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SIX
    April 19
    T oday was the anniversary of Sampson Becket’s death.
    Sam’s first beloved son, born to him and his first wife, Althea, more than twenty-one years ago, their marriage a painful casualty of the accident that had robbed them of their beautiful boy.
    That loss eighteen years ago this day. The memories of the anguish never really fading, only the ability to keep them at bay growing stronger with time.
    Most years, Sam went up to Sarasota on the anniversary, laid Sampson’s favorite colored seashells on his grave, sang him a lullaby or two in his baritone voice. Sometimes he went alone, sometimes with Grace; a couple of times his dad had come along, and twice Saul, and some day Sam planned to take Joshua, but this year he had his father’s wedding to prepare for, and David had asked if he minded the date being so close to the anniversary, and Sam had told him he could not be happier.
    No visit to Sarasota this year. Too much to be done.
    Life going on.
    And a killer to catch.
    With so much to do and with an excited two-year-old to contend with, Grace had scheduled no appointments for the whole week leading up to the wedding. Cathy would be at JWU until the day before, but Saul had been more than pulling his weight and, despite all Grace’s protestations, the bride herself had been unstoppable.
    â€˜I’ll stop one day before and not a minute sooner,’ Mildred had told David and Grace a month ago. ‘And if anyone tries to keep me from helping with my own wedding, I’ll call the whole thing off, and then see how you – ’ this last to David – ‘like that.’
    â€˜It might be easier than being married to a cantankerous woman,’ he said.
    â€˜You think you’ve seen cantankerous?’ Mildred countered. ‘You try getting me to put my feet up again when I’ve important things to do, and you’ll know what cantankerous really means.’
    But though the transformation of the lanai was taking shape and the wedding outfits were hanging under covers in various walk-in closets, and the preparations for the luncheon could not be tackled much before Wednesday and the morning itself, Grace was still glad she’d kept her calendar free.
    Come this cool, wet Monday morning, however – and Grace hoped to heaven it would not be like this on Thursday – when Sara Mankowitz telephoned and Grace heard the awful strain in her voice, she knew that if she refused to see Pete, Sara’s son, she’d have no peace of mind for the rest of the day.
    â€˜I’m desperate,’ Sara had said.
    Not a hysterical woman, for the most part, besides which – though Grace would not have admitted it to anyone else – some patients were just a little more special than others.
    Ten-year-old Pete Mankowitz was a sweet-natured boy who suffered from panic disorder and had lately been developing signs of agoraphobia and, in general, worrying hell out of his mom, whose husband had walked out three years ago.
    Working in cooperation with the family doctor, Grace had used relaxation techniques and cognitive therapy, but it was beginning to seem that they might soon have to resort to drug therapy. Sara was understandably resistant, given that some of the safest medications sometimes aggravated depression and, even when they did not, tolerance could occur in the long term. But with Pete often absent from school, and increasingly unable to interact socially . . .
    For today, a house call.
    â€˜You could kill two birds,’ Mildred suggested. ‘Have lunch with your sister.’
    The bride-to-be working today, no one daring to challenge her, and she had a good point, since Claudia’s new house on Key Biscayne was little more than a mile from Pete’s.
    â€˜There isn’t really time for that,’ Grace said.
    â€˜So make time,’ Mildred told her. ‘I’ll pick up Joshua.’
    â€˜You’re getting