"Just trying to think of some connection between you and the school. Someone put Tabitha's… Tabitha there, and someone made sure we were hired for this job."

The couple sat and looked at me wide-eyed. I had the uncharitable thought that this increased Diane's resemblance to a lemur. Though the pregnant woman looked as though she were about to bolt, Joel was alert and intense. The man had an overabundance of energy, and it boiled around him, even under these circumstances. Behind them, Felicia was staring at me with an incredulous face.

"Surely it's just a coincidence," Felicia said, finally, looking at me as though I were delusional. "You don't think… you can't imagine that someone created such an elaborate plot? How could someone have put Tabitha there, and then find you, get you here, make sure you found Tabitha? That's just incredible."

We all spent a second or two staring at each other. Art was looking from me to Felicia, as if we were playing Ping-Pong.

"I agree," I said. "But I can't make sense out of any other scenario. Actually, there's not much sense in that one."

"We have to issue some kind of statement to the press," Art said, when he realized the conversation had reached a stalemate. "It has to be a statement that treads a fine line. We can't rule anything out, like Diane just did. We can't make any fantastic claims, like Harper did. We have to regret everything and admit nothing about our personal feelings about what might have happened."

Tolliver was the only one who nodded his head in agreement.

"You know, our own lawyer is downstairs," Diane murmured.

At the same moment Joel erupted. "No!" he said. "No! We have to condemn whoever did this to our daughter in the strongest possible terms!" Diane and Felicia both nodded their agreement.

"Oh, of course," Art said. "Naturally, that, too."

four

WE turned on the television in the living room of the suite to watch Art meet the news cameras. There were three stations in Memphis, and all three had sent representatives to the press conference, which was held on the sidewalk outside the Cleveland. By that time, the Morgenstern family lawyer, a chic fortyish woman named Blythe Benson, had arrived on the scene. Joel and Diane had told us that Benson had insisted on the Morgenstern family issuing their own separate-but-equal statement. The local lawyer and Art made an impressive duo. Art had that older-man gravitas thing going, and Blythe was cool and blond and WASP-y to the nth degree.

Blythe had consulted with the Morgensterns at their home about what she was going to say on their behalf, Diane told us. Felicia shot me a glance as Diane said this, and I wondered what was coming. Felicia Hart, as I've said, seemed way smarter than Diane. It made me wonder what Felicia's sister, Joel's first wife, had been like.