I sit in a small room in the medical examiner�s office.

I am here to identify a body.

It�s a sterile place made no less sterile by plastic flowers in a plastic vase. Pink and white � the flowers. The vase is a form of gray.

The boxy chamber might have been a waiting room for a doctor with an obscure specialty and few patients. Four chairs, three of them matching.

I pick the odd one. It creaks as I sit.

I�m wearing what I wear most days, a plaid sport coat � today navy blue � and tan slacks. I place my hands on my knees.

A woman enters. She blinks. Perhaps she doesn�t see many people here who�re my age: thirty-three. I stare at her the way one might at an apparition, if one believed in apparitions, though she bears no resemblance to Pax. She is not with the medical staff but a grief counselor. The kindly woman sits and bends toward me, at just the right angle. She�s practiced this. She says many things, in a soft voice, eyes locked onto mine, whether I glance toward her or not. She gives me a card.

A man steps inside. He has gray hair, jowls. Plaid jacket too, though his is brown. His slacks are blue. One nail needs trimming and his watch, an OMEGA, is five minutes fast. He exudes staunch sympathy. He and the counselor share a nod. After giving me a firm handshake, the woman leaves.

The man identifies himself as the county medical examiner. After we sit, he assumes the same forward-leaning angle as the counselor. He withdraws two photographs from a file folder, asking me if they are of my wife, Patience Susan Addison. Here, in Martinsville County, Massachusetts, one doesn�t identify the corpse itself by looking at the body in a file cabinet tray, the way it works in TV crime shows and perhaps other jurisdictions.

The pictures are color printouts, four-by-fives. Maybe they�ve discovered that larger pictures are more likely to ignite hysteria.

I look at the heart-shaped face, her eyes closed, complexion understandably paler than when she was among the living. There are no scars or bruises. She died of a broken neck. A different camera angle would have revealed that, I know.

I regard a second photograph. The tattoo of a ginkgo leaf on her ankle.

�Yes. That�s her.�

And it�s completed. I ask if there are forms to fill out.

�No.�

�Am I supposed to take them?�

After a brief pause the ME says, �No, but if you want photos, I think the mortician can do something for you.�

I�d been referring to the plastic flowers.

I walk out into the fierce June sun. I climb into my white SUV and return home. In the kitchen I see two mugs in the dish drainer on the cluttered counter. One mine, one Pax�s. I take mine and make a cup of coffee with the Keurig machine. The flavor is hazelnut.

I sit at the table and see before me the pad of foolscap on which I�d been writing the afterword to a book I�ve nearly completed about the process of historical research. It will not be a Times bestseller, but quite a few professors and grad students can be counted on to buy the slim volume.

I read the words I was composing when the deputy called me, the sentences in careful script, blue ink on jaundiced paper.

I look up from the passage and gaze out the window at the red-blooming camellias hugging the stained panes. I tuck the pad into a manila folder and lean back in the chair, eyes on the ceiling.

I have plans to make.

The funeral unfolds as funerals will. Somber, awkward and predictable.

Pax�s parents arrived from North Carolina, her sister from St. Louis. An only child, I have no close family in the area. My own mother and father died some years ago. An uncle � my father�s brother � and his wife and their sons flew in from California. I appreciate this. The service is well attended: friends, fellow professors of mine, colleagues from Pax�s endowment office � we worked for the same college. Seventy or eighty are present.

At the appointed time, a gentle, studiously solemn man closes the chapel�s double doors, shutting out the brilliant day. He nods the family to the front. We take our seats.

Reverend Phil does a fine job, considering that Pax and I were Christmas and Easter parishioners, and only then when Bob and Martha, her parents, were in town.

Then the eulogies. Janet and I planned the choreography. Her sister, three years younger, would offer anecdotes about Pax�s early days. I would deliver the more recent material.

Janet is clever and thoughtful and in control. And it�s just as well she took over Pax�s childhood and teens since what husband of five years retains � or ever knew � all the facts of the pre-spouse days? In Pax�s case, that was twenty-five years of details: thirty minus those that we were together.

There was much Pax hadn�t shared with me. She was quite an athlete, apparently. She fenced, competed in triathlons. She followed the Warren Miller approach to extreme skiing. �My sister told me you should never jump off a sixty-foot cliff, until you�ve mastered jumping off a forty-foot one.�

Drawing mild laughter and some tears.

And though I knew she had backpacked overseas after college, I learn only now that she�d been there for three whole years, making her living at the good deeds that became her profession and passion. When working for Food for Humanity on a stint in Central Africa, she�d faced down a warlord who was demanding rice for his soldiers. The man had regarded her stony gaze and retreated.

Pax Addison had quite the stony gaze.

Janet concluded with, �Charity work was her soul.�

Then my turn: How Patience became Pax (she had always liked the Latin for �peace�). Her boldly painting her office walls at home with comic book superheroes. The found dog we spent a month trying to return to its owner, a successful mission ultimately. Our sporadic hobby of refinishing antiques. Some disasters in the kitchen. A ski trip that ended in my visit to the ER, because I didn�t know there was a left ski and a right ski. Her unstoppable efforts to tap wealthy benefactors like trees at sap season and replenish the college�s bank account. Her volunteering for Heart-in-Hand, which provided assistance for the disabled and elderly.

It was upon returning from an assignment for this organization that she plunged off Route 420 on Palmer Mountain and died. A fact I do not, of course, share.

Janet wins the Toastmaster award, it appears, which I am pleased with. It�s fitting. And the attendees surely want to give me a participation prize, grateful for my not breaking down in uncomfortable sobs.

Neither Martha nor Bob, far more dazed than I, rise to speak. Friends and a coworker offer accounts.

A typical service.

Somber, awkward and predictable...

I awake thinking not of Pax, but of the man in the black car. The Man in Gray.

Hiding, not hiding. Staring at me.

I�m looking to my left, to Pax�s side of the bed. Her pillow was indented with the vague shape of her side-sleeping head. I threw it out the morning after she died.

Bathroom, getting dressed. Casual today: Blue jeans. A short-sleeved, collared shirt, which happens to be mostly black, but that�s a coincidence. It�s one of the last clean ones, not mourning garb.

I feel soft. I haven�t been following my �workout� routine; that is, the house and yard. Pax and I mountain biked occasionally but the bulk of my exercise is maintaining and renovating the rambling, three-story cornflower-blue Victorian (I will finish the backyard shed, I tell myself and then think, no, I�m going to rip out the studs and burn them).

I think of how different it�d be if we had had children, which Pax did not want. As a professor of history, I frequently consider what-ifs, and challenge my students to do so too. General Meade pursuing Lee�s retreating troops after Gettysburg � the early end of the Civil War. Kennedy getting the flu on November 21, 1963 � we�re out of Vietnam in fourteen months.

With children in the family, yes, Pax would be alive now.

Of course, meditation on the butterfly effect can drive you crazy.

A knock on the door. The silhouette through the curtain tells me it�s Brooke Hartford. The height, the hips would do it, but the true tell is the cowgirl hat.

�Morning,� I say.

�Hey.� Her customary greeting. She�s back in El Paso attire and is toting two things: an envelope that will contain chapters of my book she�s edited and a large Tupperware container.

�You really didn�t need to.� I have food enough to last for a month and am nearly out of freezer space.

�You�re not eating, Jon. It�s turkey tetrazzini.�

Anxiety and memory have killed my appetite. In the past few days, despite my lax workout routine, I�ve lost seven pounds, which is obvious on my six-foot, two-inch frame.

I hand her the next batch of chapters and she hugs me, whispering, �Eat.�

Seeing her to the door, I notice a car pull up, a dark sedan. I think of the Man in Gray, but this is not his. Extra antennae bristle. An unmarked law enforcement car.

A large man climbs out of the driver�s seat. His suit is dark, his shirt white, his tie striped red and blue. He�s fit and his belly rolls only slightly over a belt that holds a gold badge, slightly smaller than, though of the same shade as, an elaborate buckle. The mustache is bushy.

His head turns and he watches Brooke stride down the front walk.

He approaches the house and affects a faint smile. �Professor Talbot?�

�Yes?�

He flashes an ID. The picture is five years younger than the living face. �Detective Roland Bragg, County Public Safety.�

I nod and we shake hands.

�I�m sorry for your loss.�

�Thank you. Come on in.�

He steps into the entryway, eyes taking in the house. Before leaving for their respective homes around the country, the family and other funeral houseguests had left the place more immaculate than when they arrived.

�I�m sorry to trouble you, Professor. Every accident investigation, we have to do a report for the state. There�re just a couple questions I have left. You okay to talk to me about it? I can come back.�

I stare out the window at a robin jotting nervously around the yard. �No, rather get stuff like this over with.�

�I understand. We�re almost done with the paperwork. Do you know if your wife was on the phone at the time of the crash?�

Considering this. �Why?�

�The state compiles stats on distracted driving. Same with speeding, DUI.�

�She didn�t drink and drive.�

�Oh, I wasn�t suggesting that, sir. The blood results showed that.� His voice is kind, though a different type of kind from that of the grief counselor. �Not at all. But... any reason to think she might�ve been on the phone?�

�I doubt it. She was a good driver.�

�She was going pretty fast.�

�I know. But...� I shrug.

�So she wasn�t talking to you?�

�No.�

�Any chance I could take a look at her phone?�

There might be a reason to object to this but I can�t think of any. Then I reflect that I could easily gin up some excuse or another. I just don�t feel like objecting.

�It�d be in here.�

I lead him into the living room. On the floor is a large cardboard box that contains the items in the car when it crashed. I heft it to the coffee table, which Pax and I refinished, stripping off the ugly green paint to reveal beautiful, rich walnut. The job took nearly a year. The box isn�t taped, but the top flaps are interleaved to make a seal of sorts. I tug them apart.

I rummage. There�s a small fire extinguisher, probably expired, some novels, a TomTom GPS, a bottle of Dasani water, an empty Dunkin� Donuts coffee cup, an add-on backup camera from a prior car, unnecessary as the Altima came with one built in. The Nissan tools and manuals are here. The insurance company owns the car now but those accessories aren�t of any interest to a potential buyer, who will strip the usable parts and turn the car into a block of metal and plastic and ship it off to China.

I frown. �Hm. Don�t see it.�

I try her purse. Not there either.

Pax�s volunteer job for Heart-in-Hand took her to Cooper, some distance from Dover Hills, and if she worked late, as she sometimes did, she would stay at a motel, and she�d take a change of clothes with her. I open her gym bag and, after a moment�s hesitation, dig through the clothes. A fragrance of GIVENCHY spirals up. What draws a person to a particular scent? Eau de cologne flowed in pre-revolutionary France � not a bad practice, given that the populace bathed at most once or twice a year. The excitement of 1789, and the following years of turmoil, ended the bourgeois practice of self-scenting but Napoleon brought back its popularity. He hated only musk, which is what Jos�phine flooded Versailles with after he left her for Marie-Louise. I�ve been to the palace and believe I can still detect the scent.

