Ingrid, then fifty-two, had remarried quickly and well, latching on to a seventy-year-old bathroom fixture magnate whose relative age still permitted her trophy status. Sanderson saw her now and again, when she and the toilet king wintered in the city, and they remained friendly, always able to talk about their daughter who, in spite of her parents’ sufferings, had blossomed into a remarkably well-adjusted kindergarten teacher. Yet for all of Ingrid’s shortcomings, Sanderson did miss her cooking—and, if he were honest, her intermittent good humor. He’d seen a few women in the intervening years, but none who could make him laugh like Ingrid on a good day. And this was the time—quiet dinners over stale wine—when Ingrid had always been at her best. Not for the first time, he hoped the toilet king was an utter bore behind her braised veal and Chardonnay.

He finished dinner quickly and, relishing the one recompense of frozen entrées, tossed the plastic tray into an overflowing trash bin. Realizing that misery was getting the better of him, Sanderson did what he always did when he was feeling low—he poured a second glass of wine and turned his thoughts to work. He might have been put off the case, but it was not so easy to jettison the routines of a thirty-five-year career.

His instincts about Edmund Deadmarsh had been accurate. Unfortunately, he had not acted on them. He should have ordered comprehensive surveillance, not just a single man to watch over a target who was an unknown entity; indeed, one whose very identity had become an open question. As he’d been doing for hours, Sanderson thought about Sergeant Elmander. Had he put the man at risk? It was a discomforting idea, and one that made his head hurt even more.

He went to the medicine cabinet for ibuprofen, and in the mirror saw a tired man. He’d not been sleeping well in recent weeks, and today’s events weren’t going to help matters. Returning to the kitchen, he considered his schedule for the next day. He was to see Dr. Samuels at nine in the morning, with any mercy no more than an hour. After that, for the first time in thirty-five years, Sanderson had nothing on his agenda. He supposed he would go to the station. On principle he did not dispute Sjoberg’s authority to pull him from the case, yet as a practical matter he could never sit still while Edmund Deadmarsh, or whoever the man was, remained at large. Even more, Sanderson knew his vindication wasn’t going to come from any crackpot medical evaluation. Far better it should come from finishing the job he’d today put on a platter for Anna Forsten.