“Do you recognize her?” asked the policeman.

“Margot,” whispered Betsy. “It’s my sister Margot.”

6

As Jill prepared for bed, she began to smile—though it hardly showed on her face. Betsy Devonshire was an interesting person. And funny; it had been hard to keep from laughing out loud at some of the things she said. On the other hand, Betsy was kind of slow to pick up on a joke. She probably didn’t get Jill’s crack about knitting, and Jill thought it had been pretty obvious. But never mind; Betsy liked Italian food, complimented Buca’s, stayed awake all through the play, and made some intelligent comments on it afterward. And above all, she was the sister of her best friend, Margot Berglund.

She wondered how long it would take Margot to understand the prank of insisting Betsy take home all that garlic-laden food. Margot disliked garlic almost as much as she did onions. Jill snorted softly and climbed between the crisp sheets. She loved jokes whose punch lines went off sometime later.

She was fast asleep when the phone rang, and it took her a minute to understand what the caller was asking her—and why.

“Wait a second, Mike!” she demanded. “Take a breath!” She took one of her own. “Now, what’s this about a burglar?”

Betsy sat in the dining nook of the apartment. Jill was in the kitchen and there was the smell of coffee.

“Here, drink this,” said Jill, and a mug of coffee appeared in front of Betsy. She put her cold hands around it, burning them. But she left them there; it was an honest, understandable hurt.

“What happens now?” Betsy asked.

“An autopsy. Then the ME—medical examiner—will release the body, and you’ll have to make funeral arrangements.”

“I don’t know how to do that.” And she didn’t want to learn. She felt sick and weary, all her senses dulled, as if she were coming down with flu. She didn’t even have the strength to lift the mug to her mouth. Margot couldn’t be dead, Margot had just stayed late at her meeting and would be home any minute, asking what all the fuss was about.

“I assume you want her buried beside her husband?” asked Jill.

“At Aaron’s funeral she said something to me about being buried in the same plot. Can you do that?”

“Yes, people do it all the time. Especially if they’re cremated. Aaron was cremated. Call Paul Huber, he’s good.”

“Who’s Huber?” asked Betsy wearily.

“The local funeral home. And you should call Reverend John at Trinity.”

“Okay. Sure.”

“Not this minute, of course.”

Betsy, hearing criticism in Jill’s voice, looked up. And saw that implacable stare looking back. Suddenly she wanted to punch that smooth face. She wanted to rail, scream, and tear her hair, dress herself in sackcloth and pour ashes on her head, and weep for days, weeks, forever. Margot was dead.

But she didn’t scream, or say anything, or do anything, only stared at Jill.

Who looked at her watch, a small, delicate thing, clinging to that sturdy white wrist. “It’s very late. You should go to bed.”