I filter much through the lens of history.

�It�s not here,� I tell the detective.

Bragg looks over my shoulder and seems content that I haven�t missed the device.

�That�s fine, sir. I can put in the paperwork there�s no evidence of distracted driving. They�ll be fine with that.�

We shake hands once more. �Again, truly sorry for the loss.�

I nod. �Anything else? You said you had a couple of questions.�

�Did I? Just the one, really. About the phone. Take care, Professor.�

The solid man tugs at his belt, resulting in a flare of sun off both badge and buckle. He leaves and I close the door after him.

I return to the living room, fold carefully each piece of clothing, and replace them one by one.

And I think: Do detectives usually fill out accident reports?

The drive to the Martinsville County Public Safety Office takes a half hour.

Inside, the d�cor is nondescript. You�d expect Wanted posters everywhere. But there are none. This place looks like where you�d buy insurance or have your taxes done or get a flu shot. Only here there are no magazines, and a formidable bulletproof-glass window shields the desk sergeant or whatever her rank.

In a gray, pressed uniform, Deputy Terry Garner appears in the doorway and gestures for me to follow him. We arrive in his cluttered office. He�s stocky in the way of men a dozen years past school linebacking. His scalp is fuzzy, early bald. His bleary eyes suggest little sleep. The Public Safety Office is small and I know from the local news that this has been a busy week. While I have been focused on one particular fatality, another death would be under investigation: a young woman was found in the Oneida River and the evidence suggests someone drowned her.

�How�re you holding up, Jon?� This part of Massachusetts, far west, has plenty of New York and Pennsylvania transplants but Terry�s voice attests to his roots in South Boston.

I can�t fire off the one-day-at-a-time clich�. I give a shrug. We were in high school together, friends, though not close. Future historians can be bully fodder, especially string-bean teenagers, and more than once Terry, a boy of much muscle, intervened on my behalf; apparently justice and law and order intrigued, even then.

�What can I do you for?�

�Just saw Detective Bragg.� I look around. �His office near here?�

�No, detectives�re on the other side of the building. With the brass. We�re in the grunt pen. You need him?�

�No, just he was asking some questions and that brought up something kind of funny.�

�Funny?�

�Funny odd. Patience�s things you brought over? That box and her gym bag? And thanks for that.�

�Nothing.�

�You were at the scene?�

His voice lowers in volume. �After they took her away, yeah.�

�Well, her phone was missing. Computer was too.�

His frown is the equivalent of a head scratch. �Really? Fire gave me everything they found. Popped the trunk, glove compartment. Looked under the seats even. She had them with her, you�re sure?�

�Like everybody. Never without the electronics.�

�Would she stop on the way home? A gym? I know she was athletic.�

�No, she didn�t do gyms. She ran. Calisthenics.�

His body shifts and I think he�s about to joke, along the lines of �She�s a better woman than I am.� Decides it�s in bad taste.

�Maybe left �em at a restaurant?�

�No, she told me she was coming straight home and we�d have a bite when she got here. Anyway, even if she did, forgetting both of them, phone and computer? People don�t do that.�

�Well, Jon, the windows were open. The sunroof too. Maybe they flew out, you know, when the car rolled.�

Pax loved driving fast, with the wind in her hair. She drove a motorcycle in college and for a little while after. She longed for a convertible. But we ended up buying her Baby, a Nissan sedan of the sort that retirees drove or was handed down from an older brother or sister to younger when the latter turned sixteen. But, with the optional engine she�d wanted, it could still move.

Detective Bragg had been right about her driving �pretty fast.� When she plowed off the highway on Palmer Mountain she�d been doing close to seventy. In a fifty-five zone.

�Let me ask you, Terry. After an accident, people come by? Look for things. I�m talking, to scavenge.�

�Hell yes.� His round face dims. �Damn hyenas.�

�I never asked, you look for witnesses?�

�Was nobody around that time of night, that part of the mountain. Just the driver who saw the wreck, after, and called. Couldn�t�ve been him. He stuck around. And stealing a phone and computer? Why go to jail when you get brand new ones on Amazon for not that much.�

After a moment I say, �Think I�ll go over there and look around.�

He hesitates. �You sure you want to?�

�I�m sure I don�t.�

�Tell you what. I�ll come with you.�

�You don�t need to.�

�Pretty much I do.� His jaw is staunch. �If something got took, stealing from an accident scene? I would love to pay that fellow a visit.�

We approach the spot where my wife veered off the two-lane road and died.

I�m following the MCPSO cruiser. The nose of my Nissan Pathfinder points up the steep hill. I pull onto the shoulder and park behind Terry.

I get out and join him. We walk to where her sedan left the road and tumbled down the steep slope of grass and dirt, rolling and rolling. Finally coming to rest just before a dense forest of oak, pine and hemlock, interlaced with an eerie tangle of brush.

I see on the asphalt a thick black skid mark from her panicked braking. At the end of the skid are dots and streaks of dark blood. This isn�t Pax�s, of course, since she died in the car well down the hillside. This dark-brown patch is from the unlucky deer.

�You been back since?� Terry asks.

�My first time.�

�You�re sure you�re okay with this?�

�I�m okay.�

Terry and I start down slowly � the incline must be twenty degrees or more � making a lazy S search pattern, staring at the ground as we make our way along and around the path of the Altima�s wild tumble. It is easy to follow; the ground is soft.

�Was it a big one? The computer?�

�Normal size. Not huge. Fifteen-inch, Dell. Silver.�

�And her phone?�

�iPhone. In a gold case.�

For a half hour we comb the ground.

�Couldn�t�ve gone that far. Was the computer in a bag?�

�I don�t know.�

�Hey. Got something here.� He bends down and picks up a mobile phone. �This hers?�

�Never seen that one.�

The deputy exhales � in surprise, it seems. �Well, this�s a burner. I know the brand. Prepaid.�

I watch TV. I know what a burner is. �Maybe it�s Heart-in-Hand�s. The charity she volunteered for.� He hands it to me. It doesn�t power up. �Maybe somebody else dropped it. Rescue worker.�

�Nobody reported missing one.�

�I�ll see if there�s a charger at home.�

We arrive at the place where the Altima came to a stop near the bottom of the valley, at a line of trees.

�Sorry, Jon. That�s a shame. Might be somebody did walk off with �em.�

�Not a huge deal. Just wanted the pictures mostly.�

�You could check the cloud, you know. Maybe she uploaded them.�

�I will.�

Then Terry�s eyes are on the ground, beside the muddy brook. �Well. Look here.� He�s gesturing at a bouquet of flowers � fresh � sitting where the Nissan had come to rest. The petals are yellow and pale red. He starts toward them.

�Watch your step there, Terry. It�s a bog.�

�Ah. Thanks.� He skirts the swamp and looks at the flowers, then at the broader area. �Footsteps too. But not from the rescue workers.� He�s frowning. �Looks like whoever left the flowers hiked down through the forest, not from 420.�

We�re gazing up into the woods, along an even steeper slope from the valley floor than the one we just hiked down from 420. At the top of that hill is Ellicott Road, an old logging trail, now paved.

Terry says, �Other thing is, maybe he � I�m going male � came all the way down here to scrounge the scene, bringing the flowers like a cover, an excuse to be here.� He picked up the flowers, wrapped in a black sash. �Don�t think I�ve seen this sort before. You know what they are?�

I tell him I don�t.

�I�ll ask a florist�r two. Maybe they�ll know who bought �em. Might be our thief.�

My eyes are on a pair of grackles, hunched in a pine bough. Then the sky, a circle of blue defined by the tips of the tall trees. I whisper, �Something�s wrong.�

�How�s that?�

I�m looking at Route 420, high above us. �Let�s climb back up.�

Together we start up the hill. I feel the softness again; my legs and chest labor as I climb.

Finally we crest the hill and both take a moment as our lungs settle.

�So.� Terry takes a long breath. �What is it?�

I look around, focusing on the asphalt. I ask, �What do you see?�

�Squashed squirrel.�

�What else?�

�Blood from the deer she hit.�

�Keep going.� I�ve slipped into my professorial mode. Historians are, at heart, detectives.

�A skid mark.�

�Exactly. Her car had two front brakes but there�s one skid mark.�

�Hmm.�

�Patience is driving along. She brakes hard��

Terry says, �But hits the deer anyway.�

�Put a pin in that thought, Terry. She brakes hard. Both front wheels should leave skid marks, right?�

He looks at the black line. �She drive with the ABS disabled? The antilock braking?�

�She did. Pulled the relay. She liked the control better. So, what do you think? Only the one skid mark. The left front tire. Why not two?�

He�s nodding slowly as he stares down. �You see that in a blowout, no marks.�

�But... a blowout at the same time she hits a deer?�

�Maybe the tire blew because she braked. How old were the tires?�

�Less than a year. Not old.� I�m looking up a hill covered with forsythia, juniper and yew. �Imagine this: Somebody�s across the road. There.� I point.

�Somebody?�

�And he takes out the right front with a shot.�

�Shot? A gunshot?� Terry is smiling, an expression that would come not from humor but from puzzlement.

�Pax runs off the road. The car tumbles, ends up in the valley.� I look downhill to the stream, the swamp, the mud. Dark water is everywhere.

�Well...�

I continue, �The deer?�

�That I put a pin in?�

�Then he drags a fresh carcass into the middle of the road, cuts it to get more blood. Makes it look like she veered but hit it anyway. Then he hikes down the hill��

�Jon��

�Let me ask you a question. How many fatal accidents you run in your career? You�ve worked, what, eight years?�

�Nine. And run fifteen, sixteen fatalities.�

�You ever know anybody to die from a broken neck? With all those airbags?�

�It can happen.�

�Maybe. But did you ever run an accident where it did?�

�No. You�re saying he�s down there and if she�s still alive, he breaks her neck.� He says this hesitantly, aware of whom he�s talking to and whom he�s talking about.

�That�s right.�

He considers this for a moment. �But then there�d be a bullet hole in the tire.�

�But he changes it. And takes the old one with him. Where would the county�ve taken Pax�s car?�

Terry hesitates, then says, �Probably Evan�s. Scrapyard.�

�And the deer?�

�A dead-deer place. I don�t know.�

I crouch and point to the road. �There.� It�s a shallow streak about two inches long in the asphalt. Just where it ends, the gravel shoulder begins.

�Could be from a slug, grant you that.� Terry crouches too, squints.

