I told her about Claire and Peake, emphasizing a therapeutic relationship gone bad, keeping prophecy out of it, omitting the other murders.

She put the mug down. "Peake? I always thought he was retarded. Wouldn't have pegged him for violence, so what do I know? The only psychology I ever studied was an introductory course at Sarah Lawrence back in another century."

"I'll bet you know plenty."

She smiled. "Why? Because I'm old? Don't blush, I am old." She touched one seamed cheek. "The truth is in the flesh. Didn't Samuel Butler say that? Or maybe I made it up. Anyway, I'm afraid I can't give you any ideas on Peake. Never had a feel for him. Now you're going to leave. Too bad. You're good-looking and I was looking forward to this."

"To talking about Treadway?"

"To maligning Treadway."

"How long did you live there?"

"Too long. Never could stand the place. At the time of the murders, I was working in Bakersfield. Chamber of commerce. Not exactly a cosmopolis but at least there was some semblance of civilization. Like sidewalks. At night I helped my husband put the paper to bed. Such as it was."

She lifted the mug and drank. "Have you read the rag?"

"Twenty years' worth."

"Lord. Where'd you get hold of it?"

"Beale Memorial Library."

"You are motivated." She shook her head. "Twenty years' worth. Orton would be shocked. He knew what he'd come down to."

"He didn't like publishing?"

"He liked publishing fine. He would've preferred running the The New York Times. He was a Dartmouth boy. The Intelligencer-doesn't that reek of East Coast sensibilities? Unfortunately his politics were somewhere to the right of Joe McCarthy, and after the war that wasn't very fashionable. Also, he had a little problem." She pantomimed tossing back a drink. "Hundred-proof rum-developed a taste for it when serving in the Pacific. Lived to eighty-seven, anyway. Developed palate cancer, recovered, then leukemia, went into remission, then cirrhosis, and even that took years to kill him. His doctor saw an X ray of his liver, called him a medical miracle-he was oodles older than me."

Laughing, she finished the soup, got up, poured a refill, came back. "The Intelligencer was Orton hitting bottom. He began his career at The Philadelphia Inquirer and proceeded to embark on a downward slide for the rest of his life. Treadway was our last stop-we bought the rag for next to nothing and settled into a life of crushing tedium and genteel poverty. Gawd, I hated that place. Stupid people everywhere you looked. Social Darwinism, I suppose: the smart ones leave for the big city, only the idiots remain to breed." Another laugh. "Orton used to call it the power of positive backpedaling. He and I decided not to breed."

I made sure not to look at the dolls in the kitchen.

She said, "The only reason I stayed there was because I loved the guy-very good-looking. Even handsomer than you. Virile, too."