He wanted to keep talking. “You have it backwards. You’re an extremely honest person, but the trouble is that your honesty demands honesty in return, even from people you know as little as you know me. Most people, including me, get so used to the ease of lying when it doesn’t seem to count that the truth becomes as difficult to handle as flypaper. It’s awkward. But you happen to be right, and the rest of the world is wrong.”

“Thank you.” Her eyes fluttered. Maybe he had gone too far. He had thought that talking would put what he had done to Karen behind him. He stirred his coffee again. For some reason he was still walking a tightrope over utter confusion. The note had started it, but now it had a momentum of its own. In the past ten minutes he had tried to solve two problems by creating new ones. He knew from experience that he would never solve anything by running away.

“He said in advance that his mother was a very stupid woman. Those are his words, not mine. He made the trip mostly to observe the social graces, and that alone was a big concession to her. The MacIvers are supposed to be a very old family up here.”

“Never heard of them,” Leland said. “There is an old families crowd in Manitou, but they don’t carry much weight.”

“All right, let me tell you. She married a MacIver, her maiden name was Newton, and her mother’s maiden name was Clifford—”

“That cuts a little ice. I live in Clifford Heights, and a John Clifford made a pact with the Indians. There’s a statue of him over-looking the rapids.”

“I know, Colin told me. Anyway, those are the names. Colin’s father died of a heart attack when he was forty-three. Colin was fourteen—something like that. Mr. MacIver was in real estate. He didn’t own any, or very much, and he was an associate with his organization, not a partner. I don’t know very much about those things, but when he died, they didn’t miss him. Those are Colin’s words, too—succinct, aren’t they?