Only it wasn’t Mayhew screaming. It was a woman.

“Jesus!” Trimble shouted, moving the gun away. But that didn’t stop the woman from continuing to scream.

“Shut up!” Trimble shouted. More screaming. “Shut up! Shut the fuck up!”

Screaming back at her wasn’t working, so he brought the gun back into play, putting the barrel right up to her nose. Trimble said, “Shut. Up.”

She managed to compose herself. She struggled to sit up in the bed, and I could now see that what I’d thought were tufts of hair were rollers. She had a good dozen of them on her gray-haired head, pinned into position. She was wearing an off-white, heavy flannel, full-sleeved nightgown, and it was fair to say that we had not caught her at her best.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Where’s Eddie?” Trimble asked.

“I just, I don’t, what do you want?”

“I just asked you, I want to know where Eddie is. He’s your husband, right?”

“Yes, he is. What do you want with Edward?”

“We want to know where he is.”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know. I wish I did know. If he was going to be late, he should have called me. He’s supposed to call, but sometimes he doesn’t.”

Trimble looked very tired. “Is there anyone else in the house?”

“What? No, there’s no one else. Unless Edward’s downstairs.”

Trimble sat on the edge of the bed, brought the gun down so that it was still in his hand, but lying on the covers. “Mrs. Mayhew,” he said softly. “It’s very important that we find your husband.”

“Is he in some kind of trouble? Because if he is, I have to tell you, I’m not all that surprised, the bastard.”

“If we can find him in time, maybe we can keep him out of any trouble.”

“Are you the police?”

“We are,” Trimble said slowly, “a branch of the police, but we work a little under the radar, if you get my understanding.”

Mrs. Mayhew nodded. She was starting to look a little relieved now that maybe we weren’t bad guys, as she’d first thought.

“Because your husband works for the government,” he said, “he’s been able to assist us in our investigation, working somewhat undercover himself.”

“Edward? Working undercover? He’s certainly never mentioned anything to me. But of course, he hardly talks to me about anything. I ask him, ‘How was your day? What happened? Who did you see?’ And you know what he says? He says absolutely nothing.”

“That’s good. That’s good, that he didn’t tell you. A lot of times, you figure, even when you tell someone not to tell anyone what they’re doing, you figure they’re still going to tell their wives, you know?”

She nodded.