“No and no! You choose which answer goes with which question all on your own.”

Jeppe turned and looked out the car window at the cars they were passing. Glimpses of black, white, metal, and glass. A student, sexual abuse, Malthe and Lis discussing the best way to proceed.

“Do you really think Lis’s death was an accident, a freak accident that happens to have coincided with Malthe’s murder?”

Anette swerved around a truck without using her turn signal, causing a minibus behind her to honk aggressively.

“You know how much I hate guesswork, Kørner. But, no, I don’t think her death was an accident. I think she was murdered.”

THE AFTERNOON WALK around the lake ended as a mere hundred yards back and forth along the bank. Dóxa was tired and sluggish, and Esther saw no reason to force her. She tried pulling the pug up the stairs, but quickly surrendered and carried her in her arms instead. Those little doggy legs waggled apathetically in her embrace as she climbed the flights back up to her apartment on the fourth floor. Her own knees ached, too, and only her pride prevented her from resting on one of the benches on the landings on the way. The dog whimpered, and Esther shushed her. One old lady carrying another old lady.

Although these days she felt anything but old. The book on Margrethe Dybris was taking shape in her head—a chapter on her early life in Copenhagen; then her travels to Ghana, Haiti, and Indonesia; the men in her life and her decision not to get married in favor of her research career. Her ideas were buzzing eagerly like mosquitoes in a nudist colony.

Back in the apartment, Dóxa trotted into the kitchen to her food bowl, and Esther spoke soothingly to her as she hung up her jacket and removed her shoes in the front hall.

“I’ll be right there, sweetie. I just have to make a quick phone call.”

Sara Saidani answered right away.

“Yes, hello, Sara. This is Esther de Laurenti. We met each other through—”

“Jeppe,” Sara interjected. “Hi, Esther. What a surprise.”

She sounded cautious, but not unfriendly.

“Look, I’ll keep this short. I’m writing a biography of a Danish anthropologist, and I need a cover image for my book. I mean, sure, it’s still in the draft stages, but it’s helpful to the writing process to have the format squared away from the beginning. It also makes it easier to present the book to potential publishers.…”

Based on the silence on the other end of the line, Esther realized that she was rambling. She tried to focus.

“Anyway, I found a picture on the internet that I’d like to buy the rights to, but I don’t know how to go about that. And Jeppe always says you’re so good at all that online stuff.…”