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private letter someone had tried unsuccessfully to steam open. The remote quality of her voice put a distance between them. “My parents are dead, Chief. Can you tell me why?”
    “Not yet,” he said quietly, wishing his presence was less bruising. He should have worn a suit and tie instead of a casual shirt and chinos. He should have worn real shoes instead of loafers.
    “Can you tell me who?”
    His jaw, taut with intention a moment ago, was loose. His feelings stretched to her.
    “What am I going to do without them?” she said in a way her voice was never meant to sound. It could have come from a metal drum.
    “You have your aunt. You have Matt.”
    “Don’t tell me what I have,” she said with increased tension. “I know what I have, Chief.”
    “Please,” he said, “call me James. I might be the police chief, but I’m also your friend. Yours and Matt’s.”
    “Mine and Matt’s. That’s nice, James. You couple us as if we were married. We’re not.” She pushed her hair back. “There’s coffee on the stove if you want it.”
    He poured half a cup and dribbled milk from a pitcher. “It may not have been an accident,” he said.
    She chose not to hear, or not to understand. Her eyes slanted past him. “I froze, you know, when it happened. Maybe I could have saved one or the other. One might still be here.”
    “Nothing you could have done,” he tried to reassure her.
    “You don’t know that. You’re not a medical man.”
    She spoke in anger, and he felt her attention slip away, well beyond his jurisdiction. Standing tall, he drank his coffee in the silence that rose between them. When he tried to break it, she stopped him with the pure blaze of her eyes.
    “I can’t answer any of your questions, James. Not now. I have too many of my own.”
    Miss Westerly reappeared in one of her better housedresses. Her bright lipstick, hurriedly applied, was a red claw over her grief. “Can’t this wait, Chief? She’s in no condition.”
    “Yes, of course. Naturally.” He rinsed his cup out in the sink and left it there. Lydia surprised him by rising from the table and moving with him to the screen door. She even stepped outside with him. Clouds had taken some of the sun away, and the air was a shade cooler. They heard thunder, loud enough to give her a start.
    “My father used to say that’s God pocketing his change,” she said distractedly. “As a little girl I believed it.”
    “You need some sleep,” Morgan said. “Let me call Dr. Skinner to give you something.”
    “Was the bullet meant for me?”
    “I don’t know.”
    She smiled. “I wish I could remember the moment before my birth. That’s what I wish the most.”
    “Why the moment before?” he asked. “Why not the moment itself?”
    “I think the moment before would answer questions.”
    “What questions?”
    “The ones I don’t know to ask,” she said.
    • • •
    When Morgan returned to his car, he found Matt MacGregor sitting in it. MacGregor was in uniform, though not on duty, and his cap was in his lap. He had not shaved and, like Lydia, probably had not slept, which distressed Morgan, who wanted him presentable, clear-headed, effective, not only for the investigation but for Lydia as well. MacGregor’s voice was shaky. “Did you talk to her?”
    Morgan settled in. “A little.”
    “She doesn’t seem to want me with her,” MacGregor said, raking his fingers through his short hair.
    “She’s in shock.”
    “Time like this you’d think she’d need me most.”
    “Time like this all rules are thrown out.”
    Morgan ran the car onto the road and drove slowly, avoiding the town center. From the distance came rumbles of thunder but no sight of rain. Sitting rigidly, MacGregor fixed his stare as he might have a bayonet.
    “You had somebody sitting shotgun. Why?”
    “Probably unnecessarily. But why take a chance?”
    “You could’ve asked me to do it.”
    “You might’ve shot anybody in sight,” Morgan said