“I’m sorry I missed it. There’s our car.”

The color in the sky gave the blue finish of the Cadillac a purplish tinge. The painted metal was so deep with a wax and cornstarch shine that it looked brighter than the chrome plating on the wheels and bumpers. If the car had ever been in bad weather, no one could know. It was the way Colin MacIver had kept his car. Norma would not have tried to make it look better after his death. She was doing what he had done because it was what he had taught her to do. This was a way a man continued to live through his widow, the style he had established. It never worked the other way; widowers unraveled everything their wives had done.

Norma unlocked the door on the passenger’s side and Leland put his suitcase on the floor behind the front seat as she went around the front of the car. She looked over the convertible top. “Do you want to drive?”

He wanted to try the car, but he said no. They got inside.

She said, “Some men are uncomfortable when a woman is driving. Do you have enough room for your knees? I had to move the seat back again to accommodate our new, straight-arm driving style—the baby’s and mine. This is the way the racing drivers do it, to get leverage. Colin told me that.”

“Is it the way he drove?”

“Oh, no. He sat up high and close, right hand on the wheel, left elbow on the windowsill. He drove this car with one hand and one foot. And he diddled the directional signal with his left index finger. That’s what he called it, diddling.” She turned the starter.

“Maybe he drove the other way when he picked up all those tickets,” Leland said.

“Maybe,” she said coolly. The car rolled almost silently to the exit of the parking lot. She had taken what he had said as an attack. Maybe it had been stupid—because he had said it, Leland didn’t want to think that—but he had wanted to focus her attention on their business. Now he had to begin again. She turned the steering wheel hand-over-hand to position the car for the entry onto the highway. There was a wait for an opening in the traffic. “Where do you intend to stay?”

“One of the hotels downtown. They’re all the same. I’ll call you when I get settled.”