“Yes, ma‘am.”

“Who? Is it Margot?”

“We don’t know right now who it is.”

The door to the upstairs opened and three people came out, a young couple and a middle-aged man, tenants from the other two apartments. Their faces were alarmed, and they stood close together, clutching bathrobes. The older man was wearing unlaced dress shoes. He stared at Betsy.

“Why don’t you come with me and sit in the squad car?” said the policeman, taking Betsy by the elbow. “Let’s get you out of all this.” His voice was kind but firm. In a kind of dream, Betsy allowed herself to be ushered into the backseat of the squad car, whose engine was running, and lights still flashing. The policeman went away.

Except for the radio, it was darkly silent in the car. Everything in it was black—the upholstery, the seats, the shotgun clamped vertically to the black dashboard. Betsy could almost smell the testosterone and suddenly wondered how Jill could stand it.

The radio muttered again, the words too mixed with static to understand. She didn’t like being put in the squad car, it indicated her place in this affair was worse than those spectators standing on the sidewalk, merely alarmed.

After a while she noticed raindrops on the windshield; it had started to rain again. The people on the sidewalk went back inside.

After a long while the ambulance people came out. The policeman followed behind them to open the squad car’s back door. “Come with me, please,” he said, and held out a hand.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“We want you to look at something,” he said, and led her into the store.

Someone had turned on the lights. Betsy could not believe the disarray. The floor was covered with yarn and floss. The spin racks were on their sides, magazines had been crumpled and ripped, baskets that had held knitting yarn had not only been emptied, but stepped on.

The policeman led her past Margot’s desk, which was pulled out of place, toward the back of the store. Here shelves came out from the wall on either side. Behind them, on the side where the pretty little upholstered chairs had sat around a little round table, was even wilder disarray. The chairs were overturned. The shelves had been divided vertically into cubes, which had once held yarn and evenweave fabrics; books, magazines, and canvas needlework bags had been emptied onto the floor. Behind the chairs was a big heap of wool and books, and beyond them, as if they had been moved aside to uncover her, was a woman.

She was on her back, her head turned to one side. Her eyes were partly open, as was her mouth. She looked as if she were crying out in pain. Her skin was an odd, pale color. She was wearing a black wool skirt hiked up over one knee and a dark wine sweater, the sleeves pushed up. One of her sensible black shoes was off the heel of her foot and her arms were bent at the elbows, hands clenched. Her blond hair was mussed.