I step across the road and climb the brush-covered hill.

Grassy knoll, I think. I wrote a dissertation on the Kennedy assassination.

I aim an imaginary gun at the streak.

�Lines up, Terry. Perfectly.�

�But who�d kill her? Why?�

I join him on the highway. �Pax told me, about a month ago, she was in Cooper and got involved in this road rage thing. A man thought she cut him off. He threatened her. She called the police. She was worried enough to tell me to keep an eye out around the house. And at the funeral? I think he might�ve been there.�

I tell him about the Man in Gray.

�I�ll look into it. When did it happen, the road rage? Where?� Out comes his cop notebook.

I give him the approximate date and the location.

He puts the pad away. He says, �Listen to me.�

�I know. Bizarre. But, think about it: blowout at the same time that a deer runs in front of the car? That�s too much of a coincidence.�

He crosses his arms and sways slightly. He�s thinking. �Jon, I see this all the time.�

�What?�

�Mostly with car wrecks, fires, choking, drowning. God blinks, something stupid happens. The littlest thing, and a dad or mom or kid dies. Pointless. Everybody wants more. A human villain, that�s what they want. A conspiracy�s even better.�

Deer. Fate...

�Just give me a half hour of your time, Terry.�

We�re at Evan�s Scavenge and Scrap, a local institution.

Deputy Terry Garner and I walk through the sloppy, soupy yard toward where Pax�s Nissan sits, along with six other wrecks. These aren�t sun-bleached, like many of the others. This must be the spot for the newcomers.

The junkyard bristles and spreads over endless acres. There are chassis and engines and odd shapes of metal and oil drums and tires and spidery windshields everywhere. It could be the set for a dystopian movie.

I�m looking over the wreck. It�s totaled. But the designers in Osaka or Detroit or Guadalajara know what they�re about, and the roof stands as tall as on that dealership lot in Clemson when we signed the papers and Pax christened her. Baby. (We�d been discussing having a child; at that point she�d seemed so inclined.) I now tuck the memory firmly away, in the shadow of the butterfly effect.

A tenor growl intrudes. I glance down. A black-and-white Chihuahua, neck encircled with a studded collar, is brandishing its toy teeth. He absolutely glares.

In train-engineer blue-striped overalls, a man ambles from the office. He has a shock of white hair. His nails seem permanently blackened. He�s as big as the dog is small; both are equally muddy.

�Don�t laugh. Don�t say nothing. He showed up one day and here he is.�

Its teeth are unnerving. Add fifty pounds and this would be a deadly weapon.

�Name�s Kitten.�

�No,� I say.

�I picked it, being sarcastic, but he don�t seem to mind. He�s more than he looks. Last night, somebody was prowling around, and he took care of things.�

Terry asks, �He did?�

�Well, he yipped his head off. I armed up and chased the prick off with my twelve-gauge.�

�Don�t go shooting trespassers in the back, Evan.�

�I know, I know.� The man seems disappointed at this particular state law.

Terry introduces me. �This�s Jon.�

We nod.

Terry continues, �We�re looking into that accident.� A glance at the Nissan.

�Oh, that. Sure. A shame, that lady dying.�

�Always is,� Terry says, not wanting to expand this portion of the conversation, out of deference to me, I assume. He doesn�t say anything about where I fit in the matter. Maybe the junkman thinks I�m a cop.

Historian as detective...

�You mind if we take a look?�

�Be my guest. Stop that!� This last part is directed to the dog, who has been grumbling at me. Kitten ignores him.

I say to Terry, �That grille? Does it look like it�s hit a deer?�

The deputy is crouching. He rocks a bit, unsteady in the mud, and starts to reach for the front fender but stops. He balances, studies, then stands. �Hard to say.�

I negotiate a tricky, slick route to the passenger�s side. I glance inside the car, taking in the driver�s seat � the exact place in the universe where Pax died.

Looking at the right front tire, I nod. �It�s what I was thinking, Terry. That�s the spare from the trunk. A Firestone.�

Minding the muck, he joins me.

�When she left the house, there was a Michelin on that wheel, like the other three.�

�Evan? Anybody change a tire on the Altima here?�

�No, sir. That�s how she came in.�

The deputy�s quiet for a moment. He says to me, �I�m just looking at possibilities. Maybe she had a flat, changed it and threw the old tire out.�

�And not tell me? That�s a subject that�d come up between husbands and wives. And who throws out tires? You fix them. Can you fingerprint it? The Firestone?�

�Not without opening a case.�

I point out, �But you didn�t touch the front of the car. You were thinking of prints then. Am I right?�

He doesn�t answer. He navigates back to the junkman. I follow.

Terry seems to debate with himself a bit. �Do me a favor, Evan,� he eventually says, �and leave the Nissan as is. Don�t move it. Don�t touch it.�

�Sure. You want me to tarp her?�

�Good. Yes. Thanks.�

Accompanied by the hound, Evan gets a big plastic sheet and covers the car.

To the Chihuahua, he calls, �Back inside,� and rattles a box of treats.

Meow Mix.

Evan notes my eyes on the food. �What can I say? He�s a confused soul.�

We are at the Quick Mart at the intersection of Route 420 and Palmer Mountain Road.

Behind the counter stands the owner, a shaggy-haired fellow somewhere on the far side of middle age. He has yellow teeth and wears a perpetually put-out expression. I think of the word �coot.� This part of the county is mall-free, so I assume the place does a booming business. There�s certainly plenty to stock up on, rack after rack after rack, from medicine to flashlights to Havahart traps to every genre of junk food on the market, of which jerky seems to command the most shelf space.

Terry says, �Harv. The night of that accident, the woman killed on the mountain, were you working?�

�Working all the time, yessir. All I do. Working, working. Finding help is shit impossible. Dependable help, I mean.�

�You�ve got a good view of 420.�

�I do.� And he glances out the windows to prove it.

�You see any trucks around nine or ten? Pickups, I�m talking.�

Harv rolls his eyes. �You shittin� me, Terry. Come on. Like I could remember?�

Terry points to the video camera behind him. �That work?�

�Does, but it�s there mostly to keep the punks on the straight and narrow. Might show a glimpse of the road. I don�t know.�

We go into the man cave that is Harv�s back office, aromatic of cigar smoke and a body odor that borders on untenable. Still, it�s worth the endurance. Harv brings up the footage, and you can see the intersection clearly. Harv scrubs the video back to the day of the accident and Terry takes over the controls. According to the time stamp, a half hour before Pax died, a white pickup drove up 420 toward the accident site. And, in the time it would take to deliver a deer�s corpse, it drove back down.

I say, �Look at the time. The driver wouldn�t be the shooter.�

�Shooter?� Harv asks.

�Did you get�� I start to ask Terry, who is writing down the tag number, rendering my question moot.

We look at the rest of the tape but there are no other cars on 420 until the emergency vehicles speed up the mountainside in response to the accident.

�The white pickup,� I say. �If it has deer blood in the back, that�s evidence � if it matches what�s on the road. DNA.�

�That part is true, but what�d be more helpful is to check out the fella who owns that truck before we push the button.�

I�m impressed at this initiative. �Good.�

�Shooter?� Harv asks again.

�It�s nothing,� Terry says. He types on his phone and a moment later frowns. �Hm.�

�What?�

�Truck�s owned by Todd Stoltz. Know him. Been a troublemaker off and on. But, will admit, man is a natural-born hunter. You want a deer out of season, which it is, he�s your go-to man. I�ll go up to his place, have a talk.�

As we walk to the door, Terry thanks the perplexed and now troubled Harv.

I say, �I�ll follow you.�

Terry blinks. �No, you will not. This�s getting just odd enough that we need to be careful.�

�I�m coming.�

�No.�

�It�s my wife who died, Terry.�

He scowls but I�m not sorry I played the card.

After a pause he says, �You carrying?�

I don�t understand.

�Your expression pretty much answers me. But to be clear: I�m asking if you�re strapped � you got a snub nose, a gun?�

�Jesus, no.�

He sighs. �Okay. But you stay in the car.�

�Deal.�

A half hour later, we are winding up an arduous hill, past roadside displays of rusting appliances, generic trash, a mattress egregiously stained and free for the taking.

He pulls onto a side road and stops. Through the brush there�s a view of Todd Stoltz�s cabin, about fifty feet away. It�s the sort of place where you�d expect a �troublemaker off and on� to live. Mismatched roof shingles. The clapboard siding is muddy and rotten and affixed with cheap iron nails, whose heads are surrounded by tiny halos of rust. In front is a porch on which sit a rocking chair, a cooler, and a double-barreled shotgun, muzzle up. In the yard are rusting metal armatures and pipes and gears, oil drums, a transmission. It�s a mini version of Evan�s Scavenge and Scrap.

One unaverage d�cor element: a pile of bones and antlers, large and small, sits within spitting distance of the rocker.

In front of the house is the man�s battered, white F-150, sitting in a patch of tamped-down grass that serves as a parking strip.

Terry gets out and glances my way.

I hold up my hands as if surrendering. I�ll stay put.

Terry moves cautiously, his hand close to his gun. He looks into the truck�s bed and cab and then walks to the porch. He opens the shotgun and removes and pockets the two shells. Then he approaches the door. Standing aside so, I assume, he won�t get shot through the panel, he raps. Then again. No response.

He turns to me with a shrug.

I breach the ground rules and get out of the car, and Terry seems to be okay with this.

I join him and say, �Go inside.�

�Pension. I value it.�

Oh. Warrant.

It�s then that I�m aware of the sound of running water. I walk to the side of the house and see a minor cascade flowing from between the siding and the cinderblock foundation. The water has pooled there and a brook is meandering down in a slushy mess into the scrub grass behind the house.

Terry joins me.

�That constitute something?� I ask.

�Constitute?�

�Probable cause to go inside.�

�No. It constitutes probable cause to call a plumber.�

I walk to the side window but it is too high to see through. I find a blue plastic milk crate and, upending it, drop it below the window. �This against the law?�

�I don�t think a jury�d find you guilty of peeping, Jon. But it�s against smart. Man is a deer hunter and a goddamn good shot.�

I climb onto the crate anyway.

�Jon!�

I look inside. I say, �Shit.�

Terry kicks in the door.

He�ll be trying to find out if Todd Stoltz is savable or not.

From the glimpse I caught, though, I�m pretty sure it�s the latter. The body was bloated and as white as the porcelain tub he floated in.

Terry comes outside, unholstering his ringing phone. He takes the call and listens for a moment. �Thanks, Ruth. Now, could you get the ME and the crime scene folks here?� He gives the address. �And I�ll need a supervisor. It�s Todd Stoltz. He�s dead... Don�t know, not for sure. Looks suspicious.�

When he disconnects he stands with his hands on his hips for a solid ten seconds. It�s a very long time.

