Her back was to Sixth Street, but I had a three-quarter view of her body. Around sixty-five. Her collar was a snowy Peter Pan job, her slacks olive wool, much too heavy for the weather. She had hair dyed as black as the tar, cut in a flapper bob with eyebrow-length bangs. Her face was crinkled and small. Arthritic hands curled in her lap. Red tennis shoes covered her feet, over white socks, folded over once. A big, green plastic purse hung from her shoulder. If she weighed a hundred pounds, it was after Thanksgiving dinner.

The ground was covered with dry leaves and I made noise as I approached. She kept gazing out at the lawn and didn't look back. Children were playing there, mobile dots on an emerald screen, but I wasn't sure she saw them.

The random trees had been trimmed to form a canopy, and the shadows they cast were absolute. Several other benches were scattered nearby, most of them empty. A black man slept on one, a paper bag next to his head. Two women of Rolanda Basille's approximate age sat on another, strumming guitars and singing.

I walked in front of her.

She barely looked up, then slapped the bench.

I sat down. Music drifted over from the two guitarists. Some sort of folk song, a foreign language.

“The Stepne sisters,” she said, sticking out her tongue. “They're here all the time. They stink. Did you ever see a picture of my daughter?”

“Just in the paper.”

“That wasn't a flattering one.” She opened the big purse, searched for a while, and took out a medium-sized envelope. Withdrawing three color photographs, she handed them to me.

Professional portraits, passable quality. Rebecca Basille sitting in a white wicker chair, posed three different ways in front of a mountain-stream backdrop, wearing a powder-blue dress and pearls. Big smile. Terrific teeth. Very pretty; soft, curvy build, soft arms, a trifle heavy. The dress was low-cut and showed some cleavage. Her brown hair was shiny and long and iron-curled at the ends, her eyes full of humor and just a bit of apprehension, as if she'd been sitting for a long time and had doubts about the outcome.

“Very lovely,” I said.

“She was beautiful,” said Rolanda. “Inside and out.”

She held out her hand and I returned the photos. After she'd replaced them in the purse, she said, “I just wanted you to see the person she was, though even these don't do it. She didn't like having her picture taken—used to be chubby when she was little. Her face was always gorgeous.”

I nodded.

She said, “There was a wounded bird within five miles, Becky'd find it and bring it home. Shoeboxes and cotton balls and eyedroppers. She tried to save anything—bugs—those little gray curly things?”

“Potato bugs?”