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driven to Maine for a while, and even then really only along the ocean, where Beth and I had taken “getaway weekends” out of season at some of the ports like Bailey Island or Boothbay Harbor. After about five miles, I noticed more evergreens and less development. The people drove faster but better. I saw fewer Massachusetts and New Hampshire cars and more Mainers, white license plates with deep blue letters and numbers and a red lobster logo. Even when the road narrowed, the drivers seemed to be able to merge politely and smoothly. I realized that it was a “real shiny day” and put back the moonroof to let the sun into the cabin. Then I kicked the Honda up to sixty-two and sailed along past Portland, staying with the more inland Maine Turnpike instead of the more coastal Route 95.
    About ten miles north of Portland, the horizon seemed to expand, the most sky I’d seen east of Montana. In between the patches of blue were darker, humpbacked clouds, as though a sketch artist had used broad strokes with a charcoal stick. Each time the car topped a rise, the clouds gave the illusion of flying over glaciered mountains, endless ranges of them still in front of me.
    I found myself taking deep, regular breaths of the warm but not humid air. I even hummed a little, the melody Nancy and I heard before dropping off to sleep the night before.
    The last fifty miles seemed to melt away, and I almost regretted the Augusta exit coming up on the right.
    “You must be Mr. Cuddy.”
    The woman that went with the voice of Judy over the phone was in her late twenties, a fresh-scrubbed look to her plainish face over a simple cotton dress. Gil Lacouture shared office space with a real estate broker and an insurance agent in a huge white colonial house with fluted Doric columns and black jalousied shutters.
    “Call me John.”
    Judy shook my hand vigorously and asked if she could get me anything.
    “No, thanks.”
    “You sure? Coffee, tea?”
    “No, really.”
    Judy indicated a burlap couch with matching chairs and low table that formed the waiting area. “You have yourself a seat, then. Gil is just about finished with a client.”
    I took one of the chairs. On the table, back issues of outdoor magazines like Field and Stream and Sports Afield mingled with Woman’s Day and Good Housekeeping . Judy sat behind an old wooden desk and began clacking away on an original IBM PC.
    A doorway to what felt like a front parlor opened, and a man and a woman came through it, the woman first. She seemed to be in her late teens, with long black hair and makeup verging on war paint. Her blue jeans were two sizes too small, making little rolls of fat above and below the front pockets. Large breasts pushed against a T-shirt that read YOU CAN’T BE FIRST, BUT YOU CAN BE NEXT.
    The man was of medium height and build, with blond hair short enough to make his eyebrows and mustache look bushy, like a British army sergeant. He wore khaki pants, a plaid work shirt, and a solid wool tie that picked up one of the minor colors in the shirt.
    The man spoke more to the T-shirt than to the woman. “And maybe just a white blouse for court on Thursday, right?”
    The woman noticed me and smiled. Then she turned back to him, flirting an index finger under his chin. “Whatever you say, Gil.” I got a brighter smile and a “Sorry to keep you waiting” as she vamped past me and out the door.
    The man watched her go, then came over to me. “John Cuddy?”
    I stood and shared a handshake with him. “Right.”
    “Gil Lacouture. Come on in.”
    Lacouture’s office itself was roomy, with big, multipaned windows on two of the four walls and white floor-to-ceiling bookshelves built into the others. The carpeting was beige, allowing the red drapes to draw your attention to the windows and welcome you to a sense of hominess.
    I said, “Nice place.”
    Lacouture dropped into a squeaky leather chair behind a maple desk, motioning me toward one of two black captain’s