�What�s suspicious?� I nod toward the house.

�Was a wound on the back of his head. Like he slipped in the tub and fell. Only the wound�s plenty bloody and the rim of the tub�s only a little bloody.�

My laugh is harsh. �So a quote �accident.� Popular way of getting rid of someone lately, it seems.�

I walk to the pickup truck and look in the bed.

Terry says, �I looked. There was no deer blood.�

�There�s no anything, Terry. It�s spotless. You could eat off it.� I sniff. �Todd Stoltz strike you as the sort of man who scrubs his pickup beds with bleach?�

�He does not.�

�And bleach removes DNA, doesn�t it?�

�Believe so. Not my expertise.�

�So there�s no way to match any deer blood in the truck with the patch in the middle of 420. You still have any doubts about murder?�

He doesn�t answer the question but says, �That call I got, minute ago? You sure about the run-in Patience had with that fellow? The road rage thing?�

�I am.�

�No record of any report. Not in the county, not Cooper PD.�

�She said she called the police, told them about it. Gave them his license number.�

�Nothing about it.�

�Maybe, since it was just words and nothing physical the officer didn�t write up a report.�

�Could be. We�d�ve put it in our computer. Cooper�s a notch below diligent. But don�t tell �em I said so. Okay, Jon, I�ll buy into your theory, for the time being. Let�s say that road rage driver�s out as a suspect. Who�s your capital-S Somebody who wanted her dead?�

�The Man in Gray,� I say absently. �Whoever that is.�

Terry glances at the house. �So two deaths are now three. Maybe the coin toss is going to be all heads for a while.� He turns to me. �What I�m saying, Jon, is you might want to look after yourself. Maybe you�ve stirred up a nest. Watch out for the hornets.�

Home, early evening. Crickets and bullfrogs complain or call for mates, and the breeze is ambidextrous, breathing gently against the right side of my face, then my left.

I collect the mail, walk inside and shower and change into sweats. I climb the stairs and go to the end of the hall and into Pax�s office. I sit in her chair, hear the familiar squeak and look up at the superheroes she�s painted. They�re crudely done, like the paintings the schoolkids do on storefront windows on Halloween, a Dover Hills tradition. Archie-Superman, Green Lantern, Batman, Wonder Woman...

My eyes catch a small ficus tree that was alive only because of Pax. I believe it�s already dead.

I think: How quiet is a one-person house, a silence broken only by the accentuated whispers from HVAC and appliance motors, by the creaks and snaps of settling wood.

From my pocket I take the burner phone that Terry Garner discovered on Palmer Mountain. And, yes, there is a matching charger among the tangle of wires in her top drawer. I plug it in and a few minutes later it wakes. I type in the code that we share for our iPhones. Our anniversary date, backward.

Incorrect Password

I try several others that we�ve used in the past.

After five times:

The system is locked.

The phone is now a doorstop but I stow it in a drawer. Historians are loath to discard any artifact, however seemingly mute.

For ten minutes I browse through the papers on her desk, the drawers, not sure what I�m looking for, beyond a clue to the Man in Gray.

And a few minutes in, I may have found something. On the corner of her desk sits a to-do file folder with about three inches of bills and correspondence and documents inside. The first thing I find there is a receipt from a store. R. Johnson Framing and Art. Edwards Mills, a small town about an hour and a half from here.

Apparently Pax has taken in something to be framed. She was creative certainly � the audaciously defaced walls and all � but she rarely painted or sketched on a pad or drew anything in need of framing. Looks like the job was ready the day after she died. She never mentioned anything about this, but while we shared much we didn�t share everything.

At the bottom of the receipt is a handwritten valediction:

So, on the agenda for tomorrow: a drive to Edwards Mills.

I pocket the receipt and take the rest of the to-do pile downstairs.

In the refrigerator, I see Brooke�s turkey casserole. Still not hungry, maybe later. I pour a glass of white wine and start to work my way through the household paperwork, paying bills, slipping them into envelopes, applying stamps. The ones not due for a while, I push aside. I sip more wine and then look over the mail I�ve just retrieved.

I begin sorting it into three categories: bills, junk and sympathy cards � the latter easily identified without opening, given their size and shape and the lack of any impending holidays. I�ll get around to opening them at some point. Or not.

Then I slit open an envelope addressed to �Ms. Patience Addison.� The postmark is Greenville Station, a town west of Edwards Mills.

I remove and read the letter inside.

I plan out the second trip I�ll be taking tomorrow.

To get to Edwards Mills I have to drive through Cooper, where Heart-in-Hand is located.

I�ve been there only once before, about two weeks ago, when I drove out to Kennesaw Mountain, which isn�t a mountain at all but steep enough for a good bike ride.

The charity is a large strip-mall storefront � a former drug store, Pax once told me. Also here are a Chinese restaurant, a pizza place, a nail salon, a vaping store. I drive past the mall now, and picture Pax�s car in the parking lot.

I recall a conversation, a month ago. Pax was brushing her hair, every night one hundred strokes. We were in the bedroom and she was looking at me � off and on � in the triptych of antique mirrors on her dressing table.

�I�ll be a companion, sort of. I�ll do wellness checks, take clients to doctors� appointments and make grocery runs if they can�t drive. That sort of thing. Make meals sometimes.�

�For two days? You�ll have to stay overnight?�

�Sometimes. It�s a hike. But that part of the state is way underserved. They need people to help.�

I was silent for a moment. �I�ll miss you.�

�Honey, just a couple of days a week.� She put the brush down and turned toward me. �I need to do this. It�ll keep me sane.�

She said this fervently, and I believed her.

Soon I am well past Heart-in-Hand and am cruising through a densely wooded part of the county. The road curves quite a bit here through hills similar to Palmer Mountain, switchbacked in some places. And because of that I�m not sure if I�m being followed, though I�ve caught glimpses of a car. Dark, maybe black � like the Man in Gray�s. Maybe a different shade. I think too of Detective Bragg�s unmarked cruiser.

Every accident investigation, we have to do a report for the state...

After two turns he, or she, continues to follow. No, that�s not accurate. Not in the sense of pursuing intentionally. Historians should be precise. The car behind me is taking the same route that I am. That could be coincidence or it could be intentional.

Soon the geography turns suburban and more highways and streets appear. Before I can get a good glimpse of the car, it turns.

Paranoia.

Though it�s hard to forget Terry�s warning about hornets.

Soon I�m parking across the street from R. Johnson Framing and Art. It�s a spacious and tidy shop on the main street of Edwards Mills, a small town known for autumn-leafing expeditions in the fall and for being the home of a real covered bridge, red and rickety.

I�m in front of a bakery that exudes � through design, I�m convinced � concentrated scents of cinnamon and baking bread. I�ve been peering into the framing shop every few minutes, as I pretend to make phone calls.

I�m looking around me too, on the street. There�s no sign of the Man in Gray.

Inside the framing store is the owner or manager, a woman in her early thirties, her dark hair pulled into a ballerina kind of bun. She wears black slacks and a purple top. I think she has a tattoo on her upper chest, but it might be a birthmark or a dark cameo on a thin chain. She�s helping a customer.

Go learn something, I tell myself. Which is an expression I often close my lectures with. Apparently it�s become my catchphrase around campus.

I climb from the car and step into the sweltering air. New England can get as hot as the South. The woman behind the counter is still with the customer and when I walk in, she smiles and says, �I�ll be right with you.�

I smile in return and peruse the many wares. The business seems to be half framing and half art gallery, some of the for-sale pieces quite good. Local artists mostly. There are sculptures, pottery, paintings, sketches. Some fabric too � needlepoint and stitching and other forms of cloth-as-medium.

The famed covered bridge has been the inspiration for a dozen artists.

Finally the customer�s transaction is rung up and she leaves.

�Can I help you?�

�Like to pick this up.�

I hand her the receipt from Pax�s desk.

She takes a look, drops it and, with an �Oh, my God,� breaks down in tears.

Greenville Station is an old town that teeters between shabby and quaint, the proportion hovering around sixty/forty. For every bakery and bookstore and antique shop, there�s a dim former mill, a warehouse storing only dust, the eponymous train station, derelict and probably unused since the days of the steam locomotive. A pier juts into the dun Oneida River, which moves with some speed to a concrete dam that is about three feet high and serves no purpose that I can figure out.

I went to Edwards Mills because of the hugs-and-kisses receipt. I�ve come here because of the letter to Pax I opened last night.

The envelope contained two folded twenty-dollar bills. And a note on the letterhead of Greenville Station�s Main Street Inn, written in block printing.

The town is livelier than Edwards Mills so I have to park up the block from the inn. I�m sweating by the time I get there and enjoy stepping into the air conditioning. It�s an old place and I didn�t expect this refreshing level of cool. The cozy lobby is largely rose and white and polished mahogany. Old-time pen-and-ink drawings dot the walls, which are covered with paisley paper. The clerk, who strikes me as looking a bit like Edgar Allan Poe, nods.

�Hi,� I say.

�You interested in a room?�

�No. Just have a question or two.� I show him Pax�s picture. �You remember this guest? Ms. Addison.�

�Sure. She was doing some charity work around here, I think.�

�I know she wasn�t by herself.�

One of you two...

He looks at my wedding ring. He�s making deductions just like an Edgar Allan detective.

�Oh, hey, sir...�

This is the stuff of film noir. And he doesn�t want any part of it. I�m glad he hasn�t heard that Pax is dead. My appearance, coupled with that intelligence, could lead to an awkward moment or two. And might even result in a call to the police.

I debated putting the hundred-dollar bills � five of them � into an envelope. But dealing them out one by one on the counter seems more dramatic.

It certainly is effective.

They vanish into his pocket. �I don�t want any trouble.�

�No trouble. It�s all good. Was he white, over six feet, blond hair, good shape?�

�Yeah.�

�Sunglasses?�

�Aviator sort, you know.�

�Wearing a gray jacket?� Long shot, but I try.

�Maybe. I don�t know.�

�How often did she stay here?�

�Every Thursday for the past three, four weeks. Sometimes Friday too.�

�And he was with her that whole time?�

�I really couldn�t tell you.�

�What I�m interested in is a name and address.�

�Mister, really, I don�t have a name. He wasn�t registered. We don�t have a bar or restaurant, so there�s no credit card records.�

�Anything else you can recall about him?�

I believe I�m starting to lose my witness. But remain silent and simply gaze into his eyes. He looks away. �A tattoo. On his inside wrist.�

�What was it of?�

�A leaf.�

I pull out my phone and download a picture of a ginkgo leaf. It�s a drawing and could have been the model for the tat on my wife�s ankle, the second printout the medical examiner offered as he sat bent forward beside the plastic flowers.

