Cynthia and I exchanged glances.

“Shrimp with linguini in a hot pepper sauce tonight,” he said, smiling. “Gives me something to look forward to. Now, Mrs. Archer, I wonder, do you think you have any photos of your father? You’ve provided some of your mother, and one of your brother, but I have nothing for Clayton Bigge.”

“I’m afraid not,” she said.

“I’ll check with the Department of Motor Vehicles,” he said. “I don’t know how far back their records go, but maybe they have a photo. And perhaps you could tell me a bit more about the route he traveled for work.”

“Between here and Chicago,” Cynthia said. “He was in sales. He took orders, I think it was, for machine shop supplies. That kind of thing.”

“You never knew his exact route?”

She shook her head. “I was just a kid. I didn’t really understand what he did, only that it meant he was on the road a lot of the time. One time, he showed me some pictures of the Wrigley building in Chicago. There’s a Polaroid shot of it in the box, I think.”

Abagnall nodded, folded his notebook shut and slipped it into his jacket, then handed each of us a business card. He gathered up the shoeboxes and got to his feet. “I’ll be in touch soon, let you know how I’m progressing. How about you pay me now for three days of my services? I wouldn’t expect to find the answers to your questions in that time, but I might have an idea whether I think it’s reasonable to think that such a thing is possible.”

Cynthia went for her checkbook, which was in her purse, wrote out a check and handed it to Abagnall.

Grace, who had been upstairs all this time, called down, “Mom? Can you come up here for a second? I spilled something on my top.”

“I’ll walk Mr. Abagnall to his car,” I said.

Abagnall had his door open and was about to plop down into his seat when I said, “Cynthia mentioned that you might want to talk to her aunt, to Tess.”

“Yes.”

If I didn’t want Abagnall’s efforts to be a complete waste, it made sense for him to know as much as possible.

“She recently told me something, something she’s not yet disclosed to Cynthia.”

Abagnall didn’t beg, but waited. I told him about the anonymous donations of cash.

“Well,” he said.

“I’ll tell Tess to expect you. And I’ll tell her she should tell you everything.”

“Thank you,” he said. He dropped into the seat, pulled the door shut, powered down the window. “Do you believe her?”

“Tess? Yes, I do. She showed me the note, the envelopes.”

“No. Your wife. Do you believe your wife?”

I cleared my throat before responding. “Of course.”

Abagnall reached over his shoulder for the seat belt, snapped it in place. “One time I had a woman call me up, wanted me to find someone, went to see her, and can you guess who she wanted me to locate?”

I waited.

“Elvis. She wanted me to find Elvis Presley. This was around 1990, I think it was, and Elvis had been dead about thirteen years at that point. She lived in a big house, had lots of money, and she had a few screws loose as I’m sure you might have guessed, and she’d never so much as met Elvis in her entire life and had no connection to him whatsoever, but she was convinced that the King was still alive and just waiting for her to find and rescue him. I could have worked for her for a year, trying to track him down for her. She could have been my early retirement plan, this lady, bless her heart. But I had to say no. She was very upset, so I explained to her that I’d been hired once before to find Elvis, and that I’d found him, and he was fine, but wanted to live the rest of his life in peace.”

“No kidding. And did she accept that?”

“Well, she seemed to at the time. Of course, she might have called some other detective. For all I know, he’s still working on the case.” He chuckled softly to himself. “Wouldn’t that be something.”

“What’s your point, Mr. Abagnall?” I asked.

“I guess the point I’m making is, your wife really wants to know what happened to her parents and her brother. I wouldn’t take a check from someone I thought was trying to string me a line. Your wife isn’t trying to string me a line.”

“No, I don’t think she is, either,” I said. “But this woman who wanted you to find Elvis, was she trying to string you a line? Or did she really believe, in her heart, that Elvis was still alive?”

Abagnall gave me a sad smile. “I’ll report back to you folks in three days, sooner if I learn anything interesting.”

“Men are weak - not you, of course – and they let you down, but just as often it’s the women who’ll really betray you,” she said.

“I know. You’ve said this before,” he said.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Getting sarcastic. He didn’t like it when she got like that. “Am I boring you, sweetheart?”

“No, it’s okay. Go ahead. You were saying. Women will betray you, too. I was listening.”

“That’s right. Like that Tess.”

“Yeah, her.”

“She stole from me.”

“Well…” Technically speaking, he was thinking, then decided it wasn’t worth getting into a debate.

“That’s basically what she did,” she said. “That money was mine. She had no business hanging on to it herself.”

“It’s not like she spent it on herself. She did use it to-”

“Enough! It makes me crazy, the more I think about it. And I don’t appreciate you defending her.”

“I’m not defending her,” he said.

“She should have found a way to tell me and make things right.”

And how would she have done that, he wondered. But he said nothing.

“Are you there?” she said.

“I’m still here.”

“Was there something you wanted to say?”

“Nothing. Just…well, that would have been a bit tricky, don’t you think?”

“I can’t talk to you sometimes,” she said. “Call me tomorrow. If I need some intelligent conversation in the meantime, I’ll talk to the mirror.”

After Abagnall left, I called Tess from my cell to give her a heads-up.

“I’ll help him any way I can,” Tess said. “I think Cynthia’s doing the right thing, having someone private look into this. If she’s willing to take this kind of step, she’s probably ready for me to tell her what I know.”

“We’ll all get together again soon.”

“When the phone rang, I was actually thinking about calling you,” Tess said. “But I didn’t want to call you at the house, it would seem odd, my asking for you if Cynthia answered, and I don’t think I have your cell phone number around here anywhere.”

“What is it, Tess?”

She took a breath. “Oh, Terry, I went for another test.”

I felt my legs going weak. “What did they say?” She’d told me earlier that she might have a few months left. I wondered if that timetable had been shortened.

“I’m going to be okay,” she said. “They said the other tests, they were fairly conclusive, but they turned out to be wrong. This last one, it was definite.” She paused. “Terry, I’m not dying.”

“Oh my God, Tess, that’s such wonderful news. They’re sure?”

“They’re sure.”

“That’s so wonderful.”

“Yeah, if I were the kind of person who ever prayed, I’d have to say my prayers were answered. But Terry. Tell me you didn’t tell Cynthia.”

“I never told her,” I said.

When I went inside, Cynthia spotted a tear running down my cheek. I thought I’d wiped my cheeks dry, but evidently I’d missed one. She reached up and brushed it away with her index finger.

“Terry,” she said, “what? What’s happened?”

I threw my arms around her. “I’m so happy,” I said. “I’m just so happy.”

She must have thought I was losing my mind. No one was ever this happy around here.