“Hello,” she began in her sunniest tone of voice.

“Whaddya want?”

Edward’s first wife was not fat, as Vivian had predicted, but was short and a little lumpy in the floral housedress that was cinched awkwardly at her bulging middle. Her hair was dyed a harsh mud-brown, which aged her. Already Vivian was feeling better, and she stood a little straighter in her fur-collared coat and new fur-lined ankle boots.

“I’m Shirley Smith, with the United States Census Bureau,” she said, the way she’d practiced over and over in front of the bathroom mirror in her hotel room that morning. She’d never tried anything like this before and was more nervous than if she’d been walking onto a Broadway stage to sing “Oklahoma!”

“Census Bureau,” Mildred repeated, looking from Vivian’s eyes to the clipboard. “They already came here.”

“Yes,” Vivian agreed. “Mercy, aren’t we a nuisance! But there was a small fire that destroyed the 1950 records for this neighborhood.” She smiled apologetically. “We’re having to do them over. Just a few quick questions, if you don’t mind. Would you like a cigarette?”

“Make it quick.” Mildred pushed open the screen door to step onto the porch, and the small dog made his escape.

Mildred held out her hand for the cigarette as Vivian gasped and whirled around to see where the dog went. Out into the street, the paranoid voice in her head shrieked. When she whipped back around she knew from the look on Mildred’s face she sure wasn’t going to be invited into the house, and the interview was going to be done right there on the porch, in the cold, as quickly and as hostile as you please. Vivian was torn between feeling giddy that Mildred believed her story and anxious about the goddamned dog, who, unlike poor Rambles, had stayed safely on the porch, and was now burrowing into the dirty piles of snow. She did notice that Mildred’s voice was not the same voice she’d heard calling Betty Miller that night. So, that was one question answered.

She scrutinized Mildred’s complexion as she held the lighter up to the cigarette, her hand wobbling just a touch. Sallow and patchy, she thought. She also couldn’t believe anyone would answer the door without her lipstick on. Mildred took a drag and then leaned back and away from the lighter and narrowed her eyes as she inspected Vivian. Then it was the dog doing the inspecting. Circling her like a small furry porch wolf, its wet nose snuffling its way all around her ankles. NO, Vivian shouted inside her head, just in case the dog could read her thoughts. It could not. It stretched its dirty paws right up onto her skirt and continued its snuffling. If she didn’t know any better, she’d swear the dog was smiling. She almost smiled back. There was a Mildred had a dog and Bingo was his name-o.

“Well, I appreciate you taking the time,” Vivian said, fumbling to put the lighter back in her pocketbook and then find the dang pencil she was supposed to use for her interview while trying to gently push the dog off of her leg. B-I-N-G-O. “Now, let’s see . . .”