, but��

�But your cooking stinks,� Chet said matter-of-factly. �That�s why Kelly brought me in.�

Sure that�s why, I thought. �So you�re a master cook, huh?� I said sarcastically. �I thought you were a bouncer.�

�He�s both,� Kelly said. �Chet cooked at the club whenever the chef got beat up � it happened lots. The chef was a lousy cook, too; customers didn�t like him. Hugh wanted to entertain and Chet wanted to cook professionally, so I hired Chet as gardener, promising he�d be our cook soon. But Hugh was so loyal to Nora that I couldn�t tell him right away. Chet had to live a lie.�

Bolt nodded. I staggered. Was he actually buying this? �He lived a lie, indeed,� Bolt said. �Making token gestures at gardening, stealing nutmeg, preparing your midnight snacks on the sly. But the deception was to end, was it not, on the night of your six-month anniversary? Hence the beef Wellington in the cottage freezer, the broken bottle of pinot noir in the sauna.�

Kelly nodded. �Chet makes beef Wellington to die for. And Nora�s turkey tartare, her pretzel-and-gherkin stuffing � we knew Hugh would be hungry. So I planned to take him to Chet�s cottage for midnight dinner, and we�d get him to make Chet his cook. It�s not that I don�t like you, Nora. I mean, I don�t, but the point is we needed a good cook to do what Hugh wanted to do � throw big parties, bring lots of young people to the house.�

Sure. That�s what all older husbands want to do � bring young people into their homes to make passes at their wives. Maybe Naughten agreed to parties � Nora had said he�d talked about it the night before he died � but Kelly must�ve bullied him into it. Maybe he�d changed his mind later, and that�s why she killed him.

�A change can be hard to take,� I said. �You think things will be one way, you find out they�ll be another way � the thought of it can make you sick.� I imagined how mad Kelly must�ve been when Hugh reversed his decision. �And if Hugh�s resolution��

Bolt tapped my shoulder. �I believe the wording is �Thus the native hue of resolution/Is sicklied o�er with the pale cast of thought.� An apt allusion to Hamlet. Change is hard to take. Thus, as the melancholy Dane observes, we �rather bear those ills we have/Than fly to others that we know not of.� Many cling to the life they know � however empty it may be � rather than risk change. For them, talk of change creates jealousy � and that, as you said this morning, can be powerful, can lead to mistakes. No wonder Mr. Naughten�s talk of making changes led to his death.�

I blinked. If Naughten�s talk of changes led to his death, not a later reversal � wow. But we�d found the rope in Kelly�s laundry hamper; that made her the killer. I hated to embarrass Bolt by reminding him. �Hamper,� I whispered. �Important.�

�Indeed,� he said. �There have been important attempts to hamper the investigation, from the bracelet planted by the sauna door to the rope hidden in the storeroom. That room is, as you said, perfect for a stash � why risk carrying an eight foot rope upstairs, when it could be stashed in a storage box? So, acting on your orders, I nosed around, found the rope, photographed it, then said I�d clear out the storeroom tomorrow. As you foresaw, that made the murderer move the rope. And since you decided we�d stand by and watch tonight, you can testify that Mrs. Naughten stayed innocently in her room until she went to meet Chet. And I, down by the storeroom, captured all the murderer�s actions on film. Did you want to say a bit more about motive now?�

Good idea except that I didn�t know more about motive, not a bit. What had Bolt said? Something about not wanting change even when your life is empty, something about jealousy. Of course � Nora. Her life was plenty empty � no family, no house of her own, cooking food nobody wanted to eat � but it was all she had. And if she figured Naughten would want a better cook for his parties, she�d feel plenty jealous. I�ve got it, I thought. Sometimes you just know you can�t be wrong. I looked at Bolt smugly.

�Sometimes,� I said, �mistakes just aren�t possible.�

�I remember, sir,� he said. �You said that when you looked through the sauna window and saw Chet � �there�s no mistaking that body, that robe.� At other times, however, mistakes are possible. Thus the murderer looked through the sauna window last Friday, mistook Mr. Naughten for his wife, and killed the wrong person.�

Mistake an old man for a voluptuous young woman? How? But wait a minute. Kelly wasn�t voluptuous. She was slender; Hugh was slim. They were about the same height, they both had shoulder-length fair hair � and Kelly always took a steam after lunch. Hugh never did till that day. Someone who expected to see Kelly in the sauna and glanced through a steamed-up window might make a fatal mistake.

No. Wait another minute. �There�s no mistaking that body, that robe� � that�s what I�d said. Maybe you could mistake Hugh Naughten�s body for Kelly�s. But mistake his robe for hers? No way. �His robe was red,� I said. �Hers is green. You couldn�t make a mistake about that � not unless you were blind.�

�Indeed not, sir,� Bolt said, nodding. �And as you remarked this morning, there�s more than one kind of blindness.�

Yeah, I�d said that; I was talking about how I�d tried to blind myself to Kelly�s guilt. Was Bolt being blind now? The basic facts were simple � old husband, young wife, sexy gardener. �This is a pretty black and white case,� I told Bolt severely.

He winked. �And red and green. Well put. The colorful compositions Naughten painted when his first wife was alive, the black and white pieces after her death, his decision to return to color now that he had a new wife to guide him � how clear it is! Yet how hard he worked to hide his secret though there was nothing shameful about it. I think of your remark, sir, about how people can�t keep their secrets forever. Mr. Naughten couldn�t have kept his much longer. He�d already made mistakes � such as buying that ruby bracelet.�

�I never said the bracelet was a mistake,� Kelly said, confused. �It�s pretty, but red makes me look washed out.�

�With your coloring, of course it does,� Bolt agreed. �Did you never ask yourself, Mrs. Naughten, how your husband could fail to notice your obvious preference for green?�

She had an obvious preference? I thought of the pink carpet samples I brought her, of how quickly she pushed them aside. �I guess some people can�t see the obvious,� I said, blushing.

�No, they can�t,� Bolt said, smiling. �Not if they�re color-blind. �More than one kind of blindness,� indeed! How quickly, how surely, you found out Mr. Naughten�s long-kept secret!�

What? Hugh Naughten, color-blind? I felt like gasping.

Kelly did gasp. She�s not supposed to be a brilliant detective � she can afford to gasp. �Hugh was color-blind?� she said. �I don�t believe it. Why didn�t he ever tell me?�

�Misplaced pride,� Bolt said. �How painful for an artist to admit that he relied on his first wife to advise him on color, that his turn to black and white after her death was dictated by necessity, not creative choice! But he might not have been wholly color-blind. He might simply have been unable to distinguish between red and green � the most common form of color blindness. His longtime housekeeper should be able to tell us.�

It was a shock to see Nora get so shy so suddenly. She stared at her large, bunny-slippered feet. �Mr. Naughten said nothing of that tome. And it was not my place to question. When he spread mint jelly on peanut butter sandwiches, when he ate grape jelly with lamb � I do not ask. I just take notes, create new recipes.�

So Naughten had been partly to blame for Nora�s cooking. But who killed him? We were almost out of suspects � but not quite. I looked at Blanche, shrinking deeper into the corner.

Could she have killed her own father? Maybe. Maybe she�d never really felt close to anyone except her mother. I thought of the photos of Naughten and his first wife. He�d always been focused on painting; it was the mother who�d always held Blanche in her arms. �The mother was the carrier,� I remarked to Bolt.

�She must have been,� Bolt agreed. �Color blindness is a recessive trait, carried on the X chromosome, and thus far more common among boys than among girls. If a boy�s one X chromosome is defective, there is no normal gene on his poor Y chromosome to counteract it. A girl cannot be color-blind unless both X chromosomes are defective � unless, that is, her father is color-blind, and her mother is either color-blind or a carrier. But your mother was not color-blind, was she, Miss Naughten?�

Blanche shook her head. �I don�t know what you�re talking about. Nobody in our family was � is � color-blind.�

Deliberately Bolt picked up the rope and held out one of the latched chain hooks. It bore a bright green mark � paint from Kelly�s custom-made treadmill, no doubt. It must have scraped off when Hugh Naughten was tugging desperately on the sauna door.

