I was holding the cold glass of tea. Peppy was whimpering, aware of the tension in the room. I was feeling shame, but also impatience: I wanted to know what had happened to Lucinda and Emerald Ferring after the flood, and Albritten kept circling the question, giving more details about the flood and the town’s response.

And then she’d received a phone call. That’s what I’d forgotten. She’d made a phone call before she let me into the house. My guess—she’d been asking for advice. She’d told someone—Lisa Carmody?—I was there. After she talked to my Chicago client, she wanted to know how much information she could safely give me.

Albritten hadn’t mentioned Doris McKinnon until after she hung up. The person who phoned her had given her permission to tell me, which meant that Albritten and at least one other person in Lawrence already knew that McKinnon was dead. How did they know? From Ferring and Veriden? If Albritten was hiding them, they couldn’t be in her basement; the house didn’t have one. An attic crawl space? The little locked-up church?

I didn’t think I could stake out St. Silas without the police or the sheriff hearing about it, but maybe Nell Albritten would open up to me now that I’d looked after her, maybe saved her life. Maybe I’d threatened her life with my questions, though.

I drank wine and pushed that ugly thought away.

Albritten’s son, Jordan, had played with Emerald when they were toddlers: she would do what she could to protect Emerald, from the sheriff and the Lawrence police. As she should: Sergeant Everard had said Emerald and August were the persons of interest in the murder. Even if the Lawrence PD were more enlightened than Staten Island or Ferguson—or Chicago—forces, it would still be mighty convenient to have a young black man from Chicago around to take the rap.

I dismissed the possibility that August was guilty. I’d never met him, of course, but I didn’t believe that the quiet, methodical young man who brought flowers to his janitor’s sick wife could bash in the head of an old woman. He might strike someone in self-defense or even to defend Emerald, but not “Aunt Doris,” to whom Emerald “owed much.”

In the warm glow of food and wine, I had grandiose fantasies: Tomorrow morning I would imagine a way to get Nell Albritten to confide in me. I would similarly persuade the Perec women, Cady and her doughty grandmother, to tell me what secrets they were keeping.

My food came as I was reading e-mails and texts. I had highly punctuated messages from Bernie: what are you doing???? i’m taking a leave of absence so i can come down to kansas because you aren’t making progress!!!!