“My sister and I visit the cemetery a few times every year,” Miss Zula went on. “We’ve got four great-grandparents and four great-great-grandparents buried there—all but two of them in the section reserved for slaves.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, but there was a light in her eye that John knew better than to challenge. Apparently Button did, too, because she kept quiet.

“Is that so?” The doctor looked interested. “I’ll bet your documentary people have been all over that piece of history.”

Button made a tight little circle of her mouth and then said, “I’m afraid you’re probably right.”

Such an opening was more than John could ignore. He said, “Mrs. Ogilvie, you don’t approve of the documentary?”

Button Ogilvie’s papery-thin cheeks flushed, Miss Zula smiled at him openly, and John settled back. Not satisfied, exactly, but more comfortable now that he had cast a vote.

“I’m sure I don’t care one way or the other,” Button said loftily, though John knew she had lobbied behind the scenes to keep the regents from commissioning the documentary. “The film people seem nice enough, though a trifle bohemian. Sooner or later I’ll have to let them interview me, but I wouldn’t mind so much if they weren’t so young and inexperienced.”

“They came with the highest recommendations, my dear,” said her husband. “And Miss Zula chose them, after all. She has every faith in them, and so does the board of regents.”

Button’s mouth went very small and round, a disapproving coin in the middle of her face. “Of course. I had forgotten.” She turned a stiff smile toward Zula. “Why this particular film company, if I may ask?”

“I brought Tied to the Tracks to Miss Zula’s attention.” A guest at the other end of the table spoke up for the first time. Her name was Judith Parris, and while John had met her once or twice over the years, he knew her primarily by her reputation. She was a professor of film and women’s studies, a powerhouse in academia known for her razor-sharp critical work. Among other things.

Judith Parris was somewhere close to forty, with a long face and patrician bone structure under a razored shock of prematurely white hair. She stood out among these frail, conservative older women like a Picasso among stolid still lifes, her long frame wrapped in a jewel-colored silk caftan over wide pants. There were loops of silver wire around her neck strung with great chunks of polished stone and amber and bits of what looked to John to be barbed wire.