�What could this mark be, Miss Naughten?� Bolt asked.

She squinted, panic clear in her eyes. �Blood?�

Now I caught on. �Not unless the victim was Mr. Spock,� I said. �Blood is red, Blanche � that mark is green. You can�t see the difference � you�re color-blind like your father. That�s why you killed him. You looked through the sauna window, you saw a thin figure in a robe, you had no way of knowing the robe was red. But when you went to get the rope and make it look like an accident, you saw your mistake. You turned down the controls��

�But not far enough,� Bolt cut in, �since you couldn�t see the boundary between the green �safe� zone and the red �caution� zone. Then, to frame your stepmother, you ran to her room and took what you thought was her favorite bracelet. You can�t distinguish between rubies and emeralds, can you?�

�I can,� Blanche insisted. �And I never went near the sauna that day. I was in the kitchen, helping Nora fix dinner.�

Bolt looked at me. �A break in pattern � as you said, that can mean a lot. Nora said Blanche never helped in the kitchen � until the day she needed an alibi. Little short of murder could have pried her from her room. She felt safest there, with her magazines and computer games, her old photos and faded posters. No wonder her father�s talk of parties made her panic, made her resolve to kill the woman behind the changes he planned.�

Tears welled up in Kelly�s eyes, like raindrops oozing out of limpid pools of lime jello. �The changes were for your sake, Blanche. That�s the main reason Hugh married me � to liven the house up for you, get you to meet people. He�d realized how his seclusion had hurt you, kept you from realizing your dreams��

�That�s the impression she created,� Bolt agreed. �As the lieutenant said, it was smart of her to imply her father had held her back. But it was your fear of life that held you back, Miss Naughten, your fear of men � fear visible whenever your stepmother tried to get you to look at the lieutenant. As for your dreams of solitary travel, of arguing before the Supreme Court � who could imagine you could do such things, or want to do them?�

�I could have done them.� Suddenly Blanche stepped out of her corner. �But Daddy needed me. He didn�t always know it � he�d say, �Go to college out of town, Blanche. Meet boys� � but I knew he needed me. I took care of him, I sacrificed � until she wiggled into his heart, and ruined my life, and � oh! I can�t stand it!� She bounced twice on the emerald-ruffled bed, landed squarely on top of Kelly. I charged after her, tripped on a ruffle, hit my head on a canopy post, blacked out, and woke to find myself lying on the bed next to Kelly, who�d been half strangled before Bolt pried Blanche�s fingers from her throat.

Bolt had put us both on the bed while Nora held Blanche down and Chet called 911. That rat from the Tattler learned about the call even before the paramedics � he must�ve paid off someone on the force � and burst in with his camera just as Kelly started to come to, draped an arm around me, and said, �Hugh?�

So that�s how those pictures of us in bed ended up in the tabloids. Kelly was only trying to help when she told reporters she wasn�t in love with me, she�d just been in bed with me that night; in fact, I�d said I was separated from my wife, so she was trying to match me up with her stepdaughter. And when that idiot sergeant, Freddy Barnes, told the Tattler about my lunch with Blanche, it all escalated. Those headlines � TWO-TIMING DETECTIVE CAUGHT IN REAL FAMILY AFFAIR, MARRIED COP GOES DEEP UNDERCOVER WITH BOTH KILLER AND STEPMOM � I can imagine what Ellen thinks.

Anyway, Kelly hired a squad of lawyers, but Blanche sent them away, saying she�d argue her own case, take it to the Supreme Court. As for Chet, the cooking channel went nuts for the whole culinary aspect of the case, gave him his own show. He made Nora his co-star, calls the show If I Can Teach Her to Cook, I Can Teach You � not concise, but catchy.

I went to rehearsal today, and Chet and I had a talk over lunch � he does make beef Wellington to die for. He said he and Kelly are just pals: she�s a straight arrow, never messes around. Besides, he said, he prefers a woman who looks substantial enough to prove she appreciates his cooking � and with that he cast a lusty glance at Nora. There couldn�t be anything between those two, could there? I mean, it wouldn�t make sense � would it?

So tell Ellen that no matter what the papers say, I never had a thing for either the killer or the stepmom. As far as I�m concerned, Ellen�s prettier than Kelly, a better cook than Chet. Of course I wouldn�t mind if she caught his show, learned to make beef Wellington � you might slide that suggestion in while you�re assuring Ellen she has the undying, undivided devotion of

Your loving son,

Walt

�Malabar Four, are you on the east end of the island?�

�Ten four, Dispatch.�

�We have a report of a man down in the back yard at 936 Kudzu Lane. Check it out, Collins.�

�Will do.�

All of that Malabar Island Detective Kat Curtci picked up on her radio as she drove toward the east end�s Sporty Sand Dollar shop. A little morning-off browsing was not likely now.

�Curtci also responding,� she said into the two-way radio she always carried with her � and always had on. Couldn�t break the habit even on a day off. Thus, two side streets later, she swung her five-year-old Pontiac onto Kudzu. First on the scene, she noted with satisfaction. Corporal Carleton Collins � �Three Cees� to everyone on the force � was nowhere in sight.

Kat trotted to the rear lawn and crouched to take a prelim scan of the supine figure that was indeed back here. And alone. Not another soul in sight.

Male Caucasian, probably in his sixties, stocky build, balding. And flat on his back. Khaki slacks, white golf shirt, thong sandals, no socks. No pulse, either.

She heard a car pull into the gravel drive out front. A long moment later, Three Cees pounded around the end of the one story ground-level stucco house and stood behind her, not even breathing hard.

�Yo, Kat.� Beneath his tailored uniform shirt, his abs rippled. �What�ve we got?�

�What you see is what we got. Not another soul around. Who called this in?�

�Dispatch says it came from the medevac �copter on its way to a problem on the beach. Happened to spot this guy as they flew over.�

�Heard you chiming at the front door. Nobody home?�

�Nobody answered.� Three Cees bent over the body. �Heart attack?�

�Seems likely. He got a wallet?�

�Yep.� He lifted the body enough to extract a slim fake alligator-hide billfold. �Harold Wharton,� he read from the driver�s license. �This address.�

�Any medical emergency card?�

�Nope. Couple of credit cards, and forty bucks� cash.�

Kat surveyed the stand of ferns between the lawn and the scarlet blaze of bougainvillea hedge along the back lot line and halfway down the sides. No wonder no one at ground level saw him back here.

�Weeder.� Three Cees pointed at a pronged hand tool just inside the ferns. �So here he was, out in the Southwest Florida sun, no hat on that bald head, and down he went.�

Three Cees stood beside her, impressive chest thrust out, shoulders in a near-military brace. As tall as he could manage, Kat noticed. But he still came up inches shorter than her five eleven.

�All that shrubbery.� She peered at the body again. �What�s that?� She hunkered back down to study the splayed feet. �Check this, Three Cees.� The twin punctures were just below the left ankle joint about a quarter inch apart.

�Fire ants?� Three Cees said.

�More like a snakebite.�

�I don�t want to hear that.� Three Cees scanned the ferns like a man besieged. �I hate � yiii!�

Kat sprang to her feet. �What in the world��

�Snake! Snake!� Three Cees leaped backward from the ferns, thrusting out a shaky finger. �In there!�

Kat peered into the fronds. Sure enough, a snake, a pretty one. Banded in red, yellow, and black.

Red on yellow, deadly fellow. And the thing had a black nose.

�Coral snake, Three Cees. But it�s dead. Looks like its head�s been stepped on.�

�So it�s not a heart attack. Poor bastard is doing some weeding, the snake nails his bare ankle, and down he goes.�

�A possibility.�

�A possibility? The evidence is staring right at you, detective.�

She glanced at Three Cees, who wore a little grin. So, okay, he�d said that tongue-in-cheek. She was touchy about challenges to her status and had verbally flattened a couple of the department�s macho-mouths.

