Jake got up and went to the sofa in the sitting room. It looked comfortable enough. Then Glynis came in and handed him a pillow and a nubby blue blanket with a crocheted edge.

“Thank you, Jake,” she said. “I … it’s good of you to stay.”

“Nothing to it,” he said, taking the blanket from her hands.

“I must look a mess,” she said. She turned and headed back to the bedroom. At the doorway she stopped. “The bathroom’s in here.”

Jake went in, did his business, and went back to the sitting room. Glynis was sitting on the bed, silent, lost in her thoughts.

As Jake sat on the sofa and began to take off his shoes she called from the bedroom, “Tomorrow we go to Vernon, remember.”

Captain Peter Harraway

CAPTAIN PETER HARRAWAY

Captain Harraway was not pleased to see Jake again. Jake got the feeling that Harraway somehow blamed him for the double murder. But the Vernon police captain was stiffly polite toward Glynis, in a strictly professional manner.

Jake and Glynis sat before Captain Harraway’s desk, in the Vernon Police Department station house. The police captain was standing between his desk and a row of filing cabinets, looming over them like a dark mountain.

“It’s open and shut,” said Harraway to Glynis. “We found them in the living room. She was shot through the chest at point-blank range. Powder burns on her blouse. Then he shot himself through the right temple, scorched his hair.”

“Who found them?” Glynis asked. She was all business now; the tears and misery of the night before had been replaced by dry-eyed, iron-hard determination.

Harraway frowned at her. “What’s your interest here? Why’ve you come up here?”

“Ms. Colwyn worked directly with Professor Sinclair at the university,” Jake said before Glynis could reply. “Naturally, the administration wants to know as much as possible about the circumstances of Professor Sinclair’s death.” Then Jake added, “He had many friends among the faculty and students, you know.”

Harraway nodded minimally. “I guess he did.”

Glynis repeated, “Who found the bodies?”

“The cleaning woman. She came in in the morning and found them in the living room. She called us.”

Jake asked, “Where’d the gun come from?”

With a patient sigh, Harraway replied, “Apparently Mr. Sinclair bought it for his wife’s protection, several months ago. It’s registered in her name. Twenty-two caliber automatic. A woman’s gun.”

So it went, for nearly an hour. Harraway answered every question Glynis threw at him. He pulled photos of the dead bodies from a file drawer and spread them over his desk for Jake and Glynis to inspect.

“But why would he do this?” Glynis demanded. “Why would he drive up here and kill his wife and then himself?”