The woman who came to the door appeared to be in her seventies. I suspected she was wearing a wig because her blond hair was too thick and glossy to be her own. She wore it in what in my day was referred to as a flip; shoulder length, with the ends turned up perkily. She wore a yellow crewneck sweater and a gray tweed skirt, knee-high hose, and penny loafers. I wouldn’t have guessed about the knee-highs, except that she’d rolled both down around her ankles to ease her circulation.

“Hi, I’m Kinsey,” I said. “And you’re Alice?”

She opened the storm door. “I am. Lolly’s mother and mine were sisters. Are those for her?”

“Oh, sorry,” I said, handing her the bouquet. I held out the candy box. “These are for her as well.”

She took both, saying, “Very nice. Won’t you come in?”

“Thanks. I really appreciate your letting me stop by.”

“Lolly’s in the backyard,” she said. “I’ll introduce you, but I should warn you, ten minutes from now she won’t remember who you are. She suffers dementia and she’s easily confused.”

I felt my heart sink, wishing she’d mentioned this on the phone. My optimism faded as I followed her through the house. I’d be asking Lolly about events that occurred some sixteen years before. It hadn’t seemed like such a stretch when I came up with the plan. Now I wondered if there was any point.

20

PETE WOLINSKY

July 1988, Three Months Earlier

On Saturday, Pete drove over to Santa Teresa Hospital and had a long chat with the medical librarians, doing what he thought of as due diligence. He explained that he was a freelance journalist, working on an article about Glucotace. He said another writer had passed along preliminary notes, but Pete couldn’t make heads nor tails of his handwriting, so he wasn’t sure how the term was used, only that he was expected to cover the subject, which would run as a two-part series.