�Since it could be an accidental death instead of natural causes, the medical examiner gets in on it. Put in a call to Doc Hewlett, Three Cees, while I do a neighborhood check. Then stay with the body.�

A glance along the street told Kat that almost all the neighbors were winter residents, and this was summer. The piling house directly across the street had its hurricane shutters in place as did the ground levels on either side of 936. Diagonally across to the right, though, the windows were naked, and the garage door was up, the rear of a car visible inside. Taking her badge and I.D. card out of her handbag, she strode across the hot macadam.

As she crunched into the gravel drive, she heard the clang of a hood slamming down. Seconds later a middle-aged Charlton Heston type emerged in grimy T-shirt and khakis, wiping his hands on a yellow polka dot rag. He was wonderfully tall...

�Good morning, sir.� Kat held up her badge. �Detective Curtci.�

�You�re here about the swimming pool truck�� He peered at the cars in the driveway at 936; her red Pontiac and Three Cees� patrol unit. �What�s the problem over there?�

�I�m afraid Mr. Wharton�s had an accident. No one answers the door. I wondered if you might��

�Harry? What happened to Harry? Can I help?�

�I�m afraid not, Mr....�

�Palmer. Ed Palmer.�

�Mr. Wharton is dead, sir. In his back yard.�

�Dead?� Palmer was visibly stunned. �What the hell happened?�

�It might have been his heart. He lived with his wife?�

�Yes. Thelma. She and Essie � that�s my wife � are out shopping. Left a couple of hours ago. They should be � Lord, now what!�

Siren screeching, an orange and white EMS ambulance rocked into Kudzu Lane and scruffed to a stop at 936.

�I�d better get over there, Mr. Palmer. Here�s my card. Please have Mrs. Wharton call me as soon as she and your wife get back.� Halfway down the drive she turned back. �What was that about a swimming pool truck?�

�Oh, a pool maintenance truck was parked for a while at the Kirshners�, right across the street. Around seven. I thought that was rather odd, so I called the police.�

�Well, I do see a pool enclosure behind the house.�

�There was a pool there, but last year Si Kirshner filled it in after their daughter nearly drowned in it. Now it�s a jumbo-sized planter. Anyway, the guy left just after I called you people.�

�Apparently that call got lost in the excitement. Thanks for your help, and make sure Mrs. Wharton calls me.�

She loped over to 936, thumbed back a stray lock of raven hair, and tore into Three Cees.

�You were supposed to call the M.E., not the paramedics. They�ve got more to do than check out bodies. That�s a job for��

�He didn�t call us, ma�am,� said a youthful voice behind her. �The medevac pilot did. Might as well take a look while we�re here.�

�Don�t you disturb anything,� Kat warned.

The young paramedic � were they taking them right out of high school now?�� eyed her badge.

�Wouldn�t think of it, ma�am.�

�Detective Curtci.�

�Oh, sure. Heard you solved that so-called suicide a couple of months ago. Good show.�

Well, maybe he wasn�t such a green kid.

�You on the case here?� he asked.

�I�m not sure it is a case�� she peered at his nametag ��Richard. You�ll have to excuse me. I�ve still got some checking to do.�

The other nearby neighbors still in residence � the Syzmanskis, two doors down from the Palmers, and the Markesons, two houses up on the Whartons� side � had heard or seen nothing at all.

�Oh, except,� said iron-haired and pillowy Anna Markeson, �I heard a car or truck go by just after I woke up. Around seven. On this dead-end street this time of year there�s never any traffic that early.�

That by itself was no lead at all, but there was the matter of the truck at number 938. Dispatch might�ve forgotten it but she hadn�t. She strode back across the street.

�Sorry to bother you again, Mr. Palmer, but could you describe that pool maintenance truck?�

Ed Palmer, having once more emerged from his garage mopping his greasy hands with his polka dot rag, squinted down his Hestonlike nose at her. He had to be six four at least. Some women have all the luck.

�Consider this the response to your truck call, Mr. Palmer. Can you describe it?� She realized she was here maybe sixty percent because of the truck and forty percent because... because Charlton Palmer here had really blue eyes? God, how unprofessional!

�It was white, more like an SUV than a truck now that I think about it. Had the name of a pool maintenance company on the door.�

�License number?�

�Sorry. Probably Florida or I might have noticed.�

�And it was there in the driveway for how long?�

�I don�t know. Essie and I were having breakfast. I just happened to look out when I heard the door slam.�

�Did you see anybody walking around over there?�

Palmer flicked his rag at a curious yellow jacket. �Not when I was watching. It just pulled out and left.�

�Did you see the driver?�

�A man.�

�That�s it?�

�I�m afraid so, detective. Now that I�ve been questioned, I realize how dumb it was to report it. Or try to. A new pool man lost and just using the drive to turn around. Or one given the wrong address.�

No reasonable way to linger with the compelling Mr. Palmer-Heston. �If you think of anything more, please give me a call,� she said in resignation. And she left, chiding herself for conduct unbecoming a detective. A really tall one who was dateless a lot more than dated. Oh, get a grip, Curtci. The man was married. Probably loved his damned car more than Essie.

�The diesel, yes, it cost you less. Is nice Foxtrot-class submarine, but does not have long range,� Georgi Porgie told the Vietnamese. �You have to buy oiler, too, then surface somewhere in Pacific to fill �er up. Nyet, I say. Not good.�

Mr. Nguyen asked, �You have access to the nuclear?�

They were standing on a breezy downtown Seattle pier, huddled in jackets. A couple of duffers were fishing off the end. By mutual consent they�d chosen the pier for the wind and water noise, and the privacy. It would be hard to listen in, and you could see anybody coming. Despite those conditions, Mr. Nguyen could smell the man�s cologne.

The man who called himself Georgi Porgie grinned. �I do. This is nice Yankee I class. Twenty-seven knots, stay submerged forever. Nice irony, yes, this NATO designation, to couple of old comrades like ourselves?�

�You are selling?� asked an unamused Mr. Nguyen.

�I sell you the diesel, yes. Outright. Give you pink slip, as it were. The nuke, nyet. It is � how you say?�� a lease situation. They keep closer track of nuclear boats. There are no weapons, but the reactor is issue.�

�Twice as much money,� Mr. Nguyen reminded him.

�To pay ten times as many people to look other way.� He raised his hands in a flourish. �Hundreds, maybe.�

�Thirty million dollars,� Mr. Nguyen said, leaving the figure hanging.

Georgi Porgie stared sincerely into the Golden Triangle druglord�s eyes. �The boat is in Pacific Fleet, rotting in Vladivostok drydock. Not in mint condition, okay, but cost millions and millions new. We tune up, pay crew, and for you, sir, it is � how you say?�� turnkey. They come to you, maybe little island in South China Sea. Top-notch customer service, it is expensive.�

�Mr. Porgie, how do I know you can deliver?�

�Not por-gee. It is por-jee. Yor-ghee por-jee. Am connected from Brighton Beach to St. Petersburg. All the way up ladder. They call us Russian Mafia. No like that word, but there it is. I know my Motherland, and I know who to buy.�

Mr. Nguyen said nothing.

Inscrutable little guy, Georgi thought. Whoever he was. He was aware that Nguyen was as common as Jones or Smith to Vietnamese.

�Yankee I is big big boat. Maybe whole year�s supply of your product can go in one load,� he said, pushing to close. �Park offshore out of territorial limit. Customers come to you like boutique. By the time DEA and Coast Guard catch on, everybody on merry way.�

�I will consult my people and be back in touch,� Mr. Nguyen said.

Georgi Porgie gave him his cell phone number and took his hand. �You do that. One small matter. Must have operating capital up front. As they say in America, seed money.�

�How much?�

�Only ten percent,� Georgi said, shaking Nguyen�s hand vigorously. �Hardly anything in great scheme of things.�

�Today I had the fright of my life,� the Combmaker said to Aoi.

Behind a hanging curtain Aoi smiled. More dramatics. She would humor him. It was a hot and stifling day, yet this open space at the end of the house drew some coolness from the garden just beyond the verandah, and she had very few duties these days. The princess whom she served as lady-in-waiting had gone with her husband to his mountain villa in a rare attempt at bringing their spirits into some sort of agreement. Because such an attempt would surely cause scenes of fire and temperament, Aoi had been asked to remain in the city. Mountain cedars and mountain servants would hear the cries and sobs of a proud and neglected wife. Mountain insects would blend nighttime sighs of pleasure and murmurs of sweet talking into their woven mat of sound.

