She backed reluctantly into a living room whose formal couch and coffee table I recognized as having once been Lydia’s. They mixed incongruously with faded brown walls and the faint smell of camphor, as if this were a halfway house between poverty and the Cantwells’. The blinds were drawn and the absence of sun lent the room the brooding sepia tinge of an old color photograph whose tints have blurred. On the coffee table was a miniature of Lydia Cantwell’s mutilated portrait.

Etta pointed me to a cane-back chair, arranging herself on the couch with ankles crossed and hands folded in her lap. “How may I help you, Mr. Shaw?”

She had almost no trace of an accent.

The chill I felt was more than roses or a picture. It was her careful movements, the air of courteous interest to match a cool, inquiring voice, even the way she tilted her head like it was something fine. It had all belonged to Lydia Cantwell.

“I’m trying to help Mr. Cantwell,” I said at last.

“Mr. Cantwell called here yesterday, crying.” Her throat tightened. “I couldn’t understand it any more than him. I’d been with her for twenty years.”

I nodded. “Perhaps if we could talk about that.”

Her look was sad yet prideful. “I don’t know what good that will do.”

“I know this is hard, Mrs. Parsons, but I’m trying to learn why anyone would kill her. You and she must have talked over the years.”

“Some.”

“About Jason?”

Her face set in the impassivity of an Aztec mask. “I heard they fought last week,” I prodded.

The small shrugging gesture she made was more a curling of shoulders. “They fought some—off and on.”

Her tone was guarded. “She’s dead now,” I began, then realized that Rayfield had used those words to me. “What I mean is that she’s got no confidences now as important as helping Mr. Cantwell.”

She watched me without answering. “Do you know what they fought about?” I tried.

Her gaze moved to Lydia’s picture. “They were in the library,” she finally said. “I didn’t hear much except that Mrs. Cantwell was upset.”

“Exactly what did you hear?”

“Something about politics.” Bitterness pulled at the corners of her mouth. “I can never make sense out of what Mr. Jason says, just a lot of craziness and screaming.”

“What did Jason have to scream about?”

“Money, what she thought or did about things—it didn’t matter between him and her. He loved her, and he hated her, too.”

There were echoes in the words. “Enough to kill her?” I asked softly.

Her veiled glance swept the room, returning to the picture. It seemed to check her anger. She folded her arms. “I don’t know.”

I tried switching subjects. “Did Mrs. Cantwell have many visitors? I mean, during the day?”

She seemed relieved. “Surely,” she nodded, “what with her committee work and things.”