“So what happened next?” I asked Culhane.

“The news director tried to screw me.” Her voice held a note of warning. “He didn’t, and I began to enjoy the work. It licenses my curiosity—asking questions, meeting people. I even like the hurry. The downside is hassling for airtime and never finishing a story; a thirty-second spot is for shit, you tell nothing. So when you get a story you can stay with, like this, you jump on it.”

“One man’s tragedy—”

“Is my opportunity. Look, I didn’t kill Lydia Cantwell, I’m just covering the story.”

Her role as tough newslady interested me. I was getting an impression of where she stood: a late-blooming new woman, throwing out the makeup with her husband, paying the bills and liking it, but still not quite sure where she fit. “How long have you done this?”

“News?” She sipped some tea, her gaze growing distant. “Around two years, I guess.”

I guessed she’d counted back to the divorce and been pulled into the vortex of memory, wondering how it had all happened and who she’d been before. I quoted a line of poetry. “‘I see my life go drifting like a river from change to change …’”

She looked up as if troubled. “You’re good at divining mood,” she said. “Who wrote that?”

“Yeats.”

She smiled fractionally. “You’re quite Irish yourself. Except that ‘Adam’ sounds very Old Testament.”

“My father’s idea. My middle name is Francis.”

“Your father had a point. Have you ever been there—Ireland?”

“Once. It was green and beautiful and very poor, and it rained too much and was cold. It felt like I’d been there before.”

Culhane nodded. “I felt that, too.”

Our waitress brought two crab casseroles that smelled and tasted good. Culhane ate with small, thoughtful bites. As we were finishing she said, “The next thing is that Henry Cantwell’s strange.”

“Is he now?”

“Of course.” She sounded impatient. “I’ve talked to the people who should know him best. They start by saying he’s a fine gentleman, mention the family—down here they still like to know where you’re from and who ‘your people’ are. It gives them a handle on you. But they all end up saying they don’t know him very well and that he seems off somewhere, almost secretive.”

“You do understand what that’s about?”

She shook her head.

“Mother of God, Nora, his wife’s just been murdered. They’re all preparing for Henry to have sinister secrets. At least try to distinguish between reticence and guilt.”