“I called Hal immediately,” she said in a scratchy voice. “He told me that Brenae was unhinged, and he was handling it. Hal and I never got along, but I respected him, and the school was his domain. I believed he was telling the truth. And to be honest, I didn’t like Brenae’s project. It was tawdry. I didn’t think it would serve a young artist’s future to expose herself like that. No one would see her talent. All anyone would ever see was her being . . . subjugated.” She paused, her lips a thin line. “But when Brenae died, I felt like I had failed her. I did fail her. I ignored my regret, because I was embarrassed. Then Still Lives started heating up, and Kim Lord went missing, and I got distracted. For months. Running a museum that became a murder site.” She spoke the next words with her old certitude. “I was wrong. You may interview me, and I promise to tell the whole truth.”

I almost excused Janis then. I didn’t want her confession; it shadowed my reverence for her. But then I saw myself clawing those last lengths through the Westing ceiling, how Brenae had come to me, last of all my mentors. I had never wanted someone so broken and desperate to lead me, then or now, but she was my guide into her story. She had to be. “Thank you,” I said. “I know how much it costs you to say that.”

“Speaking of cost, how are you going to afford to do this research?” From the tone of Janis’s voice, it was clear that she would be grateful to salary me, but I couldn’t take it. I needed autonomy.

“I’ll find a way,” I said. “I can freelance as a copy editor. I’ll have a good reference.”

Janis’s eyes moved over me, and I had the strange impression she was taking me in, really taking me in, for the first time, not my carefully chosen linen dress, not my blushing face and pinned hair, but the steadiness of my eyes, the set of my mouth, the tilt of my shoulders toward her, the way a queen would examine her newest knight, wondering how much courage he would bring, how much suffering he could bear, when suffering eventually came. And then her face contracted with an expression of approval, the deepest affirming nod.

We sipped at our lemonades. The tart and sweet blended perfectly, but Janis grimaced. “Nothing tastes the same these days,” she said. “The flavor’s off, but I can’t remember what the right flavor is supposed to be.”

Sadness for her flooded me. Her long reign was ending, or changing in inexorable ways. For a moment she seemed to shrink farther into the folds of her white blouse, but she shook her head when I started to speak. “You going to miss it?” she said. “The Rocque?”