I don’t know whether anyone else noticed them or not. I turned to say something to Father Jackson, but he was listening to something Father Fogarty was telling him. When I looked back again, the two women were gone. It would have been easy enough for them to walk up the drive and out of my sight, considering the cars parked there and the trees, but they would have had to move very quickly. I couldn’t see Emil’s station wagon anywhere, but perhaps they had left it on the road.

Father Fogarty and his housekeeper got in the limousine now and the driver backed out. The gravediggers were preparing to lower Jack’s casket. Father Jackson took my arm.

“It’s locked and it will be covered by a cement vault that will be locked too,” he said softly. “Come away now.”

He ushered me into the house. Duff remained behind and continued to watch.

“Do you have anything to warm us here?” Father Jackson asked in the kitchen.

I poured us both healthy slugs of bourbon. He downed his, then reached into an inside pocket and took out a small color photo. It seemed to be of the head and upper torso of a sleeping woman. Then I noticed the casket lid.

“That’s Mrs. Scaravelli,” he said. “She was buried yesterday so I took that Polaroid shot before the funeral.”

“I think it’s the same woman,” I said, “but I can’t swear to it.”

“Anyway, you’ll be interested to know that Father Fogarty gave her a rousing send-­off. He even called her a saint. Incidentally, her autopsy didn’t reveal any sign of cancer. The cause of death was listed as a coronary occlusion, like Jack’s.”

“It could have been brought on by fright too, couldn’t it?”

“Any kind of excitement. She was an old woman, remember. Anyway, it’s over now and you have to do what’s best for yourself and your children. I think you should get away from here now and go back East.”

“My daughter happens to be in a hospital in Ashland.”

“Then you and Duff go to Ashland and stay in a motel. You can afford it, can’t you? And it shouldn’t take you long to arrange for Franny’s care back in New York.”

“We don’t have a house there, remember?”

“You have relatives somewhere, don’t you? Or you could rent another place. Anyway, I’ll bet your tenants will give up your house once they’re aware of the circumstances.”

“The circumstances being that this house is haunted.”

“That your husband has just died and your daughter needs the kind of medical care she can only get in the East. Listen, I’ll call the people for you. Maybe a clergyman’s voice will help convince them.”

“They’re Texans and probably anti-­Catholic.”