It was not often that Aoi had a chance to live alone for even a few weeks. She had thought she craved such solitude, that her essential being would expand as binding obligation relaxed, that she would recover some truth of her character that had been blurred in coping with the princess and her anxieties. Instead she had drawn tight, nervous and adrift with so much freedom. The princess�s steward visited each morning and settled the day�s requirements, which he knew better than she but he was a man of habit and he asked as a matter of form. The kitchen functioned on its own; O-hana managed Aoi�s personal service as she always had; the floors were polished and every item of decoration was wiped clean, every blind brushed as the day began. Though ordinarily she considered her life too busy to allow satisfying time to be spent with all the medical scrolls and books of poems she loved, now she put them aside after only a few glances, feeling that she should be engaging her mind with more practical matters. The only way Aoi could think of to involve herself in the running of the house was to tell the gardener to pull some garlic while it was still green so the chopped stalks could be added to her early morning noodles that swam in iced water. In a very short time Aoi was bored.

And so she had agreed to see the Combmaker, who was looking into the disappearance of Taira no Kunimori. The request had come from Aoi�s friend the Minister of the Right, who was also the princess�s father.

�Since my daughter has gone off on this almost secret meeting with her husband, you will be feeling lonely,� he had said. �Why don�t you come here and we can discuss this puzzling problem together?�

Aoi had said no to the invitation. She was afraid of letting herself become used to his presence, afraid she would not be able to leave when the time came. Affection between Aoi and the princess�s father was of long standing, yet few knew of it and Aoi guarded the secret, more for his sake than for any personal concern. He was the most powerful figure in the government; though by custom the Minister of the Left was the one everyone looked to, the present man in that position was vain and neglectful of his duties, spending his time dressing up for one ceremony or dedication after another. Powerful men usually have powerful enemies. Aoi knew that there were some who resented or feared his ascendancy, as some resented and feared her knowledge of medicines and healing, and she was careful to avoid putting herself forward in any way lest she be used somehow against him.

In this case she had agreed to do her best to find out, with the help of the Combmaker, what had happened to one of the Taira family�s best-known men. The Combmaker, enemy of priests, drunkard, mimic, changeling soul, was a poor man whose wife and child had been killed during a fight between the rowdy acolytes of rival temples. Since then, he said, he had not been able to muster the precision and steady hand needed for carving wooden combs. No one knew how he lived, but he was often called on to help with delicate problems of the aristocracy, and there was always concrete gratitude afterwards.

He had entered groveling. Today�s performance had been as usual: sliding along the gleaming floorboards on his knees, knocking his head in exaggerated humility, allowing one wandering eye to look off at an extreme angle, lisping grossly servile greetings.

�Thith worthleth man of the threeths � suh-threeths � she reeths � market-ths cannot raithe hith eyeth to regard even your curtain, lady.�

Aoi, who had arranged a slight gap in the panels of silk so she could watch him, saw the usual flow of filthy rags with which he changed his figure when he wanted invisibility; she smelled the dust and cooking oil and fish and sweat that wafted from them; she marveled as always at his controlled and limber sprawling; she waited until his posture drew together, as she knew it would, into a very proper bow, eyes focused, knees together, hands spread along his thighs, neck angled respectfully to allow a sideways glance. The voice became that of a man of the court, mellow and cultured; the remark was outrageously familiar:

�I don�t know why you are concealing yourself, lady. Have you forgotten how I brought you here as a pregnant fishwife that time we escaped from the ship?�

Aoi smiled but did not disturb the curtain. �There are certain proprieties,� she said. �But have you found him?�

It was then that the Combmaker said that he had been frightened.

�First we went to his house,� he said, meaning that he had sent some of his helpers to hang around the kitchen door of Kunimori�s mansion, offering to run errands or to fetch supplies from the market and gossiping with the servants. Most of the people he used were orphaned children or cripples unable to work, and going to the markets for a rich household was a favor they liked because it was always possible to hide a few cabbage leaves or small onions or shavings of dried fish in their clothes as they returned. �They all report the same thing. All but one. A little girl didn�t come back, and we are searching for her.�

�A child is missing?�

�Yes. I know what you are thinking, that small girls should not be used because of the danger of evil men. But this one � she makes a parent of every person she meets. It is some sort of magic; we don�t know how she does it, but they all want to take her in. She talks, you see, and she trusts.�

�But now you have lost her?�

�It has happened before. We are looking.�

�And what did the others find out?�

�That they are upset, there at the house of Taira no Kunimori. They say there is no music now. Well, that is perfectly obvious, the man is gone, isn�t he?�

Aoi�s silence behind her curtain suppressed his attempt at humor, and after a few wheezing laughs and coughs he went on.

�Ah, please excuse me. This is not a matter for levity. But it�s what they notice, the servants � the place is too quiet, and they can never forget.�

Taira no Kunimori held a position in the government like all men of his rank. He was, in fact, an important man because of his post as Minister of the Bureau of Records, the agency that checked the accounts of the provincial governments. But his fame was as a particularly subtle player of the long bamboo flute. All his life, since he first left his clan school, he had been known for this art. The very long flute he favored sounded in a low register. It was ancient, a gift from the old emperor, and was called Crane�s Brother. In the quiet nights of summer the slow, bending tones carried over the walls of his home and into all the surrounding gardens. People sighed, talking fell away after someone said, �Listen, Kunimori is playing.�

�Lately,� continued the Combmaker, �he has secluded himself. He did not go to his office, he missed the council meetings. All day he played his flute. He began, they said, in his closed room, behind the reed blinds. Then he had them raise the blinds, and he moved to the very farthest veranda. But he was not satisfied, and they made a comfortable place for him in the garden. Then he must be on the garden pond, even taking his meals floating there in the boat. The man who rowed him complained, and he agreed at once to go in. But there were tears on his face, and the man took up the oars again. He liked the splashing, the man said, and it was such a simple pleasure, how could he be denied? All this time, in the garden, sitting on cushions in the bow of the little boat, he made music with his flute. It was sad, slow, dying away and rising, and the whole house became troubled.�

�Ah,� Aoi said, �something distressing was on his mind.� What she meant was �in his heart,� but she was wary of any such emotional phrasing. �His wife died young, before there were any children. But that was in the winter, that time long ago when so many coughed out their lives in the cold. So it could not be that he is reminded by the season of her death. What has happened now, did his people know?�

�They say only that he changed. Always so kind, always careful not to give trouble, he began to ask for special dishes to be made. He unlocked the storeroom and had them bring out incense his mother had mixed, so rare and wonderful that it had not been used since the reign of the last regent. He would taste the new dish and ask for it again and again. Then for days he would eat only rice. He would sit by the burning fragrance of the incense and smile and play his music. Then he would have the censer taken away; he would explain that it masked the earth smell of the garden. He liked rain, and he would sit just under the eaves. His clothes would become damp, but he protected his flute as never before, closing it into his robes at night. He was always smiling, but they knew he was sad.�

�And then?�

�And then one day when they went to dress him, the bedclothes were thrown aside, nothing was missing from his toilet chest, all his robes except the old ones he slept in were properly folded and stored, but he was not there. They are very upset, there at the house. They blame themselves.�

�Whyever should they?�

�Well, he was such a good man, never any complaining, generous and pleasant. They feel that they have betrayed him in some way, not paying attention, not helping � but what was the trouble? No one could know that. The women are weeping, the men violently attack their work.�

�Ah yes,� said Aoi, �to prove that after all they have been diligent, doing what is required. And how could they know what new requirement had presented itself if no one explained it to them? This all seems perfectly normal.�

�So he was not seen leaving. But,� said the Combmaker, �wherever he went, he would blow his sad melodies. And so we started looking, asking about music, and there we found a trail. He played, and someone gave him food. He played, and someone let him sleep in the garden shed. They all thought he was a beggar.�

�What reason had they to come to that conclusion?�

�Only, I suppose, that there are so many musicians who beg. True, they don�t usually have to beg, that old lute player and his songs, he lives well, keeps his instrument in a brocade bag, I have seen it myself.�

�But what frightened you?�

�Oh, the road, lady, the road.�

�Unh?�

�Yes, I am afraid of a road. A long single road from a tiny village out to a temple on a spit in the sea. That is where he went, to that temple.�

�You are exercising your considerable capacity to be exasperating,� said Aoi. �If you have found him, why didn�t you tell me at once?�

�Thith th-th-thick-headed��

�So now you would stammer as well as lisp! Stop that and explain yourself.�

�He went there, yes, that is certain. But I cannot go there.�

�Why not?�

He sighed.