�Yeah. That was it.� He pauses and his buyability has expired. �That�s all I�m doing for you.� He�s defiant.

I look him over. He�s telling the truth, I decide. Professors are forever investigating students� possible plagiarism and cheating; we learn the body language of deceit early in our careers.

I thank him and walk outside, leaving him with a juicy story for his wife over a very nice dinner that I just paid for.

In the car, I fluff my polo shirt, sweat stained, and crank the AC up high. Then press my head back into the rest, digesting the news.

Thinking of the Man in Gray...

And, to my shock, with that thought, I see him.

Ahead of me an ice cream delivery truck has pulled from the curb into traffic, revealing the black car. He�s in the driver�s seat, his distinctive sunglasses pointed toward me. He�s followed me here � all the way from Dover Hills. So he was the one I spotted.

The man seems to freeze in a way that suggests he�s as surprised as I am by this chance stare-down.

He pulls into the traffic quickly, without signaling, cutting another vehicle off. I snap the seat belt on. It takes me a minute to extricate the SUV from the tight parking space. Then I hit the gas. The limit is twenty-five here, in town. Spotting no police, though, I nudge up to forty, then fifty, swerving around somebody in a no-passing zone. Stupid. But no sirens ensue.

Soon I�ve left the town and the speed limit rises to forty-five, or, for me, sixty.

In the distance I see a vehicle. I think it�s black. It has to be him. I hit seventy.

In a quarter mile I drive up a rise and at the crest I find empty road ahead of me, no cars at all. I slow at an intersection, where a cluster of people are out for a stroll. There�s a bearded man who might be a slim Santa Claus with wild hair and beard and rosy cheeks. A portly man is with him, wearing a suit with a clerical collar. A pregnant woman with braided hair and wearing a lumpy brown dress is walking a Labrador retriever.

I pull up. �Excuse me?�

They turn.

�There was a black sedan just went by here. He backed into my car in the parking lot and took off. Did you see him?�

The trio regard one another. The reverend says, �I�m sorry that happened, sir. No excuse for that. Well, there was a car. But I didn�t pay it any mind.�

The woman: �It was going fast, too fast, I thought. Dark. Might�ve been black.�

Skinny Santa offers, �This road takes you to the interstate. I�ll bet he�s headed that way. You know, get lost in traffic. You call the police?�

�I wanted to get his plate first.� The improvisation is coming easily.

I thank them and pull into the road, heading for the highway myself, though now only five miles over the limit.

I�d like to see Deputy Garner or Detective Bragg. Could you tell him Jon Talbot is here?�

�Yessir. Just have a seat.� The uniformed woman in the glass cage makes a call.

I�ve only just sat on the couch in the magazine-free lobby when Bragg appears.

We shake hands and he directs me into the entrails of the Public Safety Office. He wears a gold bracelet, which I hadn�t noticed on his first visit to my house. Odd that a cop wears jewelry, though on reflection, I don�t see why I should feel that way.

His office doesn�t seem much bigger than Terry Garner�s, in the grunt pen, though it does have a view of grass, not asphalt.

I sit across from him in a chair that�s a fraction off comfortable.

�I know who it is. Who killed my wife. I just got this from my sister-in-law.� I hand him a printout of the email Janet sent me after I�d shared with her the photo I�d found.

I say, �He was at the funeral. And he�s been following me. Here�s his picture.�

Bragg glances at it. The big detective�s black hair is thick as vinyl.

�She lied to me about the road rage. She wanted me to be on the lookout for somebody around the house, to be cautious. But it was to protect me from him, not some wacko driver.�

�Why don�t you back up, Professor? I�m not exactly following.�

�They reconnected somehow. About a month ago, I think. When Patience started spending some nights away from home.�

�They were having an affair?�

�That�s right.�

�When did you learn about it?� Bragg asks. �The affair?�

I pause. �Yesterday.�

The detective eases back and his chair creaks. I don�t think I�ve ever before seen anyone who is nearly all muscle. �And your theory is he killed her because he wanted her to leave you and she said no.�

�Maybe. That�s likely. He�s obviously got problems. Anger, abusive. A sadist, Janet said.� A nod at the email.

�And he�s following you why?�

�Because he knows, or thinks, I suspect him of the murder.�

Bragg pulls a file toward him, opens it. Inside is a notepad, a yellow one, containing much writing. I see photocopies or printouts too.

�Like to ask you a couple of questions, Professor Talbot. You okay with that?�

�Sure. Of course. But wouldn�t it make sense to at least find out where this Wexler is at the moment? I saw him yesterday in Greenville Station.�

�Just a few questions. Fact is, Professor, from the night of the accident I suspected there was some foul play. One skid mark? A notch in the road that looked like it�d been made by a bullet? Then there was that spare tire on your wife�s Nissan.�

He knew this? And didn�t say anything to me? Or to Terry? Maybe he�s the one that Kitten the Chihuahua had alerted Evan to at the scrapyard.

�I know you suspected it too. Deputy Garner and I had a conversation.� He browses through the file folder�s contents. �Now, Professor, our procedure is, when there�s a fatality, an inventory of the vehicle�s done � to see if there�s drugs or liquor, weapons.�

�All right.�

�I talked to the officer in charge of that job the night of the accident. I asked him if there was anything out of the ordinary. He said there was one thing. A Post-it note in her purse.� Bragg flipped a page. �It said, �Meet you at the inn at 8. I�ll bring wine.� The officer saw �wine� and thought of a possible DUI component. But your wife tested negative. Did you write that note?�

�No.�

He regards me closely with dark, gyroscopically steady eyes. �Did you happen to go through your wife�s purse anytime in the past month and see it? The Post-it?�

�No. First I heard of it. Just now.�

�I see.� He doesn�t bother to review the yellow pad. �I looked into your wife�s job at Heart-in-Hand.�

�You did?�

�That�s right. Do you know what they do there?�

�Companions for the disabled, the elderly.�

�That�s one thing. But that�s not what your wife did. All she did was deliver lunch to a dozen people. Just dropped a bagged meal off on their doorsteps. It took her an hour a day, tops. You didn�t know that?�

�No.�

�Which left her basically two full days a week on her own � to see this Wexler maybe.�

�What are you saying, Detective?�

The big man doesn�t answer. �Since this is now an active homicide investigation, I was able to get some warrants. And I saw that two weeks ago you gassed up at the BP in Cooper.�

�You got a warrant for my credit cards?�

�That�s correct. You gassed up a quarter mile from Heart-in-Hand. And it was on the day and around the time your wife would have been there.�

�I went up to the park in Kennesaw Mountain to bike.�

�By yourself?�

�Yes.�

�Did you go into Heart-in-Hand, say hi to Patience? Would�ve made sense if you had, husband dropping in to see his wife.�

�No.�

�I know you didn�t. I asked.�

�Hold on a minute here,� I say firmly.

�Did you follow her from Heart-in-Hand and spot them in a hotel?�

�No.�

Another page gets turned. �You told Deputy Garner that you didn�t know she had a second phone, the one he found at the crime scene. He gave it to you. Where is that phone now?�

�It was password protected and I tried it a few times and it locked me out.�

�I see. You know it�s virtually impossible to break into a locked phone.�

�I didn�t do it on purpose if that�s what you�re suggesting.�

�Were you concerned about what we might find on the phone? Texts?�

�Are you serious about this?�

My words are water on a swan�s feathers.

�The day you and Deputy Garner were at the scene he started to walk over part of the ground and you told him to stop, warned him about a bog. How�d you know about that? You told the deputy you hadn�t been there before.�

�It looked boggy.� I suppose I sound exasperated. I can�t help it.

Poor Terry Garner would have been interrogated as fiercely by Bragg as I�m being right now.

�Now, the flowers. That bouquet that wasn�t by the roadside but down near the car?�

�I remember.�

�We talked to all the florists in the county. None of them stocked that kind of flower. But one clerk recognized it. Birdsfoot trefoil. She said� � he reads � �it�s a form of lotus. In some folk cultures, it�s called a revenge flower.�

�Look�� I don�t get very far.

�I checked your Facebook page, Twitter, Professor Talbot. You�ve been seen in the company of Brooke Hartford.�

�In the company of? We work together.�

�I mean socially.�

�Lunches, out for drinks with colleagues. My wife was with us sometimes. She�s married. I know her husband.�

�Yes.� Water, feathers. �Now you also told Deputy Garner that you didn�t have a gun.�

�I... He asked if I was carrying, when we were going to Todd Stoltz�s place. I meant I didn�t have a handgun.�

�But you have a rifle, don�t you, Professor? I saw it above your mantel.�

�That? My father�s old hunting rifle. It�s a decoration.�

�You ever fired it?�

�Years ago.�

�Do you own ammunition for it?�

�No.�

Bragg displays his phone. �When I went to see you the other day? I noticed this in your garage.�

�You weren�t there to do a police report.�

�No, sir. I wasn�t.�

I look at the image. It�s of my workbench.

�I don�t��

He zooms in and I�m looking at a plastic freezer bag of cartridges, half-hidden under the bench.

�I... Somebody put those there.�

�They�re .30�06. Like your father�s gun.�

�How do you know that, Detective?�

�A couple years ago you bought some ammunition. It was .30�06.�

Credit cards.

�I fired it a few times and threw the bullets out.� My voice is taut as I say, �I didn�t give you permission to look inside the garage.� Law is one of the engines of history and I happen to find the discipline particularly interesting. The Fourth Amendment protects us from unlawful search and seizure in homes and structures within the curtilage � the surrounding property.

�The garage door was wide open, Professor. Falls under the plain-view rule.�

I don�t remember opening it.

Bragg continues in his steadfast voice. �Had you ever been to Todd Stoltz�s place before you and Deputy Garner were there?�

�No.�

�You�re sure about that?�

My sigh and the compressing of my lips are the answer.

�We�ve determined that Todd Stoltz was murdered. Hit behind the head with a pipe, stripped and dumped in his tub to drown. Crime scene found the pipe we believe is the murder weapon about forty feet into a field from his back door. His blood and hairs are on it.�

�Fingerprints?� I ask.

