Macalvie pulled over another folder. “Yeah. So let us know when you make one. Tom here thinks you’ll get something out of Zillah about the night of the shooting if you can approach the subject with, ah—”

“Giraffe-speak?” said Jury.

Tom laughed. “Not only Zillah, but it’ll throw off Zoe, at least long enough that Zillah can say something about the woman on the beach. Maybe.”

“Well, then you ought to come, too, Tom.”

Tom shook his head. “Police presence, remember? Three of us would be entirely too many. Anyway, I’m going to visit Dr. Park.” He looked at Jury. “Howe Park. The doctor who wasn’t at the foundling hospital when we visited. But who was apparently in charge when I think Manon Vinet was there six years ago.”

“Right,” said Macalvie, “so why don’t you guys get your skates on? Incidentally, the medical records have come through on Moira.” He spoke to Tom. “You wanted to know if—”

“If she’d had an abortion.”

Macalvie raised his eyebrows. “Good guess. Yeah. She had.” When Tom made no comment, he went on: “Enlighten me later. Meanwhile, I’ll get someone to drive you to the airport.” He called out to Effie, who poked her head in, and he gave her that assignment. “No, I don’t mean you, Effie. Find someone who knows how to drive.”

The Skybus headed for St. Mary’s with the giraffe sitting on a jump seat.

As the three of them left the plane to board the ferry to Bryher, Jury said, “We look ridiculous.”

“We often do.”

“Correction: You often do. I manage to avoid it.”

“Not this time,” said Melrose.

Hilda Noyes, after a visit from “that nice Mr. Brownell—” was no longer put off by police presence in her home, even police accompanied by a giraffe.

Jury introduced Plant and asked if they could speak to the girls.

They were both there, almost magically, at that. Zoe held tight to Zillah’s hand. But Melrose could see Zillah’s mouth drop open and her eyes round out.

“Could we sit down, Mrs. Noyes?”

She motioned them into the chair and loveseat across from the sofa. Melrose took the loveseat and sat the giraffe beside him.

“And Zoe and Zillah, too?” said Jury.

“Well, I don’t know—”

But her not-knowing had no effect on the girls, especially Zillah, who took, in the movement toward seating, the opportunity to yank her hand from Zoe’s. She then displaced the giraffe beside Melrose and sat down herself and pulled the giraffe closer.

“Mrs. Noyes,” said Jury.

“Yes?”

“Zillah, as a baby, was brought to you by—?”

“A friend of her mother. Just a baby, Zillah would not remember her—”

“But I would,” exclaimed Zoe. “I was nearly eight.”

Jury turned to Zoe. “And was she the woman you saw on the beach?”

Zoe just shook and shook her head.

“Do you remember Mrs. Cooke, Zoe?” said Jury.