Rose looked at her mother, but Mom just shook her head helplessly. She knew about the dream. Rose had had to explain why she and Grace went to the police.

“Do I have to tell it all over again?” Rose asked.

“I’d like to hear it firsthand,” the chief said, encouragingly. Mom interrupted to offer everybody coffee, and there was a pause while she got the cups and saucers and the coffeepot. Then Chief Henning listened attentively and Detective O’Hara took notes, a lot more than she’d taken the first time.

When Rose was done, the chief shook his head. “I can’t help thinking you know something more. Something important.” Mom began to protest, and he put up his hand in a mild warning. “Something she doesn’t know she knows, Mrs. Potter,” he said. “Something she saw without really seeing. It slipped into her subconscious and came out in the dream.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Detective O’Hara put in, smiling at Rose.

She didn’t smile back. The slightest hint of hostility passed between them. Chief Henning began to expound again, but Mom interrupted him.

“Sweet potatoes,” she said. “The only thing my daughter saw that night was sweet potatoes. She was in this house, in the kitchen, helping me get ready for Thanksgiving dinner.”

Chief Henning shifted and carefully put his empty coffee cup down on the table. “Well, now, she might have slipped out.. .”

“Sweet potatoes, chopped celery, onions, chestnuts, bread crumbs,” Mom raised a finger for each item. “You’d better write this down, Detective O’Hara. Where was I? Oh, yes, it was hard to peel the skins off some of the chestnuts. Then we did the giblets, boiled them up and diced the liver and gizzard for the gravy. It took us all evening. My husband and son will confirm it, lazy louts that they are.”

“Now, Mrs. Potter,” the chief began blustering.

“Silver, you’ve known me a long dti

He nodded.

“My daughter had a dream and that’s all. She doesn’t know anything else. Please be kind enough to leave her alone.”

“Now, Liz,” Chief Henning said.

“I mean it.”

Detective O’Hara looked as if she wanted to make an arrest on the spot, but Silver Henning got up and started saying good-bye. Liz Potter interrupted him. “What’s happened to poor Wallace, may I ask?”

“Free as a bird,” the chief replied. “A friend of his gave him an alibi.”

“Did he need an alibi, Silver?” she asked sharply.

The chief shrugged. “Not my place to say right now, Liz. But Wallace’s friend is the soul of truth. Anyway, body was up at the Cape. I’ll say, off the record mind you, that Wallace doesn’t have it in him to travel that far.”

Mom saw them to the door, asking questions that Chief Henning was reluctant to answer.