His only response: �Where were you when he died?�

�I don�t know when he died.�

�As near as we can tell, it was about one to four hours after your wife.�

�Then I was home. And I was home when Patience died too. Detective, what you�re forgetting, or missing, is that I�m the one who brought this whole thing up. Your office said �accident.� I said �murder.��

�Which is just what a guilty party would do, don�t you think? You�re a smart man, Professor. And I�ve looked through some of your articles. Battleground tactics, feints, flanking movements.� He shrugged. �One theory might be you murdered your wife and Mr. Stoltz then set up her lover to make it seem like he did it.�

�Detective, you actually think I killed her?�

�I�m examining facts and the theories they lead to. Spousal homicides make up a big percentage of murders. And one of the main reasons that happens is because the victim has been cheating.�

I tap the email hard. �Marcus Wexler hired Todd to shoot a deer and take it to Palmer Mountain, then he killed my wife and Todd. Now he�s following me. He knows I�m a threat to him.�

Bragg lifts his hands and says in a reasonable voice, �Or, it�s the other way around. He believes you, the jealous husband, killed her and�s looking for evidence to prove it.�

After a moment he says, �Professor Talbot, I�ve spoken to several of your colleagues at the university, some of your students. They told me that you�ve exhibited a certain... detachment.�

�What does that mean?�

�You don�t seem particularly upset by your wife�s death. A �numbness,� one of them said.�

Ah, that...

It takes me back to what I�d been recalling earlier: my uncle, who so resembled my father, sitting beside me.

The hospital room was bright, too bright. My eyes stung. My uncle inhaled deeply. I smelled cigarette smoke on his brown plaid sport coat. He whispered, �Jonny, something I have to tell you. It�s not easy. But I have to.�

�Okay. Go ahead.� The walls were the color of putty, the color of dried bone.

�I�m so sorry. Your mother and father... They�re gone. I�m sorry.�

�Oh.� I felt no reaction.

He blinked, expecting more � I now suppose. Hysteria maybe. A scream. Tears.

The doctor walked into the room, and my uncle rose from my hospital bed where he�d been perched. The two men nodded.

The kindly physician said, �The nurse told me you woke up. How�re you feeling?�

�All right.�

My uncle whispered, �I told him.�

�I�m sorry for your loss, son.� The doctor shone a little flashlight into my eyes. He seemed pleased with the results. �Do you remember anything about the crash, Jonny?�

Every goddamn second of it, loud and twisting and bloody. I frowned and in an even voice, I told him, �No, sir.�

He nodded and his expression seemed to say: That�s good. It�s for the best.

Now, sitting across from Detective Bragg, I ask him who among my students and colleagues said I was, in effect, heartless regarding my wife�s death.

�I�m not at liberty to say.�

He sits back. His chair complains yet again. �You went to Greenville Station and spoke to the clerk at the Main Street Inn.�

So maybe it was Bragg following me and not Wexler.

�You asked him a lot of questions about who your wife was in the company of.�

I sigh. �And you�re going to suggest doing that was all planned out ahead of time. To make me look innocent. I scripted it?�

His expression was an incarnation of the phrase: if the shoe fits...

I dig into my pocket and hand him the note on the hotel letterhead, the two twenties still attached.

He snaps on too-small blue latex gloves before opening and reading it.

One of you two must�ve dropped them...

�I wrote that and sent it to myself?�

�Block printing is almost impossible to match.�

Now, I sit back. My chair is silent but remains hard on the back and butt.

�Professor.� Bragg sounds burdened, almost pained. �You have to admit it�s odd. You make all these deductions: from the tire skid mark to the junkyard, the convenience store, Todd Stoltz. Just like Sherlock Holmes.�

�I�m being framed by Marcus Wexler. Check those bullets for fingerprints.�

�We intend to.�

Sitting heavy between us is the supposition that there�ll be none.

My phone hums with a text. I glance down. It�s from Mr. Ebbetts, my neighbor.

I�m thinking back to one of Bragg�s earlier comments.

Crime scene found the pipe we believe is the murder weapon...

I put my phone away and look over at Bragg. �I�ve seen enough TV to know that it�s either time to arrest me or let me go.�

Bragg�s lips tighten. He had hoped to keep me here long enough for crime scene to determine that my father�s gun was the one used to shoot out Pax�s tire and the pipe that knocked out Stoltz could be traced to my backyard.

�You can go, Professor Talbot. I would advise you not to leave the county.�

I walk out of the office and five minutes later, having navigated through the labyrinth of the PSO, I�m in my car pulling onto the street.

I accelerate quickly. I need to put some distance between myself and the law. Even if I�m not yet under arrest for Pax�s murder, I soon will be for something else.

In Greenville Station once again, where the minute-by-minute historian detective will continue his investigation.

I park, step out of the SUV and look up and down the sweltering sidewalk.

Since there�s no dining at the inn, Pax and Wexler would go to a restaurant � or get takeout to carry back to the room.

Now, go learn something.

I start at the caf� next door to the inn.

I can�t afford to pay a half G for cooperation each time. I�ve got another strategy.

The man behind the counter is in his forties, heavyset and with thinning black hair. He nods. �Yessir?�

I show him a printout of Wexler�s picture, below which are the words:

Please Help! Our Dear Elliott Soames, father, brother and husband, has gone missing.

My cell number�s beneath it.

�Jeez, I�m sorry, sir. He�s your��

�Brother.�

�Jeez. You think he�s hurt?�

�We aren�t sure.�

He stares and works hard to make a memory of Wexler materialize.

�I�m pity sorry, sir. I don�t think so. Jeez. Good luck.�

�Bless you.�

Then on to the next � a diner. Nothing.

There�s a Quick Mart across the street. Inside, I note a rack of cheap wine and I wonder if that was the bottle referenced in the Post-it note.

No luck here either.

On the street I scan for Wexler�s black car and don�t see it.

The other stores: gifts, flowers, office supplies. None of those seem likely. Wexler and Pax weren�t here to shop for sundries or antiques.

I picture the two of us in bed, the last time we made love, the window open and a night breeze chilling the sweat on our naked bodies. The next day she would go to Greenville Station to meet Marcus Wexler at the Main Street Inn.

The breath of air was as cool as the anger within me is hot now.

A small park, manicured and tended, dots the town�s center. Some retirees, some lunchers, some athletes. The older folk are mostly men in comfortable clothing and easy-on-the-feet shoes. I get sympathy all around, and one thinks he might�ve seen someone who �kind of looks like him� but can�t recall where or when.

A woman sits down on a bench by herself, opens a bag and unwraps a sandwich. She�s in a uniform � beige tunic-like top and gray slacks. On her chest is a tag that reports her name as Trudi. Her shoes too are kind. A waitress. I show the printout. �Any chance you�ve seen this man around town?�

She looks at the picture and her face brightens. �You know, this is weird, but I think I saw somebody looked a lot like him around the corner, Harper Street. Just, like, a little while ago.� She points. �I don�t know if he�s still there. Maybe. He was getting out of a car.�

�Was it black?�

�Yeah, I think so.�

�Thanks.�

�Good luck. Is he sick?�

�He has these episodes.�

Soon I�m back in the car and accelerating. I get to Harper Street and pull over. Yes, the black car is there, a Caddie.

And so is Marcus Wexler.

He�s carrying a small shopping bag as he walks to the vehicle. I look around and, seeing no one nearby, I reach into my pocket and remove what I stole after I left Bragg�s office.

A pistol.

I feel sorry for its owner, one Detective Mark Nichols, according to the nameplate on his desk. He is, or soon will be, in deep shit. Though, of course, he�s somewhat to blame, leaving the weapon in his top drawer unlocked.

The gun is a stubby revolver. While, yes, I�ve fired my father�s rifle, I�ve never fired a handgun before. I want to try it out first. I manage to open the gun and shake into my hand the five cartridges � I thought they were all six-shooters. I pull the trigger. Snap, snap, snap. I pull the hammer back, the way I�ve seen actors do on TV to make a dramatic point. It clicks. I squeeze the trigger again. Snap. Much easier this way and the muzzle doesn�t wobble so much. More accurate. Good. I don�t want anybody innocent to get hurt by mistake. I reload and drop the gun into my pocket, watching Wexler get into the sedan and pull into traffic.

Most of the courses I teach invariably get around to the subject of combat, whatever the era, whatever the locale. Whether the Revolutionary or Afghanistan War, ancient Rome or South Asia, there is a constant: young men, often teenagers, are given weapons and sent into battle. I�ve read thousands of their letters and one thing that used to surprise me is how blas� they could be about their mission to take a human life.

I now know exactly how they felt.

I leave Greenville Station�s city limits, following Wexler at some distance.

It�s the same route I took the other day. But he doesn�t spot me this time and we�re only slightly over the limit � near where I�d paused to ask the soft-spoken reverend and Skinny Santa if they�d seen the car, Wexler signals and turns down a dirt road.

Dust kicks up and swirls behind him, which is good, because he won�t be able to see me if he glances in the mirror.

It�s a long road. We go about three quarters of a mile and then the dust cloud vanishes. He�s not ahead of me and, according to the map, there are no side roads. He�s stopped here somewhere.

Then I notice, about a hundred yards away, to my right, a tall, black metal fence and, beyond, some buildings. I nose the Pathfinder into the brush and climb out. I push the button lock on the door itself, not using the fob; I don�t recall if the horn beeps on a single press but I�m not going to announce my presence, in case Wexler is within earshot.

The air is rich with loam, decomposing foliage and a mixture of competing fragrances from flowers I can�t see. The scent invigorates me. I move through the brush carefully, picking my way around what looks like noisy patches of leaves and twigs. Also, around nasty brambles. I feel what troops in such places as Gettysburg and the Wilderness must have experienced closing in on an enemy � who might very well be closing in on you.

Cautiously I step into the clearing and see a half dozen homes surrounded by the fence. On foot I follow a gravel drive to a rear gate.

I walk up to the gate, crouch and peer through the bars.

No people, no vehicles.

Then I�m aware of two things. One, I see a small security camera, aimed directly my way, tucked away in what seems to be a fake tree. And two, I hear a rustling behind me.

Before I can turn there�s a pop followed by an astonishing pain that radiates from my lower spine through my entire body, from tailbone to teeth. I try to stand. Another pop. That�s it. I�m gone.

I don�t exactly wake up because I haven�t been asleep, as such.

I suppose the significant wattage or amperage or voltage � whatever a Taser uses to wallop you � has to produce confusion and drowse. In addition to sticking a smoking poker directly into your kidneys. The pain continues to prowl.

I have a vague memory of being force marched inside one of the residences and then the rest is a blank. I now find myself seated in a folding chair. I blink and look around the room, wood paneled, set up like a small meeting hall, � la the Lions Club. There are about ten people or so present, mostly men, along with two extremely pregnant women. The men wear casual clothing, work shirts or sweaters and jeans, slacks or jogging pants. The women are in dark-colored, high-neck dresses. Their hairstyles are identical: pulled back and elaborately braided. One is blond, the other brunette. Two men have assault rifles, slung muzzle down. Their arms are wrapped around them the way a toddler cuddles his stuffed bunny.

