I didn’t bother to ask if they were going out to look at the Sea-2-Sea experimental farm—I didn’t want to know; I only wanted time alone. I changed into my running shoes, collected a picnic, and crossed the river on foot so that my long-suffering dog could have an energetic afternoon along the river bottom. The sun had come out, a pallid late-year sun, but it warmed the air and helped improve my mood.

While Peppy explored, I found a wide rock where I could go through my case notes and plan my next steps. And eat. Lentil soup, still warm in its lined carton, bread and goat cheese. I was, if not happy, at least content.

Before leaving the ICU, I’d asked Polanco if anyone had notified the Kiels about the attempt on their daughter. She said the nurses had agreed that that was the job of the ICU attending, Dr. Cordley, who’d been one of Kiel’s students. Not that we expect them to respond, she’d added.

Nor did I, but I wanted to talk to them about the woman from Bratislava or Barcelona or wherever. Hers might be the body that had disappeared from the morgue after Dr. Roque collapsed on the autopsy-room floor—although it was funny that no one had mentioned her until now. Maybe not, though—I hadn’t been talking to anyone in Kiel’s lab. The separation between university and town could easily mean the populations didn’t know each other.

What would get either Shirley or Nate Kiel to tell me Ms. Bratislava’s name and where they’d last seen her?

I thought of Stuart and Larry Kiel telling me how furious their mother had been over Bratislava’s appearance thirty years ago. I wondered if Shirley had come upon the woman unexpectedly and murdered her in a fit of fury. It was hard to imagine keeping rage at a white-hot pitch for so many years, but a sudden encounter might have startled Shirley into acting. Although what would have brought both women out to the McKinnon farm at the same time?

I decided to call Edward Hitchcock, the geologist who’d gone geode hunting with Dr. Roque: he’d tried phoning the pathologist several times right before his death. Maybe it was only to arrange another geode-hunting expedition, but perhaps Roque had consulted his old friend about Doris McKinnon’s soil samples.

The phone rang unanswered, no voice mail or machine. I had only Hitchcock’s office number, not his cell, and I didn’t want to risk giving away his identity to whoever might be reading my files by going into my subscription databases.