Fairchild hesitated for a moment, long enough to blow another puff of smoke toward the light. Then he leaned forward and pushed the cigar into a receptacle filled with sand. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed anything, Patricia Anne, but Eddie has been diagnosed as being in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.”

I was shocked. “I haven’t noticed a thing.”

“I’ll bet when you first saw them, Laura thought of some way to remind Eddie of your name.”

I thought for a moment. “She said, ‘Patricia Anne, Mary Alice, what’s the matter’ or something like that. It didn’t seem strange the way she did it.”

“She’s gotten good at helping him like that, protecting him. She’s told the police, of course, about his condition and has absolutely refused to let them question him without her being there. He understands that Millicent and Emily are dead and he’s extremely upset about it. He’s not that far gone.”

“Damn,” Fred said. My thoughts exactly.

Fairchild stood up and stretched slightly. “Well, I’ll let you two lovebirds have the stile to yourselves. I’ve got to go in and make some phone calls.”

“Is there anything we can do for you tomorrow?” Fred asked.

“Just be there.” He started down the stile steps. “And bring Mary Alice.”

Old coot.

I pinched Fred on the inside of his thigh. “You’d better not have another woman already lined up.”

“Watch where you’re pinching or it wouldn’t do me any good if I did.”

“You mean like this?”

He grabbed my hand and giggled. “Quit that!”

I didn’t feel like playing, anyway. The news about Eddie’s illness had shaken me. I stopped my hand’s forward motion, moved away slightly and inquired about Woofer.

“He’s fine,” Fred said, confused at the sudden cessation of the game.

“Mitzi’s walking him every day?”

“When the two of them aren’t sitting in her air-conditioned den watching soaps. Mitzi says he’s especially fond of ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’.”

“I swear, just like a male. And me not gone even a week.”

A young couple came over the stile, spoke to us, and walked down the beach toward the water. When I turned from watching them, Fred was looking straight at me. “Tell me everything that’s happened this week.”

“It’s been strange. Part of it has actually been fun, like tonight’s reading. But finding the bodies!”

“I know, honey.” He put his arm around me and I snuggled against him. God was in his heaven; all was right with the world.