�I boast, at times, when I am impressed with myself, that I can go anywhere in the city and not be noticed. A needy man shuffling along in his dirty clothes, keeping out of the way, pitiful even to himself � no one sees such a man. But in a little village? On a long straight road through sand and blowing grass?�

�I see. It is true, everyone would know you had passed, they would all see a stranger and go in their houses, send their children to warn their relatives and to fetch the estate warden.�

�I avoid wardens,� said the Combmaker with a wise nod.

�Ah,� said Aoi, exclaiming purely because a rush of gladness filled her. To leave, to make a journey, to have pressing reasons for visiting a remote and unknown place, to see the ocean in hot weather � she breathed in, and the world lifted away and its colors lightened. �I find,� she said, �that I must go myself to this temple.�

O-hana packed, a message was sent to the princess�s father, and men brought the princess�s second-best carriage, a light wicker one that would rock easily on rough roads. She would take two guards on horseback. The Combmaker was given suitable clothes � which O-hana would not let him wear until she had driven him into the bathhouse and personally scrubbed him all over � and they explained to the guards that he was to join them for the next few days. Aoi saw the looks of derision, the roughness with which the other two tossed him into his saddle, his panicked slide off the other side, and their grim insistence that he must ride, for who ever heard of a guard on foot, did he want to disgrace the princess, people would recognize this carriage, and... Aoi let her helper solve this dilemma on his own, and since he was to lead the way, she watched through the transparent front curtain of the carriage as his steadiness on the horse increased. Before they had entered open country, he was playing to perfection the part of overbearing guard.

The temple was only a day�s journey away. They arrived with no notice, yet the monks, all ancient men and untrained boys, received them with grave courtesy. �Lately,� they said, �we have grown quite accustomed to visitors.�

This gave Aoi the opening she needed for her questions, but the evening was darkening and she retired with O-hana into a hastily curtained-off space, ate the simple beans and rice they brought, loosened her clothing to let the breath of ocean reach her skin, and slept deeply. All night gently slapping waves seemed to slide just at the edge of her pallet, a natural sound and one that filled the whole world.

�Ah, the flute player,� they said in the morning. �He left.�

�Tell me,� said Aoi.

�He must have felt he was imposing on us, with such a large other party here.�

�There were others?�

�Yes. It was rather odd. Because they did not seem religious. The old one, though��

�Old?� Kunimori was, as far as Aoi knew, a man in the fullness of maturity.

They hesitated. �Well, he was not tidy. And he did not walk very surely.�

�Um.� Aoi was thoughtful.

�But he made such music, out there on the beach. He wasn�t the kind of man to disturb others.�

�Who were these others?�

�We never knew. They left rather poor gifts, they stayed only one night.�

�And did he leave with them?�

�No. He was at his usual place out there. It was stormy that day, and we worried about him.�

�He sat there all alone,� said one of the boys. �The wind blew so hard that his music was almost lost.�

Taira no Kunimori was not a person Aoi knew well, but she had gathered a sure sense of his character from the Combmaker�s report and it seemed that, troubled as he was, he might well want to sit on a lonely beach and blend music with wild nature.

But what had so upset him? Aoi thought that she was beginning to understand. �Could you describe your other visitors?�

Men, they answered, rich clothes, horses, guards. But their sparse store of descriptive words could not convey to Aoi enough particulars for her to identify them.

�Could you show me their gifts?�

And then she knew. Two brocade boxes held only one bolt each of silk, not enough for one set of vestments; one box had a family crest woven into the cloth of the cover, the other had a crest painted in ink on the top, two names that together meant only one thing: bribery.

The monks were watching Aoi�s deepening seriousness and they became uneasy. �When they didn�t come in from the beach, we sent a boy to search for them,� they said.

�Them?�

�Yes. There was a girl with him, his daughter.�

�Ah,� said Aoi.

�He searched the whole beach, but it was already dark and the flute player was not anywhere.�

�This was just yesterday?�

�Yes. Late, late. The boy missed the evening service.�

�Ah. Old, he seemed to you. Did he also seem blind?�

They were puzzled, they talked to each other, huddled away from such a serious mistake, to meet a blind man and not know it. But, �Yes,� they said, �yes, that must have been it.�

�It sometimes happens,� said Aoi, speaking also to the Combmaker, who sat in a corner, �that one�s sight fails instantly, something in the eyes falls apart when the yin is too strong and makes the blood thin, so that it surges into a place where it does not belong. This has long been reported to be true. I think that is what happened to this man. He was modest, not one to cause distress to others. But he seemed to be trying to sink himself into nature � sitting in the garden, listening to rain, the splash of oars. It must have seemed to him that the closest he could get to the world he had lost was to go to the sea. And his sad music was��

�You didn�t see him,� said a boy. �He was not sad. He played like�� But the boy had no words for such music. He stopped, thinking hard. �It was like birds,� he said.

�A fluttering?� asked Aoi. �High soaring?�

�Quiet. Like birds in their nest.�

�Yes.� Aoi regarded the boy with affection. He had expressed it perfectly after all, the way a long flute could imitate the serenity of cranes. �I fear that we may find something awful,� she said.

The princess�s guards came in then from the beach. He was not there, they said. No one at all was on the beach except some fishermen who had just come in with their catch.

The Combmaker listened, then stood up from his place against the wall and left the building without speaking. Aoi, having dreaded discovery of a body, tried to think what else they could do. O-hana came with a mix of raw vegetables, vinegar, and white bean paste. On the tray was a cup of tea, that rare herb from India.

�The monks had this,� O-hana said. �They use it to keep awake for their meditation. I promised we would send them more, and they gave me a few leaves.�

The tea was hot and weak and did not bring any new ideas.

Continuing their routine, the monks gathered on a shaded verandah to hold morning class for the boys. Low drones of recitation, added to the steady crash of waves and whine of wind under the eaves, gave Aoi a sense of impatience with herself, that she had come all this way, thinking in her pride that she could find a troubled man and restore him � to what? To his family? To his duty? To society? No, she thought wearily, to himself. Discontented, frustrated, she was almost dozing when she heard sounds at the shuttered door that protected her privacy.

�Thith thupid one!� said a voice, �to dreth like a guard meanth that you think like a guard.� The door rattled open, and he came sliding tipsily in, one gleaming eye cocked away from the other, until he arrived with a final bump and a smile before Aoi.

�May I prethent�� he turned back and another ragged figure entered and knelt, followed by a tiny child.

�I am Taira no Kunimori, and I am helpless to repay the trouble you have taken to find me. And this is � well, she doesn�t have a name, she says, but I call her Yuri because like a lily she closes up if you breathe on her. She has adopted me.�

After all the fuss of astonishment and welcome, after the Combmaker had explained that the guards were too used to proper behavior and reasoning to recognize a disheveled government official among boatmen; after food and wine and some discreet grooming by O-hana, Kunimori sat down with Aoi and the Combmaker � who would not give up the worn clothes he had exchanged for his guard uniform in order to resume his accustomed character � and began his explanation.

�Yes, I have been most unhappy. When my sight darkened so suddenly, I was in despair. Even though I have always met the world most closely through sound, how could I bear not to see it? It was too much to lose, I thought, and I tried to learn to see through hearing. But in my music I was finding scenes grander and more intense than any sounds that exist in the city. And so I left to look for a place where I could match those scenes made of music in the nature around me.�

�Ah. A seashore was the perfect place,� said Aoi, �full of sound.�

�This little girl came along, I don�t know why. She talks a lot, but she has led me through these rough country roads and finally I have stopped bruising myself. She doesn�t like it here, the ocean frightens her, there is too much noise, too much open space. And since our mistreatment and then our time on the boat that took us away to safety, she has become altogether silent, a most unnatural state, and I am worried.�

�Do tell us what happened.�

�They broke my flute�� All those listening drew in breath.

