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broker showing the place to some folks from DC. Comfortable with that?”
    â€œIt’s still here? How long is it going to take them?”
    I didn’t figure being alone on this road with people I didn’t know.
    â€œI’ll walk back there and find out, Alex.”
    I hesitated for a minute and then decided to ask anyway. “Wally, there’s no direct flight to New York after the morning one that Mike was on, right? Is there still a five- P.M . Cape Air to Boston this time of year?”
    â€œYeah. It’s the only late-afternoon flight out of here now.”
    That would take just thirty-three minutes, and then I could grab the shuttle to LaGuardia.
    â€œAre things quiet enough—I mean, except for me,” I said, with a forced laugh, “that I might impose on you to run me to the airport?”
    â€œI don’t see why not, Alex. I’ll walk next door,” he said. “Can you be ready in ten minutes?”
    â€œYou bet.”
    He backed out of my doorway, left his car in place, and walked up the drive toward my neighbor’s home.
    I dialed Cape Air, booked myself into one of the three remaining seats, and poured a short nip of scotch while I finished gathering my papers and clothes.
    The bumpy flight was right on time. I’d been through worse things than air pockets lately. I dragged my suitcase to the Delta terminal, submitted myself to the metal detector, and boarded the 7:30 shuttle to LaGuardia.
    I didn’t make the choice of my destination until the cabdriver had crossed the bridge and headed south on the FDR, passing the spot, no doubt, where Tanya Root’s body had been dumped in theriver. If I went home, I risked the possible rejection of Mike not coming over to me when his tour ended.
    I gave the driver the address of Mike’s apartment—a tiny walk-up near York Avenue on East Sixty-Fourth Street that was so small and dark he had nicknamed it “the coffin.”
    We’d had keys to each other’s homes for more years than I could remember, for an assortment of good reasons. I climbed the stairs and let myself in.
    I didn’t bother to unpack, but I took a steaming hot shower before I tossed Mike’s dirty underwear and socks off the bed and settled myself under the covers.
    It was after eleven P.M . when I heard the door close behind him and looked up at his face as he stood over me. His fingers were combing through his thick black hair as his puzzled expression turned into a smile.
    â€œWhat happened, Coop?”
    â€œI needed you, Mike. Murder trumped everything but that.”

THREE
    â€œDid you vote, Alexandra?” Stephane asked me.
    I was waiting for Mike and our friends Mercer and Vickee in the bar at Ken Aretsky’s Patroon, another restaurant in my comfort zone of places with great food where I also felt totally at home. Stephane, the handsome maître d’ with the most divine French accent, had helped me to a glass of my favorite Chardonnay.
    â€œ
Mais oui, mon ami
,” I said. Somehow I had lifted myself out of my state of emotional paralysis to get things done after Mike had left for work. “I always vote.”
    It was the first Tuesday in November.
    â€œYour boss, he is up for reelection today?”
    â€œNext year, Stephane.”
    I had been crushed by what I had recently learned about Paul Battaglia’s political involvement with a shyster minister, the Rev. Hal Shipley. Though Battaglia had a two-decade hold on the job of district attorney, I found myself wishing he would find a graceful way to step down. I had no desire to support him any longer.
    â€œI’ll have whatever she’s having,” Vickee Eaton said to Stephane as she sidled up next to me at the bar. “Been way too long, girl.”
    I reached over to give her a hug and probably clasped on to her a little harder and longer than I meant to do.
    â€œI wasn’t sure you would come tonight,” I said.