‘Do you talk to your son?’ I asked.

‘He doesn’t call as often as he should, that bad boy. But he knows he can.’

‘Jayne called here a couple weeks before Christmas,’ I said.

She said nothing as she sewed.

‘Did she say anything to you about seeing her brother?’

She was silent.

‘I’m wondering because he was in New York, too.’

‘Certainly, I told him he ought to look up his sister and wish her a Merry Christmas,’ Mrs. Gault said as her husband winced.

‘You sent her money?’ I went on.

She looked up at me. ‘Now I believe you’re getting a bit personal.’

‘Yes, ma’am. I’m afraid I have to get personal.’

She threaded a needle with bright blue yarn.

‘Doctors get personal.’ I tried a different tack. ‘That’s part of our job.’

She laughed a little. ‘Well now, they do. I suppose that’s why I hate going to them. They think they can cure everything with milk of magnesia. It’s like drinking white paint. Peyton? Would you mind getting me a glass of water with a little ice? And see what our guest would like.’

‘Nothing,’ I told him quietly as he reluctantly got up and left the room.

‘That was very thoughtful of you to send your daughter money,’ I said. ‘Please tell me how you did it in a city as big and busy as New York.’

‘I had Western Union wire it, same as I always do.’

‘Where exactly did you wire it?’

‘New York, where Jayne is.’

‘Where in New York, Mrs. Gault? And have you done this more than once?’

‘A drugstore up there. Because she has to get her medicine.’

‘For her seizures. Her diphenylhydantoin.’

‘Jayne said it wasn’t a very good part of town.’ She sewed some more. ‘It was called Houston. Only it’s not pronounced like the city in Texas.’

‘Houston and what?’ I asked.

‘Why, I don’t know what you mean.’ She was getting agitated.

‘A cross street. I need an address.’

‘Why in the world?’

‘Because that may be where your daughter went right before she died.’

She sewed faster, her lips a thin line.

‘Please help me, Mrs. Gault.’

‘She rides the bus a lot. She says she can see America flow by like a movie when she’s on the bus.’

‘I know you don’t want anyone else to die.’

She squeezed her eyes shut.

‘Please.’

‘Now I lay me.’

‘What?’ I said.

‘Rachael.’ Mr. Gault returned to the room. ‘There isn’t any ice. I don’t know what happened.’

‘Down to sleep,’ she said.

Dumbfounded, I looked at her husband.

‘Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep,’ he said, looking at her. ‘We prayed that with the kids every night when they were small. Is that what you’re thinking of, honey?’

‘Test question for Western Union,’ she said.