Carrie tries again. She selects one memory in particular. There was a day in second grade when she and her dad drove to Centerville. Not for a case, or to follow a lead. He was giving a talk at the community college there, and she wanted to go. She remembers how that made him proud, and he pulled her out of school for the day. She can recall the golden light over the fields by the highway — the ones that have been plowed under and turned into subdivisions now — as they drove, sharing a bag of potato chips on the front seat between them. He told jokes. She knew the punchlines to all of them, but laughed anyway.

She can see his face. She can see the lines crinkling by his eyes as he laughs with her. He will never smile in that way again. She will never hear him laugh again.

Still nothing.

Ironically, it was her dad who told her that crying for the dead was useless. They’re gone, he always said. They don’t miss us; we miss them. (Was that Alanis Morissette irony or the actual kind? She’d never really learned the difference. Danny always used to make fun of her for that in high school.)

The doorbell rings. Her mother gets there before she does.

Danny stands in the doorway, facing her mom. Mary has a dishtowel and a plate in her hands. Carrie rushes to her side.

“Why, Dan, what are you doing here? Did something happen to Danny?” her mother asks.

Danny looks at Carrie, and she knows he’s already figured it out. Mary thinks Danny is his father. Dementia patients often fake their way around the gaps when they can’t remember, she knows, but it is a little creepy how much they look alike.

“Mom,” Carrie says. She tries to put a protective arm around her, but Mary shrugs it off. She looks at Carrie with an expression Carrie recognizes: impatience, exasperation, and a little irritation.

Carrie is able, from that look, to pinpoint her in time. The version of Mary that is closest to the surface right now is the one that Carrie saw a lot in high school, when her mother was at the limits of her tolerance for Carrie’s detective work, her disregard for rules and curfews, her smart-ass replies to simple questions. Mary was basically tired of Carrie and counting the days until she left for college. Carrie is talking to her mother from twenty years ago.

Unfortunately, that makes it a lot harder to get her out of the way.

“Carrie, do you know something about this? When did you last see Danny?”

“I’ll talk to him and find out what he wants, Mom,” she says.