�Who?�

�The guards who came with the other visitors. I heard the crack of it on someone�s knee. And then it was only a rattling mass of splinters, and they shook the remains of it in my face and threatened to do the same to both my arms if I told anyone who I had seen at the temple. This child attacked them � she can be quite fierce.�

�She has been living on the streets; the children become rather wild,� said the Combmaker.

�You know her?�

�She was sent to find you.�

�Ah. Well, she bit. The man was furious, and he struck her. I can only tell you what I heard. He cried out that his wrist was bleeding with toothmarks, there was a sound like a stone thrown against a wall, the other man said to come away, was he afraid of such a tiny girl? They must have left, but I heard no footsteps because of the sand. I fell down and swept my arms about until I found her. She breathed, I thought, but she would not speak. I forgot my flute, the threat of broken arms, and in my rage I must have shouted as I rose up. The fishermen had just come to their boat � some sort of night catch, I know nothing of that skill � and they chased away those who had attacked us. Before we knew it, we were at sea, the girl and I, rocking about in a tiny cabin and sick the whole night long. She revived, but she is so quiet that I fear��

�It will not last,� said the Combmaker with a wry smile.

�I see.� After some thought to retrieve the thread of his tale, Kunimori went on. �I had thought to remain here and live a life of peaceful seclusion, but then those rich visitors came to the temple. I knew them, their voices, I have had dealings with them both � and that was a revelation that I did not need to see with my eyes. I knew what they were doing in their secret meeting though I would have preferred not to know. Oh well, I thought, let the former assistant to the Governor of Awa bribe the assistant to the Minister of Ceremonial to raise him a few grades in rank. He is a criminal who has burned the records of at least two retiring governors so that his thievery could not be discovered. Because the governors these days take office, accept their handsome remittances and personal staff, and then remain in the capital without ever being present in their provinces, the provincial assistants can divert tax goods to their own storehouses with no one to know. You are aware, I am sure, of many fortunes that have been created in just that way. Then, when it is time for the governor�s retirement and my office is to come into it to check the records, there is an accidental fire, and the records cease to exist. The next thing is high rank, which can be simply bought nowadays and is no longer purely hereditary, and soon the former low official is seen at court, he acquires an influential position, his favor is sought, and he becomes richer than ever. But I was leaving the world, I thought, and I would not trouble myself to report them.�

He stopped speaking. His face tightened, but when he resumed, it was in the light, pleasant voice of someone who reports the return of the sun on a cloudy day. �But they had smashed my flute and struck this child.�

All those listening became still. The sea tumbled and dragged on the sand outside, the wind made a sifting noise. Kunimori seemed to be thinking over the import of what he had just said, absorbing purpose, opening his mouth and stopping, as if to speak more would be to weep or to rage and he could not tell which would happen. O-hana passed him a cup of rice wine.

�It was then,� he said at last, �that I discovered my life, an existence as a moral and responsible man that I was not willing to give up. This�� he indicated the weathered wooden building, the beach, the endless march of waves onto the shore ��is all very well if you fit into it somewhere, if you are a part of it. But I find that I cannot idly observe, I must meet my duties.�

�Ah, but your flute!� Aoi said, pain and outrage in her voice.

�There are other flutes. I will not be threatened. They thought I had seen them, would recognize their faces, and even though they didn�t recognize mine and considered me a person not really worth bothering with, they sent their guards to follow me to the beach and frighten me. The flute, the little girl � it was pure careless evil, violence as affirmation of their own strength. The child could have died. I find myself angry; I have awakened to my own power as Minister of the Bureau of Records. I mean,� he said, �to do them harm.�

�You will remove them?�

�No. Oh no. I will advance them. I will see that they both become governors of remote provinces. I will insist that they reside there, an implied exile and they will know the reason for it. I will give them honest men as assistants and local men as deputies and field managers. They are quite strong for their rights in some of these outlands, they are warlike in solving their problems. These men will never have seen such warriors as are taking over in the east. They will not last long after their confiscating ways are discovered.�

Aoi thought of the princess�s father, how he would enjoy this tale of a dutiful minister.

The Combmaker spoke, �This girl who helped you, this strangely silent one here, she has no family and perhaps...�

�Yes,� said Kunimori, �I admit now that I cannot see except darkly at the edges. I will need someone to lead me. And as a return I will teach her to play the long flute.�

�Oh,� said the girl, rushing to him from her corner, all knobby bones and flying hair. �You will not make me live in a house, will you? You will not let them scrub my face like she just did? You will not��

�First,� said Kunimori, �you should see the house and then you can decide.�

�But,� she said, and putting her nose close to his chin, holding his face with both hands to make him listen, she continued her objections, beginning each one with �You won�t make me��

�No. No. Of course not,� he replied, over and over.

The Combmaker turned to Aoi. �I think I have just lost one of my best helpers,� he said. �By tomorrow she will have him completely tamed.�

�Yes. Though she starts with total refusal, she will, for the rest of his life, be persuaded to accept civilizing comforts one after the other.�

I never dreamed I�d be living up here.

I�d only been out of that god-awful prison a few months when Lew and me moved into this camp up Mountain View Hollow.

It was an art heist gone haywire that got me two and a half years in that federal prison up near Bradford, but it was overcrowding and good behavior that got me out on parole early.

The old weatherbeaten clapboard hunting camp belonged to my deceased father�s brother out in Ohio somewhere. I hardly even knew him, but because he was getting on in age and rarely humped these steep northwestern Pennsylvania mountains hunting any more, and knew Lew and me needed someplace to squat, he let us move in free. All I had to pay was the electric bill. �Course, everything in the place is electric except the heat, which is a wood stove. No TV or phone either. So, it�s been rugged living, especially for Lew.

But there�s a real sense of peacefulness and freedom living up this hollow, in these mountains; a freedom and peace I never knew in the federal stir I was in, confined with the likes of that disgusting Ollie West, my cellmate for a while until they threw him into solitary, and having to put up with nasty guards like John �Mr. Big� Bigley and all the others who tormented and bullied me. So I liked the freedom of Mountain View Hollow a lot right off. And I learned to like it more and more as time went on.

Besides me and Lew (Lew�s my younger brother who can�t hear, reads lips, and talks only by signing), the only other permanent residents up this hollow are old Ma �The Sarge� Duncan on her sprawling farm at the top of the hill, which, I suppose, is where the hollow got its name � she�s got one hell of a sweeping view across the entire Allegheny mountain range from up there � and, of course, there�s Bob, who lives a half mile farther up the hollow, past me on the right.

Bob�s retired out of Pittsburgh, where most of his family still lives. It was while we were staying at his place taking care of his animals that all that shooting and killing and everything else went on, which is what I�m setting out to tell you about.

The four of us (me, Lew, Ma Duncan, and Bob) are like a family isolated in the shady folds of these mountains. We take care of each other, especially in the winter when we get snowed in, separated from the outside world. It�s good to have family.

The rest of the buildings along the dirt road, which splits the mountains like a peach pit, are hunting camps � about a dozen of them sitting empty most of the year. A couple of them camps don�t have nobody come to them ever.

It�s all right with me that they stand empty though �cause that�s how I make my money, and with that money and Lew�s SSI check, it gives us enough to stay alive.

Watching over most of them camps is what I get paid for. It�s my job (to be let out on parole I had to have a paying job) to make sure they don�t get busted into while their owners are gone, don�t get burnt to the ground, don�t have no porcupines gnawing away at the back porches of the camps, collapsing them. Sometimes I take my old unregistered pickup out into the woods and get them flatlanders� firewood I cut from standing dead trees; sometimes I do light labor around their camps: mow the lawn, keep the weeds cut back, patch a roof, things like that.

