“Mrs. Larson?” Susan said. “My name’s Susan Ward. I write for the Herald.” A tiny lie. “You called me last night?”

Gloria Larson smiled. “Hello, dear,” she said. She turned and headed back into the apartment, leaving the door open for Susan and Barry the administrator to follow her. They did. A TV was on, turned to the local news. Gloria perched in a striped armchair that looked like it had been bought before Gunsmoke went off the air. She sat down easily, like someone half her age. Susan and Barry took seats on the matching striped couch.

The apartment consisted of a living room, small kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. It smelled like talcum powder and the stale tang of Palmolive dish soap.

Gloria reached to the coffee table, picked up the remote, and turned down the volume, but not all the way. “They say the flooding has killed twelve hundred cows in Tillamook County,” she said. She said it conversationally, the way you might mention that asparagus season had started, oh, and squirrels were falling dead from the sky.

Barry shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “This woman,” he said, with a head tilt at Susan, “is here because of the remains that were found in the Columbia Slough last week. The skeleton.”

“All right,” Gloria said.

“I’m a journalist,” Susan said.

Gloria gave Susan a chipper nod. “I understand. You’re here to question me.”

She seemed coherent enough. “Yes,” Susan said.

Gloria’s clear blue gaze wandered around the room and then landed again on Susan. “Do you work here?” she asked.

So much for coherent.

“My name is Susan Ward,” Susan said. “I wrote a story for the Herald about the skeleton they found at the slough. You said you might know who it is.”

Barry adjusted his posture again. All those phones and beepers must have been uncomfortable. “Does any of this sound familiar, Mrs. Larson?”

Her eyes darted between them and she looked uncertain, like she was watching a table tennis game and didn’t know the score.

“You mentioned a name,” Susan said. “McBee?”

Gloria cocked her head at Susan. “Where did you hear that name?”

“From you.”

“I don’t remember,” Gloria said, squinting. She turned her attention back to the TV. “They’re talking about the flood. The dike’s burst. Water’s pouring through. Why aren’t they evacuating?”

“Were you at Vanport, Mrs. Larson?” Susan asked.

“Memorial Day, 1948.”

“You remember,” Susan said.

The old woman looked off past the TV at nothing in particular. “I had a black 1939 Chrysler in those days. Beautiful car. Paid for it myself. I still took the trolleys, though. That was back when the trolleys went all the way down to Oaks Park.”

Susan remembered all the upturned cars in the photographs she’d seen at the hospital. “Did you lose the car in the flood?” she asked.