She surveyed the wall with rheumy eyes, trying to discover the source of the sound. Her head was small, like a little pumpkin off the vine too long, looking shrunken from some interior softening. Her eyes were narrow inverted V's and one tooth protruded from her lower gum like a candle wick. She seemed confused.

"What?" she said, but the question had a hopeless ring to it. I didn't think anybody answered her these days.

Snyder waved at me impatiently. "She's fine. Just leave her be. Doctor wants her on her feet more anyway," he said.

I watched her uncomfortably. She continued to stand there, looking puzzled and dismayed, like a baby who's learned how to pull itself up on the sides of a crib, but hasn't figured out how to sit down again.

Mr. Snyder ignored her, settling on the couch with his knees spread. His belly filled the space between his legs like a duffel bag, as cumbersome on him as a clown suit with a false front. He put his hands on his knees, giving me his full attention as though I might be soliciting his entire history for inclusion on "This Is Your Life."

"We been in this house forty year," he said. "Bought it back in nineteen and forty-three for four thousand dollar. Bet you never heard of a house that cheap. Now it's worth one hunnert and fifteen thousand. Just the lot we're settin' on. That don't even count the house. They can knock this place down and build anything they want. Hell, she can't even get that walker into the commode. Now Leonard, next door, nearly sold his house for a hunnert and thirty-five, had it in escroll and everything and then the deal fell out. That about done him in. He's the one I feel sorry for. House burnt. Wife dead. You know what the kids these days would say... his carnal was bad."

He went right on talking while I took mental notes. This was better than I'd hoped. I had thought I'd have to tell a few fibs, leading the conversation around judiciously from Elaine's whereabouts to the subject of the murder next door, but here sat Orris Snyder giving testimony extemporaneously. I realized he'd stopped. He was looking at me.

"You've sold this house? I saw the sign out front."

"Sold," he said with satisfaction. "We can move us up to that retirement place when the kids get everything here packed up. We've got a regular reservation. We're on the list and everything. She's old. She doesn't even know where she is half the time. Fire broke out in this place, she'd lay there and cook."

I glanced at his wife, who had apparently locked her knees. I was worried she would pass out, but he didn't seem to give it much thought. She might as well have been a hall tree.