Lew helps, too. He might not be the brightest squirrel in the forest, but he�s got a strong back and an even stronger heart and he can split a load of firewood with a maul faster than I can chunk it with a chain saw. We make a good team, Lew and me, and I�m glad I went and got him out of that home the minute I got out of prison.

I think Lew�s glad I come got him, too.

But anyway, to get to this shooting and killing thing, one day Bob stopped by my place and asked if I�d be willing to take care of his trailer and pets for a week while he was down in Pittsburgh at a family gathering. I could live right there in the comfort of his place for the entire week, he said. Watch TV, even.

I�d been to his trailer quite a few times, naturally, so I knew that by pets he meant his big bourbon-colored cat named Whiskey, a sick, ailing dog named Dog, who just loved Lew by the way, and about fifteen ducks Bob was raising in a pond he had dug out when he first moved into his place.

Bob pulled in a nice new seventy foot mobile home, a deluxe double-wide model with two extra bedrooms, large living room, small kitchen � plenty of space for a guy living alone with his sick dog and his cat. The ducks waddle about the property around the trailer.

Every day Bob goes out and scrounges through the brush hunting down fresh duck eggs and takes them up to Ma Duncan, who uses them for cooking things like homemade sourdough bread.

She always drops Bob off a couple of warm loaves whenever she drives by his place in that old beat-up Ford wagon of hers, and farther down the road she usually drops me and Lew off some bread. In the fall she brings us fresh gardengrown vegetables. She does great homemade berry pies, too, the aroma so warm, sweet, and thick rising off them pies you can almost chew the smell.

In exchange for her generosity and kindness, Lew and me often walk up the dusty road to the top of the mountain to do light chores (and sometimes heavy chores) for her. Ma Duncan is getting up in age and is limited a bit on what she can manage around her farm now. But I�m always glad to help her any time I can � we�re family, like I told you.

But here I am, wandering again in my thoughts.

So I go down to see Bob and get my instructions about taking care of his pets for that week.

I picked a brochure from the rack and walked the length of The Alley. It was a pleasant oasis in the middle of Whitefork�s slum. The brochure told me that the property had come down through the distaff side to the two remaining sisters of the Weiser family, who, in honor of their childhood when the area was a happier place, had determined to restore it.

It had everything. A fancy grocery, a jewelry store, an art gallery showing the work of local artists. All supported by the Weisers, with the shop folk recruited from the local population.

At the far end of The Alley, hidden, discreet, and in keeping with the sisters� intent to make the neighborhood entirely self-sufficient, stood the Weiser Funeral Home, owned by the brother, Alan, who (according to the brochure) benefited thus from the generosity of his sisters while not being a part of the inheritance itself. Mr. Weiser also benefited from an entrepreneurial bent: in the space behind the shops were the rest of the services needed for a happy life, and Alan Weiser had at least part ownership in a laundry, an auto body shop, a hardware store, a pharmacy, and a stationer�s.

The sisters, in order to encourage the carriage trade, had deemed it necessary to bring some kind of order to the rambling homeless, and to achieve that, a shelter had been built in which one could get a meal and a night�s rest in exchange for some kind of work in the shelter itself. �We�ll help those who help themselves,� the sisters would say in a twist on the proverb, to which one or the other would quickly suggest that it was all in God�s hands... they were instruments only.

It was the shelter that had brought Frank Santucci and me to this area. More specifically, it was Mr. Dickenson, director of The Sisters� Shelter, who had sought Frank�s assistance in a matter of disappearances.

�I�m not really sure that there are any missing people,� he had told Frank. �What I do know is that Bony is missing. As for the others, it�s difficult to say. As missing persons go, it�s not really alarming; I would just like to be sure about Bony.� He paused, then continued: �He was a friend, you see.�

�Why would you think Bony is missing while not being sure about others?� Frank asked.

�The Sisters� Shelter has two kinds of patrons, Mr. Santucci. One kind is more or less transient. Others work in the shelter, actually looking to make a life here or to put a life back together. Bony hadn�t been here long, a few months maybe, but he was a regular.�

�He moved here from somewhere else. Maybe he just decided to move again?�

Mr. Dickenson shook his head. �Bony was so called because that�s what he was. Bony and old. Somewhere in his late eighties. He was at the shelter to wait out the rest of his life. He wouldn�t have moved on.�

�You�ve talked to the police?�

Mr. Dickenson had nodded. �Yes. They looked. But they�re not going to put much effort into trying to find a missing bum who probably took a wrong turn one night and simply didn�t come back.�

At that point I had taken my walk through The Alley, and now, as I headed back to The Sisters� Shelter, Frank and Mr. Dickenson were still deep in conversation. Frank had asked, �How many, Mr. Dickenson? Besides Bony.�

The reply was prompt. �Three, I think. Four with Bony. Over a period of some five years. I�m sorry to be so vague, but Bony�s the only one I�m sure of.�

�Any similarities?�

Dickenson thought and started to shake his head, then recalled something. �As I told you before, Bony was ancient, nearly at the end of his life. I think that one other was also quite old. The other two I�m not really sure about; it�s been a long time.�

�Is there any way you can find out?�

�I keep journals,� he said. �I probably should have looked at them before talking to you, but I don�t really see any need. We�re looking for Bony, you know.�

�Yes,� said Frank. �Perhaps you could check your journals and let Nick know.� They shook hands, and Frank came down the steps to where I was standing. �We have a case, Nick, and I have a feeling you�re not going to like it.�

He was smiling when he said it, but something about his eyes suggested he was right: I was not going to like it. I waited.

�You�re going to go undercover.�

�Undercover.� I cleared my throat. �Undercover could mean panhandling, dumpster diving, and carrying my stuff in a shopping bag.�

�Undercover means exactly that.�

�How in hell am I going to pass as a bum?�

�I have faith, Nick. I think you have it in you.�

My sister Bitsy called the other morning and asked me over for a cup of tea and a piece of strudel. Homemade strudel, hot from the oven. If I�d held the receiver out, you could have smelled the apple and cinnamon and mouthwatering, flaky pastry over the phone. It was a nice invitation, very warm and sisterly. So tempting. Which just goes to show what a sad sack I am because it only made me suspicious. I can�t help it. It�s my nature. As our late mother used to say, it takes two to tangle, and the two she had in mind were Bitsy and me.

Not that we always tangle. Our relationship can�t be characterized that simply. It�s more like we�re involved in some lifelong dance. We glide along nicely for awhile, and then we hit a dip and pose dramatically at opposite ends of our sibling bond, often exchanging words not generally associated with dancing. But we always get swept up by the music again and renew the uneasy grace in our lives. If that sounds something like the tango, well, that also takes two. And it doesn�t look as though either one of us is bowing out anytime soon.

Bitsy�s latest passion, that which had me feeling leery of her tempting invitation, has had her grubbing around the family roots. The genealogy bug bit her, and she�s been working at spreading the infection. She�s been sifting through papers and records and writing letters and e-mailing far and wide. What she�s ended up with is an inflated vision of our family and the dream of someday publishing a little book detailing our illustrious lineage. Which she will expect me to sell in my bookstore. I dread the day. Not that we haven�t had our flashier moments and some respectable accomplishments. But ancestor hunting has never thrilled me. And books like that tend to petrify on my shelves.

So I was tentative on the phone, wondering what might lie behind this overture.

�Margaret,� she finally said, sounding exasperated. �Why are you making such a production out of this? It�s tea. It�s strudel. Just come over and have some.�

I hung up, admiring her unusual succinctness. Was this a new leaf she�d turned over whilst investigating the family tree? The only way to find out, I decided, was to trot around to her house, something my tastebuds and tummy had been begging me to do all along. I could always gallop back home again if it turned out she had a hidden agenda.

�Tom-tom, tom-tom-tom!� went the drums.

The two lines of Indian maidens and young men in their ceremonial costumes of embroidered doeskin, turquoise necklaces, and eagles� feathers, wavered forward and back, hesitated and glided sideways, like tasseled cornstalks swaying in the wind. Each girl carried beneath her serape a newly made ornamental basket � token of fertility. If Slatsina were pleased, there would be rain and a full harvest; if not, drought and famine. Hence, they danced solemnly and with reverence, invoking the favor and cooperation of the Cloud Beings � since corn was their life. Leading the maidens was a slender girl who despite the weight of her basket and her many chains of turquoises carried herself proudly erect. The flush on her bronzed skin was like the purple bloom of the wild plum.

