I kept the good news of the day to myself. Just after noon Special Agent Peter Lutjens had called the motel from a pay phone in McLean, Virginia, and asked me to call him back from a pay phone. When I did, he told me he’d been stewing about the Payton case and had decided to try to photocopy the sealed FBI file. He still had his security pass to the proper archive. The problem was the staff. The “friend” who had reported his initial inquiry to Portman worked every day but Sunday, so Sunday was Lutjens’s only shot. And he was due to report in Fargo on Monday. I thanked him profusely and tried to reassure him that what he was doing would ultimately serve the Bureau, not undermine it. He told me he’d call me Sunday if he wasn’t in jail, and hung up.

When we got back to the motel after supper, I found two old-fashioned handwritten messages waiting: “Call Livy” and “Call Ike.” I had no idea what Livy could want, other than to curse me for vilifying her father in the newspaper, but I called Tuscany anyway. The number of the Marston mansion hadn’t changed since we were kids, but the fact that it had remained in my memory for twenty years probably said something about my buried feelings for Livy. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach as the phone rang, but I resolved to tell Leo to kiss my ass if he answered.

“Marston residence.” A maid.

“Yes, could I speak to Liv, please?”

“Who’s calling?”

“Her husband.”

“Just a moment, Mr. Sutter.”

After a few moments Livy came on the line and said, “John?”

“It’s Penn.”

“Oh. Just a minute.” Her voice was under tight control. I heard the clacking of heels on hardwood, then her voice again, more relaxed. “I’m glad you called back. How’s Annie doing?”

“Better. Look, I know you must be upset about the paper.”

A strange laugh. “Things are pretty crazy around here. I don’t know what you’re trying to do. But I know why you’re doing it.”

I said nothing.

“Penn . . . hurting my father won’t make up for the years we lost.”

“I know that.”

“I hope so. Because I called to tell you that, as bad as all this is, I don’t want to let him come between us again.”

We both waited in the vacuum of the open line, each hoping the other could somehow bridge the chasm my accusations had opened between us. I imagined her sitting alone in the Italianate palace that had sheltered her throughout her childhood. She had often portrayed it to me as a prison, but I never bought into this. She wouldn’t have traded Tuscany for anything.

“Livy?”

“I’m here.”

“You haven’t asked where I got my information about your father. You haven’t protested his innocence.”