“Two at most, this time.”

As a good professional she hid her shock at my feckless haste. “So, then. Bring the borrowed traps in, and we’ll cross them off your mother’s card. Otherwise I’ll have to charge you.”

“Fine. Super. I’ll do it tomorrow.” I hoped she didn’t expect me to bring them in loaded. I didn’t have any liver pâté, for one thing.

“And then,” she said, “you know, David, we have a man who does some trapping for us. He lives not far from here, and works out in your area, at one of the new discount outlets in Morgantown. He could set the traps at your place on his way to work and pick them up on his way back.”

“That sounds wonderful. Wonderful. How much does he charge?” Like a frontiersman packing a firearm, I had brought a checkbook, just in case.

“Oh, nothing to you. It comes under township wildlife control. He does it as a kind of hobby.”

“Wonderful,” I repeated once more. “It sounds almost too good to be true. Let me write a donation to the humane society. It’s what my mother would have wanted.” I didn’t explain how I had failed to secure donations instead of funeral flowers. I pondered the proper amount. A hundred dollars seemed not enough for the magnitude of the service. I envisioned waves of cats, gathered like gray sheaves into cages set out in the dawn dew and harvested at twilight. Even two hundred seemed modest. I wrote a check for two hundred fifty, which came to about six dollars a cat. The amount startled her, I could tell by the arch of her plucked and pencilled eyebrows. “And here’s my number in New Jersey if you ever need it,” I said. “Could I have your card, so I can maybe call to check on progress?” I didn’t want her, and her offer, to get away.

“Of course, David.” She had stiffened; she had at last realized that she was a stranger to me—someone simply to use. The card said, “Amy Stauffer, Director, Boone Township Humane Society,” with the same address as on my mother’s note to me. The clue had cracked the case. I drove back to the farmhouse exhilarated, making the tires squeal on the winding Emmetstown road. Once, the thought of my high-school flames would stir my recklessness behind the wheel; now I was in love with Amy Stauffer.