�Who is that lovely creature?� asked Ephraim Tutt of his friend Sheriff Brady as they sat in the latter�s motorcar among the crowd of tourists, cowboys, and Spanish-Americans assembled on the dusty piazza of the Cocas Pueblo for the annual Basket Dance.

�That�s Tamo-yoa-powi � �Dawn Flower,�� replied Sheriff Brady. �She�d make some o� them Hollywood babies look like pikers! She was down to the Indian Boarding School for four years, but she didn�t like the �white way.� She�s pure Cocas, and a high-stepper. Her dad Agoyotsire was a big cacique when he was alive, but Tasikuma her mama is a tough old bitch!�

�And that young Indian opposite her?�

�That�s Okuwahpee � �Cloud Prayer Feather� � assistant to Oyike Sendo � the one they call �Ice Hard Old Man.� Some day he�ll be Oyike Sendo himself � if he lives. He�s a good boy!�

He looked it, this lithe youth with grave aquiline features and eagle�s feather dangling from his coiled black locks. In one hand he held a prayer stick, in the other he rattled a gourd in time to the tom-tom of the drums. Lining each side of the square in front of the stepped-back adobe pueblos were two or three hundred Cocas Indians in fiesta costume, the elders grouped about the two drummers. Whites as well as Indians all stood motionless, enthralled by the beauty and sincerity of the dance. Although after six o�clock, it was still hot, the sky without a cloud, the air dry and brittle. Across the sagebrush-dotted salmon-pink valley of the Rio Grande smoldered the snowcapped Jemez ridge, its canyons veiled in translucent and ever deepening lavenders, blues, and purples. The shadows of the dancers were moving fingers on the white parchment of the piazza, writing their appeal to the Cloud Beings. Forward and back, sideways, forward and back. The girl kept her eyes upon the ground. Not once did she glance at the young cacique, nor he at her.

The sheriff poked Mr. Tutt in the ribs. �See that fat buck down there?� he whispered, indicating a squat Indian with pigtails protruding from beneath his large felt hat. �That�s old Spotted Dog, the richest man in the pueblo but a bad hombre. I�ve arrested him half a dozen times for drunkenness, and he�s always in trouble over women. Looks as if he�s got Dawn Flower marked down, all right.�

�You mean she�d marry that old ruffian?�

The sheriff just missed scoring a liquid bull�s-eye on an incautious lizard.

�It would be a shame, of course, but these Cocan girls don�t have much say about that sort of thing. Spotted Dog�s been married five times. His last wife disappeared over six months ago and no one knows where she is. So now he�s lookin� for another. He�s a big catch for an Indian, even if he is a lousy, lyin�, lecherous half-breed. If he wants her, he�ll get her! Look at the old bastard!�

Mr. Tutt looked, and his aged heart rose in revolt. Spotted Dog�s obsidian eyes were following every movement of Dawn Flower�s figure with sensual gratification. From time to time he moistened his lips. The Old Man hated to think of what would be the girl�s fate if she fell into the half-breed�s clutches.

Perhaps it was because Mr. Tutt�s disgust showed so clearly on his face or perhaps merely because Spotted Dog didn�t like the sheriff, but conscious of being the object of their attention, he removed his corn-husk cigarette and with malevolent deliberation squirted a yellow stream in their direction.

At that instant the sun dropped below the burning crests in a saffron glow; to the east the snowy range of the Sangre de Christos changed to lavender, to mauve, to purplish blue. The drummers accelerated their tempo to a frenzied roll. The climax of the dance was at hand. Dawn Flower sprang in front of her companions, threw open her serape, and tossed her basket high in the air. The young braves with shrill cries rushed forward in a body to capture it, but Cloud Prayer Feather, leaping up amid the whoops and yells of the onlookers, caught it above their heads. For an instant he stood there looking at Dawn Flower, but although their eyes met, their faces remained without expression. Then the drums stopped, and the dancers scattered.

Night, as always on the desert, fell swiftly. A breeze sprang up and sent a tumbleweed bouncing across the fast-emptying piazza. The mountains became masses of vague gray. The stars came out as if thrown on by a switch. They seemed startlingly near. Through the open doorways of the pueblos drifted the sweet smoke of pi�on wood fires, dimly illuminating whitewashed interiors.

The sheriff started the car across the square, past McCann�s Trading Post and Hotel, through the scattered houses of the town of Cocas, and out onto the starlit desert aromatic with the odor of sage, of pine, of juniper, and of chimosa. But Mr. Tutt was oblivious to its beauty. He was thinking of a young and graceful Indian girl doomed to union with a half-breed satyr.

�I can�t � I won�t believe it!� he repeated indignantly.

�You don�t know the half of it!� retorted the sheriff. �Indians is different from white folks. A pure Navajo or Cocas regards us Anglos as inferiors. You see, they�ve been here thousands of years, long before the days of the conquistadors, when Coronado came up from Old Mexico in 1540 lookin� fer the Seven Cities of Cibola. He didn�t find no gold, but he did find thousands of Pueblo Indians living in the sides of cliffs or in big rookeries piled up on the mesas, and so he started in to Christianize �em. They was a peaceful, goodnatured bunch, and because they didn�t want no trouble, they accepted the King of Spain as their boss and let the padres baptize �em, just like Coronado told �em to do. But the Spaniards treated �em plenty tough, and when the Indians got a chance, they revolted, massacred the padres, and went back to their old religion. Of course they got licked in the end. It�s quite a story.�

�Yes, quite a story!� agreed the Old Man, who knew the legends of Fra Marcos, of the black slave Estevan, of the false Turcos, and of Coronado�s blistering trek in search of the Grand Quivira � the fabulous jeweled city. For an instant he seemed to see vague shapes in armor straggling across the starlit desert.

he murmured. �The Indians are all Christians now, aren�t they?�

�Sure, on the surface. It�s a queer setup � nuthin� like it, so fer as I know, anywhere�s else. They go to Mass, keep the saints� days, and respect �the Sunday Jesus� as they call him, but they go right on worshipping their old gods, too, and, between you and me, think a hell of a lot more of �em than of the new ones. Everything an Indian does is tied up with their old religion and has its own particular ceremony � like this Basket Dance, fer instance. They have their own tribal caciques and officials, and what goes on in the kiva no one knows but themselves. Everything is decided in secret by their Council of Elders according to the old traditions.�

�Do you mean they�re allowed to run their own affairs?�

�Practically. The Treaty gives �em entire jurisdiction over their communal property, domestic relations, and minor criminal offenses inside the pueblo, with their own government, consisting of a toyo � or governor, who with his police assistants is supposed to keep order and administer justice. We call �em �the Spanish set,� but they�re only a screen for the real authority exercised by the council. The big boss who really runs the whole show is Oyike Sendo, Ice Hard Old Man. Outside the reservation, of course, they�re subject to the state laws of New Mexico same as anybody, and so is any property they happen to own there individually.�

As a lawyer Mr. Tutt was interested in this dual authority, one apparent, the other genuine.

�Suppose an Indian goes really bad? Commits a murder in the pueblo or some other serious crime?�

�In that case the Federal government steps in, and we try to do something about it. Otherwise the council takes care of �most everything and punishes the offenders in its own way.�

�How about matrimonial affairs? Take this girl Dawn Flower. Suppose Spotted Dog wants to marry her, how will he go about it?�

�Each pueblo has its own customs. Here in Cocas he goes to see her mother. She decides. If she�s in favor of it, they�re married according to the Indian ritual � which consists merely of a feast and a prayer by a cacique. If they�re particular, they can go outside the pueblo and be married like ordinary white folks in church or before a justice of the peace.�

�And if the girl refuses?�

�Then it�s just too bad. Her mother probably kicks her out.�

�So a Cocas girl hasn�t got much chance to follow the dictates of her own heart?� demanded Mr. Tutt.

�I�ll say she hasn�t!� replied Mr. Brady. �She does what her old woman tells her � or else!