Once in my neighborhood, I scanned for a parking place and found a spot close to the corner of Albanil and Bay. I shut the engine down, locked my car, and walked the half-block to my apartment. I caught sight of a woman ahead of me standing by my gate. She was in her mid-seventies and probably physically imposing in her prime. I pegged her at six feet. Given the customary shrinkage of age, she must have been six-three or six-four in her youth. Her face was gaunt, though her bearing suggested she was accustomed to carrying substantial weight. She wore slacks that rode low on her hips and a crisply ironed white shirt with a lavender cardigan over it. I suspected her clunky running shoes were more for comfort than for speed. Her hair was iron gray, braided, and wrapped around her head in a thin chain. She had a leather purse over one arm and she held a scrap of paper with a note jotted on it, which made me wonder if she was lost.

“Can I do something for you?”

She didn’t look at the paper, but I could see it tremble slightly. “Are you Miss Millhone?”

“Yes.”

“I’m hoping you can help me.”

“I can certainly try.”

“I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding. Something was sent to you by mistake and I need to have it back.”

“Really. And what’s that?”

“A photograph album. I’d appreciate your returning it as soon as possible. Today, actually, if it’s not inconvenient.”

I kept my face a blank, but I knew exactly what she was talking about. My Aunt Susanna had given me the album shortly after we met, just about this same time the year before. The package had arrived when I was out of town, so Henry had passed it on to Stacey Oliphant, who’d brought it down to the desert town of Quorum, where we were working a case. The album was old, half filled with Kinsey family photographs, and I’d been touched by the gesture. There was never any suggestion that the album was on loan, though now that I thought about it, I could see that it wasn’t mine to keep.

I said, “I’m sorry, but I didn’t catch your name.”

“Bettina Thurgood. I drove down from Lompoc, hoping to divert any further trouble.”

“Who’s causing trouble?”

She hesitated. “Your cousin, Tasha.”

“What’s she have to do with it?”

“She’s been planning an event. She said she sent you an invitation.”

“Sure. I received it last week.”

“She needs the old family photographs for a big display she’s making, but when she asked Cornelia for the album, it was nowhere to be found. Tasha got very snippy and now Cornelia blames me.”

“When you say Cornelia, I assume you’re talking about Grand.”