A long table sits in the front � I think of The Last Supper � and at it are three men. In the center is Skinny Santa. The reverend is at the table too, along with another man, gaunt, with a beard like Abraham Lincoln�s.

As the reverend whispers to him, Santa studies me like he might a raccoon that could be rabid. In front of him are my wallet, my phone and the policeman�s gun.

I�m flanked by two very large, unsmiling men, both of whom resemble hunters or war-seasoned soldiers. My impression is that they would very much like for me to try to escape.

I look around the room again. The light is dim but as I focus I begin to make out what�s on the wall.

It�s a map of the United States, a large one, and in a dozen places are pinned news articles.

Some of the headlines are:

With shock, I realize that two of the tragedies � the cleric�s murder and the school shooting � were the events Terry Garner cited as examples of �normal� killings.

There also are framed photographs of Santa and the other men at the table. Their names are printed on the frames. Santa is Brother Cyrus. The man of the cloth is Reverend Mike. The Abe Lincoln character is Brother Zeke.

Cyrus seems nearly amused. �What brings you out here, Talbot?�

Is Wexler part of this outfit?

Or am I just the victim of extremely bad luck?

�I was following someone down the dirt road by the service gate. I thought he might�ve come here. Who are you?�

�Just a group of concerned citizens.�

His sincerity is chilling.

I scoff. �Concerned citizens... A white supremacist militia?�

Cyrus sighs. �Labels, labels, labels...�

I nod at the map. �You�re responsible for all of these?�

Zeke says, �In a way. We�d prefer to do the work ourselves but... you get caught, you go to jail. The law�s too smart now. We�ve refined a new approach. The internet.�

Cyrus takes over. �There are so many lost souls out there and, no surprise, many of �em aren�t the sharpest. You post on some of the underground platforms, suggest somebody should shoot up a mosque, throw the idea out on the water. Eventually there�ll be some fool who�ll do it. You post about the virtues of blowing up a homosexual center, and the seed is planted. And then you close down your account and open up a new one, with proxies in Bulgaria. Or wherever.

�So,� he goes on, �looking for someone who scraped your car? That wasn�t exactly the truth?�

�He murdered my wife.�

Because whatever Detective Bragg or anyone else might think, I did not.

The men at the Last Supper table share glances. Cyrus asks, �And who is he?�

�His name�s Marcus Wexler. He lives or�s staying near here.�

Cyrus regards the room. Heads shake in the negative. �Don�t know any Wexler. And I can guarantee he didn�t kill Patience.�

He knows her name? What on earth is going on?

�That was me,� Reverend Mike says, somewhat proudly.

�He�s the best rifle shot we�ve got,� Zeke says, �and we have got some good ones among us, you should believe that.�

I spring forward, lunging toward the reverend. I get only two feet before I am returned to my seat instantly. The pain swells then diminishes, as I think: I got it so appallingly wrong. Wexler was her lover � that�s why he came to the funeral: to mourn, just like I was doing. But he didn�t murder her.

�Why?� I whisper.

Cyrus mutters, �Patience turned Rose Anne against us.�

�Rose Anne?�

�My third wife.�

She may have been third in number, but I didn�t doubt that the other two were not divorced spouses. They might have been the braided women present in this very room.

His face grows dark. He�s a man with a temper, not far below the surface. �Your wife met Rose Anne and they became friendly. Rose Anne talked about some of what we�re up to, and that was most unwise of her. Your wife was trying to convince her to leave the community and talk to the police. That�s punishable by death. We had to send Rose Anne to the river.�

�Send her to... That was the girl who was drowned.�

�She had to pay. And your wife too. But we couldn�t have two drownings. That�d be suspicious. So we arranged the accident on Palmer Mountain.�

I look over to the reverend. �You broke her neck. She didn�t die in the crash.�

The man shrugs, as if saying: I had to. Obviously.

�And Todd Stoltz?�

�Oh, now, that sad sack of a boy? He wanted into the community. And we needed a deer for the accident. But, fact is, he turned out to be a particularly unpleasant human being. Didn�t truly subscribe to our values, you might say. And not too bright. We were afraid he�d talk when he shouldn�t. Better off he�s gone.�

�And you�re trying to frame me for it. You broke into my house, saw my father�s rifle and planted those cartridges in my garage � the same caliber. You stole the pipe from my backyard, the one you used to kill Stoltz... But your whole point was to make it look like an accident.�

Cyrus sneers. �Was the plan. Until that asshole from the Public Safety Office � Bragg � started poking around. In case he decided it wasn�t so accidental after all, we needed insurance, and that was you.�

�The police�ll find the bullet. They�ll know it didn�t come from my rifle.�

�Naw,� Reverend Mike said dismissingly. �We already got it. Metal detector.�

They must wonder why I close my eyes and laugh. Then I shake my head. �How am I supposed to kill myself?�

Cyrus smiles, maybe surprised I�ve already deduced what he has in store for me � though what other possible fate would there be for me? Another �accident� or a straight murder would draw far too much attention.

Cyrus and Zeke confer. I can�t hear them. �Think you�ll go back to Palmer Mountain and...� He nods down to the revolver on the table in front of him.

Zeke says, �Me and Evan and�� He looks over the crowd. �You, Charles.�

�Yessir.� A bulky man in overalls sits to attention.

Cyrus: �I want this over and done as��

It�s then that the house is shaken by a series of huge explosions from upstairs. We are in the cellar, it seems. Everyone cringes and ducks, including me.

�They�re coming!� The voice is in the hallway.

Cyrus shouts, �Defense!�

Pistols appear in many hands. Both pregnant women are armed, and the men with the assault rifles unsling them, then pull back slides or work levers with loud snaps.

Cyrus leads most of the others out the door. He calls over his shoulder to Reverend Mike and one of my minders. �Stay with him. We might need a hostage.�

Gunshots sound overhead. Shouts, screams. I can detect an acrid chemical smoke.

There is then a loud bang in the hallway outside the meeting room and my minder pulls a gun and turns. As he does, he offers me an unobstructed view of his throat. Using every leaf-raking, branch-sawing, wallboard-hefting muscle in my body, I drive my fist directly into that soft flesh.

He sags, choking, scrabbling backward. I pick up the gun he�s dropped but since it�s complicated � a semiautomatic � I shove it in my pocket and leap for the Last Supper table, where the simpler police revolver sits. Reverend Mike does the same.

I win.

As I lift the gun he kicks a chair my way. It bangs painfully against my shin. He turns and pushes through a small door behind the table. I go after him and burst into what turns out to be a long, dim tunnel. Apparently, an escape route. Ignoring the Taser pain, I run fast after him. It occurs to me that he might have a gun too � maybe he went after Detective Nichols�s pistol solely to keep it out of my hands � but if he is armed, I don�t care. I was dead five minutes ago. Every moment is now a gift and even if he shoots me I�ll finish him. Pax�s murderer will die.

He is older and heavier and I am gaining. Finally he turns right and sprints, gasping, down a straightaway toward a door to the outside. I can see, through a small glass window, brush and trees. He reaches it and goes for the latch.

�Stop!� I order.

He does, lifting his arms. He turns, and I walk close to him. I point the gun at his head.

The reverend�s dark eyes scan me. His hands lower slowly. A scoffing laugh trips from his lips. �You shoot me! I�m unarmed. That�s murder. You�ll go away for life, and I don�t think you�re the sort that�d do very well in prison. I�m going out that door and I know for God�s fact that you�re not going to kill me in cold blood.�

He turns his back to me and reaches for the latch again.

I cock the gun as I practiced and pull the trigger. The sound is astonishing.

But because I�ve been partially deafened by the first shot the second one is considerably quieter.

The cuffs are tight. Not so much that they hurt, but the Greenville Station police officer � a young, blond, crewcut man who may never have arrested a felon in his life � was making sure I wasn�t getting away.

I�m in the back of his police car.

My eyes are on the floor. I see a form approaching in my periphery. The door opens and I am, understandably, surprised to see that it�s Marcus Wexler.

No, to be more accurate: His presence wouldn�t surprise me all that much. I knew he was here somewhere, given my pursuit. The unexpected element is that he�s in an FBI windbreaker.

�Okay,� I say edgily. Meaning: Explain.

�Are you all right?� he asks.

I don�t answer but continue to stare firmly into his eyes.

He indulges. �Pay had a past you didn�t know about.�

It takes a leisurely few seconds for this to settle, partially because another man has a nickname for my own wife, one different from mine. And one I�ve never heard.

�I met her in Africa, where she was doing charity work after college. Pay was tough. Smart. And plenty mad at the bullshit she saw going on around her. Warlords, corruption, child soldiers. Giving out food and medicine and setting up schools for girls wasn�t enough. She wanted to do more. I recruited her.�

�FBI? She was an agent?�

�No. A CI. Confidential informant. The charity was a perfect cover. Jon, I know this is a lot to��

�The story about her facing down the warlord. That was an operation of yours?�

He�s surprised. �Did she tell you that?�

�Her sister.�

��Facing down.� Well. What happened was Joseph Mkembo grabbed one of the village girls at Pay�s aid station and was going to cut her arm off, a show of force. Keep the villagers in line. Just as he raised the machete, Pay grabbed a weapon from his lieutenant. And shot him in the head. The lieutenant too. She had this impulsive streak. But you know that.�

I suppose some clues were there. Skiing off mountains, driving dangerously fast without ABS, the very fact she�d been in warlord territory, and for a three-year stint. Even the art she drew: not fairy-tale characters but big, fierce superheroes.

Hardly proof she was a woman who could put a bullet in a man�s head, but look at my minute-by-minute approach to studying history: the small can explain the large.

Then too, look at me, who just stole a gun to do exactly what Pax had in Africa.

I think of her sister�s email and say to Wexler: �The fight you two had, when you put her in the hospital? And got arrested? That was a cover.�

He is surprised again. �An undercover operation.� Wexler grimaces. �That was hard. But I had to hit her for real. We needed a medical and police report on record. I had to get inside a prison. There, the cons don�t mind if you beat on your woman. Actually, scores you points. And I got information that took down a Mafia don.

�She was with us for four years. We ran ops in Europe and the US. Then � it happens � she burned out. Time to retire. She was thinking a husband, children, a family.�

�She said that?�

A nod. �She liked her cover job, fundraising, charity work. She saw an ad for the endowment department at Dover Hills College. About as far away from Nairobi and Southeast DC as you can get. She applied, got accepted. She liked it. She met you.� Wexler shrugs. �All was good.�

�For a time.�

�For a time.� After a moment Wexler says, �Honestly I didn�t think civilian life would last. And I told her that. But you could only say �Are you sure?� once or twice to Pay Addison before you got that look. You know what I mean.�

�I know that look.�

�A couple months ago she called me. She�d come to the end of her rope. She couldn�t take it anymore.�

�It was me.� I say this softly.

