Mrs. Cleghorn sat down behind a stack of newspapers at the head of the table and gestured me to the chair catty-corner to her.

I fiddled with the pages of the book in front of me, then said abruptly, “Nancy was trying to get in touch with me yesterday. I guess I told you that when you gave me her number. Do you know what she wanted?”

She shook her head. “I hadn’t talked to her for several weeks.”

“I know it’s rotten of me to bug you about it today. But—I keep thinking it had something to do with—with what happened to her. I mean, we hadn’t seen each other for so long. And when we did talk it was about my being a detective and what I would do in her situation. So she would have thought of me in that context, you know—something came up that she thought my special experience might help her with.”

“I just don’t know, dear.” Her voice trembled and she struggled to control it. “Don’t let it worry you. You couldn’t have done anything to help her, I’m sure.”

“I wish I could agree with you. Look, I’m not trying to be a ghoul, or pressure you when you’re so upset. But I feel responsible. I’m an experienced investigator. I might have been able to help her if I’d been home when she called. The only thing I can do to assuage my conscience is try to find who killed her.”

“Vic, I know you and Nancy were friends, and I’m sure you think you’re helping by getting involved. But can’t you just leave it to the police? I don’t want to have to talk about it or think about it anymore. It’s bad enough having to get ready for her funeral with all these children screaming through the house. If I have to worry about—about why someone wanted to kill her—I keep thinking of her in that marsh. We used to go bird-watching there when she was in Girl Scouts and she was always so scared of the water. I keep thinking of her in there being alone and afraid—” She broke off and struggled against her tears.

I knew Nancy was afraid of water. She had never joined our surreptitious swims in the Calumet and she had to get a written statement from a doctor to excuse her from the swimming requirement in college. I didn’t want to think of her last minutes in the marsh. Maybe she’d never regained consciousness. It was the best I could hope for.

“That’s why it matters to me to find out who put her through such torment. It makes me feel that she was a little less helpless if I can go to bat for her now. Can you understand that and tell me who Nancy might’ve talked to? If not to you, I mean?”

She and Nancy had always had a kind of careless camaraderie, which I’d envied. Even though I loved my mother, she was too intense for an easy relationship. If Nancy hadn’t told Ellen Cleghorn what was going on with the recycling center, she’d certainly have talked to her about friends and lovers. And after a few more minutes of coaxing, Mrs. Cleghorn started speaking about them.