Colin MacIver was smiling. He was standing with his weight on his right leg, his hands on his hips. The scene was a park and the time was autumn or early spring. He was wearing a light blue pullover sweater and chino pants. Some kind of plaid sports shirt poked from under the sweater at the collar and cuffs. On his right hand was a school ring and ID bracelet, and on his left a wedding ring and, to be seen faintly as a bulge beneath the sweater, a wristwatch. MacIver looked younger than thirty-two or thirty-one at first glance. Tall, handsome, and slim, if he had made it to his fifties and had turned gray and added fifteen pounds, he would have become an impressive figure; which formed an interesting contrast with what was going to happen to his widow: she was too small to gain many pounds without looking plump, weary, and domestic. MacIver’s face was thin and it was composed of planes rather than curves and bulges. His temples were almost at right angles to his forehead, which showed no deep creases. From the neatness of his clothes, the careful trim of his haircut, the amount of jewelry, and the shine of his shoes, easily discernible through the matted yellow grass, Leland reckoned that MacIver had spent a fair amount of time at his grooming. Leland tried to add that to the rest of what he had learned about handsome, successful, deceased Colin William MacIver: accountant, two marriages, fighter pilot. How had he done in the war? It was a thing Leland could check quickly. A man who had played the horses and had had his name sewn into his sports jackets, Colin MacIver had divorced one woman for her instability—maybe—and married another for hers—maybe again. The second Mrs. MacIver still had a lot of talking to do. Leland picked up the telephone.

Florence came into the office and Leland put down the telephone again. “Mrs. MacIver told me to come back,” she said. “She’s combing her hair. There was nothing she wanted.”

“How is she?”

“All right.” Florence slumped into her chair and crossed her ankles. “Did you take her seriously? Are you checking on her?”

“It seemed like the thing to do. I don’t think you should be here when the call comes in. We won’t draw a blank, that’s certain, and there’s no point in embarrassing her.”

“I’m sorry if I’ve done anything wrong,” she said. “She makes me nervous, is all.”