�No, Jon. She loved you. And she loved the college, the work. It�s just that she needed more. She needed edge. You know what I mean?�

�More or less.�

�I told her we�d look for some temporary assignments in Western Massachusetts. Our field office had an idea that Cyrus Bennett�s group was behind some racist attacks but they couldn�t get anybody inside the organization to turn. Pay said she�d try. I flew up a month ago and ran her. She finally managed to recruit one of the women in the community. One of Cyrus�s wives.�

�Rose Anne.�

�She was starting to give Pay information but Cyrus got suspicious and had her followed by a guy who saw her buy a bottle of wine and then go to the inn.�

I close my eyes briefly. The Post-it note.

�We think Cyrus or his men took Rose Anne to the river and held her under until she gave up Pay�s name. Then they drowned her and set up the accident on Palmer Mountain.�

My eyes look over all the emergency vehicles. One of the agents is Trudi, also in an FBI windbreaker � the woman in the park who �conveniently� led me to Wexler�s car.

I ask, �So when did you decide to use me as bait?�

�The night of the accident actually. I heard about it on the scanner. I got there as soon as I could. I climbed down to the site through the woods from Ellicott Road and got her computer and phone out of the car and dropped the burner phone � it was blank � while the rescue team was at the top of the hill on 420 with the ambulance. I thought a missing computer and phone, along with finding a secret burner and seeing a mysterious stranger at the funeral might prod you into playing detective.�

I nearly smile at the word.

�And you sent me the letter with the two twenties � to get me to the hotel to find out that she seemed to be having an affair.�

He nods. Then sees my eye on his wrist. He turns it over, revealing the ginkgo tattoo. He says, �We all got it. Our unit in Africa. It was our trademark. And by the way, Jon. Pay and I? We were never close that way. Our relationship was purely a cover.�

I believe him. �The road rage thing, in Cooper? Was that real?�

�No. She just told you that so you�d keep an eye out in case any of Cyrus�s men learned about her and came to Dover Hills.�

Then a thought comes to me. �The whole point of this was to get me inside Cyrus�s house and get that admission.�

�That�s right.�

�How did you hear it?�

�Our tech people turned the autodial on your phone into a microphone and transmitter. Simple hack.� He gives a shrug. �For a hacker. If it went dark, we�d raid the place anyway. We had them on tape Tasing and kidnapping you. But we wanted more, if we could get it. And we sure did: confession to murder.�

I stretch, carefully, though the pain continues to shrink. I�m recalling Pax�s comment.

I need to do this. It�ll keep me sane...

I thought she�d been talking about being a Heart-in-Hand companion. I had no clue she was referring to shooting warlords and arresting white supremacists.

�The flowers? On Palmer Mountain? You left them?�

Wexler says, �When we were overseas and one of ours was killed, we had a tradition. We left a bouquet of trefoils � revenge flowers. It meant we were going to get whoever�d done it.�

�And did you?�

He doesn�t answer.

The flashing lights are mesmerizing. �You understand I might�ve been killed.� I am somewhat indignant but I believe the tone of my voice reveals more pleasure than anger. I�m not altogether upset that, for a change, I have participated in history and not merely recorded and analyzed it.

�Since her death, we�ve had people � like Trudi � on you constantly. And the profile is Cyrus doesn�t kill anyone in the compound.�

�But why didn�t you tell me? I could�ve been a CI like her.�

�Sorry, Jon. You�re not a pro. They would�ve caught on in a minute. Pay was made for this work. You weren�t.�

Another car pulls up. A Martinsville County Public Safety Office cruiser. Two men get out. Detective Bragg and Terry Garner.

Bragg surveys the scene and plods forward.

Wexler says hello to them. Apparently they�ve been in touch.

Bragg looks me over, sighs and shakes his head. �Who�s in charge local?� he asks Wexler, who points out a senior Greenville Station police officer, and Bragg goes to speak with him.

�You okay, Jon?� Terry asks.

�Just fine.�

The deputy avoids my eyes. �He asked me a bunch a questions, Jon. Detective Bragg did. I��

�It�s all right, Terry. He�s a hard man to say no to.�

Bragg returns, with the Greenville Station cop, who hands Terry the gun I stole. This is a serious felony, I�m sure. Probably time in prison. Theft of a firearm, however, was all I could be charged with. I did not, in fact, shoot Reverend Mike. He was right that I wasn�t going to kill an unarmed man. The bullets I fired jammed the latch on the door so he couldn�t get out of the tunnel. If he had he might have gotten away and I couldn�t let that happen.

I did, however, beat the ever-loving hell out of him.

In self-defense, of course.

As he regards me with icy eyes Bragg says, �Okay. Uncuff him.�

The muscular detective would want the pleasure of trussing me up himself for the drive back to the county seat and jail.

The Greenville Station officer uncuffs me and I do what everyone who�s ever been uncuffed does in the TV cop shows. I rub my wrists.

Bragg says, �You get a pass on this one, Professor.�

Wexler adds, �Because of you, we closed a dozen cases around the country that Cyrus�s militia was behind. And Rose Anne�s murder. Todd Stoltz�s and your wife�s too.�

Bragg growls, �That said, you cross the line again, Professor, and you don�t know the hurt you�ll be feeling.�

He stalks away, with Terry Garner in his wake.

Marcus Wexler says, �I�ll need to sit down with you and get some questions answered, for the reports.�

I tell him I�d be happy to, but don�t share that I�ll have some questions too. I�m looking forward to learning more about the Patience Susan Addison that he knew and that I did not.

I am standing behind the house, looking at the work shed that I have finally completed.

Tonight will be the christening, though in fact it�s really just an excuse for a barbecue. Ten or so folks will be here, among them cowgirl Brooke Hartford and her husband. She�s made two covered dishes, a category of cuisine in which she is undeniably as much of an expert as she is in the art of riding quarter horses and on the topic of the Reconstruction.

I return to the garage and my weekend cleaning routine.

The months have gone by quickly. I headed out of town during the breaks, spending time with Janet and her husband and their twin girls and several long weekends with Pax�s parents (long, in both senses of the word; still, family is family).

Between semesters I traveled to Bozeman, Montana, to conduct research for a book I�m planning on the missteps of westward expansion. Brooke wondered, �It is about the nineteenth century, Jon. Couldn�t you�ve found everything you wanted online? You really need to go in person?�

I replied, �Yes,� hitting both questions at once, bull�s-eye, like Annie Oakley was rumored to have done, splitting a bullet with the edge of an axe and striking two playing cards.

After an hour in the garage I�ve worked up quite the sweat; the detritus is losing the cleaning battle. I am filling bag upon bag with scraps of wood and broken tools, cans of dried paint, brushes not properly cleaned and therefore useless, mice-chewed wires, Spackle boxes gone to concrete. After the bags are filled and hauled outside I organize the shelves and, a task I�ve saved for dessert, pry dried grass out of the mower chute.

My eyes turn toward the door to a small storeroom against the back wall. I haven�t used it for years. I open the door, mindful of critters, of which there are none, and flip on the light.

I stop, frozen in place.

I�m looking at five framed prints of paintings, twenty-four by thirty inches. On the back are stickers: R. Johnson Framing and Art, Edwards Mills, MA. They are, as Rachel described, cheerful, city- and landscapes, all mass-produced reproductions by artists who are talented, if of uninspired vision. On a shelf are a dozen unframed prints, some rolled, some flat.

Rachel reported that Pax gave them to her clients. Yet, if these are the same ones, here they are, hidden and dust laden.

I heft the framed ones, take them inside the house and set the stack on the floor in the living room, the Eiffel Tower at Night in the front.

Hearing keys in the door, I turn.

Rachel Johnson is walking inside, toting a Whole Foods reusable bag. �Dropping off, then getting the kids at camp.�

She is wearing the black gypsy skirt and frilly blue blouse she changed into after our ten-mile mountain bike excursion this morning.

I rise and, kissing her, take the bag into the kitchen, saying, �Okay, have a mystery.�

�I�m intrigued.� She follows me into the living room.

�Look.�

Rachel gives a perplexed smile. �Patience�s prints.� She flips through the stack. �She didn�t give them away.�

�What do you think it�s all about?�

�No idea.� But then Rachel tilts her head, and her tangle of chestnut hair spills onto a shoulder. �When you came into the store last year? With the receipt for the job? Where was it?�

�The to-do stack. Bills.�

�It was on top?�

�That�s right.�

She eases onto the couch � the one on which we sometimes sit to watch TV, with her son and daughter, if the rating warrants. I am on the arm, looking at her thoughtful face.

Rachel takes my hand. �I�m thinking about what happened to her. Those terrible men, the ones in prison now.�

I nod.

She�s debating. �Well, we talked a lot, Patience and me, I was telling you. At the bakery, the gallery. Art some, food some, men a lot. She said such wonderful things about you. She said you were about as perfect a husband as can be.�

I inhale deeply and manage to hold it together.

�Well, what I�m thinking, she knows she�s doing something dangerous. And she comes in every week or so to get these crappy prints framed.� Her voice ends each sentence on a slightly higher pitch.

I suddenly get it. �So if something happened to her, we�d meet? You and me?�

Rachel gives one of her breezy laughs. �I said it was crazy.� She glances at her phone for the time. �Better go. The kids, Lord, I hope today wasn�t the bring-a-snake-home-to-mom project.�

I rise too and we embrace. The clasps of our arms are firm. So is the subsequent kiss.

After she�s gone I stand, hands on hips, and stare at the Eiffel Tower.

Thinking, of course, of her theory.

My wife setting me up from the grave?

And with a kind, humorous woman whom Pax had, you might say, vetted?

Then too there was the issue of children.

I was hurt when she changed her mind about starting a family, largely because she would offer no solid reason for her decision. Now I know the answer, of course: even then she was thinking she would slip back into her darker side, and a Cyrus or a Reverend Mike or someone she was pursuing on the job might appear at the doorstep one day when the children were home.

Well, intended or not, the receipt has brought me together with Rachel Johnson and her two children.

I take the framed prints back to the storeroom. If we�re right, they�ve served their purpose and, truth is, they really are middling examples of skill.

In the house once more I climb the stairs to the superhero office, which is now my own. I sit at Pax�s desk, on which are two tall stacks of my just-released book, Investigating the Past: A Methodology in Separating Fact from Fiction in Researching History. My publisher has asked me to personalize two dozen copies. They�ll be sent to the media, in hopes of getting publicity.

I open the top book on the stack to the title page and sign with a flourish. Then I thumb to the afterword and read the passage I was writing when I got the call about Pax�s death. It was a month later that I finally completed it.