"And her deal with you? Did she keep it?"

"Quite faithfully. Her baby was conceived in a haze of bourbon and marijuana during a one-night stand. My husband figures it happened the weekend she went to New York for the first time, to interview for admission to the college. I mean, that date fits with the birth nine months later. For Emily, a baby was just a great inconvenience and another element to include in her great American novel. She simply didn't care about motherhood. No one in the family meant anything to her. Everything was material for a book."

"So you don't know very much about her life after she left you?"

"Only indirectly. My mother and I talked about Emily a lot. For Mother, the estrangement of her little girl was the greatest tragedy of her life, of course. My middle sister and I were the only two people she could cry to about it. By the time she was able to acknowledge that Emily needed serious intervention to deal with alcohol and drugs, Emily was already away at NYU and rejecting everything about our parents' lifestyle. For my part, the conversations were just a way for me to make sure that she wasn't coming back."

"And she didn't?"

"She tried only once. But that was more than twenty years ago, and my husband made it clear she wasn't welcome. We never heard from her again."

"Her daughter? She never contacted-"

"My daughter, Miss Cooper. Amelia is my daughter, can you understand that?"

"What exactly can you tell us about Emily?" Mike asked. "Do you know what she's been working on lately?"

"Writing, I assume." It was obviously just a guess.

"Anything specific that you know of? Anything that could have created a dangerous situation for her?"

I figured Mike was thinking of the fact that Teddy Kroon had been searching her computer for some document or file.

"Both my parents are dead, Mr. Chapman. There is nothing I can tell you about the last two years of Emily's life. That door between us was closed."

"Let's start at the beginning, then," Mike said, his notepad already open and only the letters NYU and a question mark written on the page. "Do you know whether she finished college?"

"Yes, she graduated. A year late, I believe, because she was in and out of trouble from the time she got to New York."

"You mean, problems with abuse?"

"Well, alcohol, of course," Sally said, leaning back and resting her hands on the top of the table. "But then she was also caught shoplifting in a department store. I-uh, I feel awful talking about all these things, but I'm sure you can find them in the police records anyway. The case was dismissed, from what I understand, because it was her first arrest. But then there was bigger trouble, personally, when she graduated to more sophisticated drugs like cocaine, according to what mother used to tell me at the time."

"Where'd she get the money for these things?" I asked.

Sally Brandon pursed her lips. "I know you must think I'm terribly hostile, but you're touching all the right buttons. Mother sent her money. Anything she thought my father wouldn't miss. Every time Dad gave her money to treat herself to some little thing that might have made her own life a bit more pleasant, my mother mailed it to Emily. I didn't know about it for years or I would have put a stop to it earlier."

"Was your sister ever in any relationships that she talked about?" Mike asked.

Sally laughed. "I guess I'd have to paint you a better picture of my father. There was no one who could have crossed Emily's path who would have been appropriate to bring into a social conversation at home. It's nothing she would have raised with my parents."

"So Monty-the name Monty-that doesn't mean anything to you?"

Sally Brandon thought for a few seconds and shook her head. "Nothing at all. She lived with someone for a few months-it was when she was breaking up with him that she wanted to move back to Michigan, back in with us."

She paused again. "And then there was that policeman who took an interest in Emily, at least for a while. I think Mother actually thought he'd be good for her, but I doubt that it was a serious relationship. I don't believe either of the men was named Monty but I'm not really sure. I'm not even certain they were two different people."

Confusion seemed to be overwhelming Sally Brandon as she struggled to think about things she had tried to repress for so many years.

"What policeman?"

"He had something to do with her arrest. I don't know his name, but he actually phoned to speak with Mother several times. I understood he was attempting to help Emily straighten herself out. He and that literature teacher of hers who convinced her to go into rehab the first time. I think they're the only two men who ever tried to do something good for Emily without taking advantage of her from the time she was a twelve-year-old child."

Kroon had mentioned a professor who had encouraged Emily to get into rehab.

"Perhaps my husband will remember the names. You can call and ask him about it. He was the one who spoke to Emily the one time she called us for help. You know, when I said she wanted to come to stay with us for a while?"

Mike took down the Brandons' home telephone.

"And I'll look in the apartment for her old manuscripts when I go through her things tomorrow," Sally Brandon said dismissively. "If it wasn't just another of Emily's alcohol deliriums, I'm sure she would have written the mad boyfriend into one of her novels."

"What do you mean, 'mad boyfriend'?" I asked, reminded again of Kroon's words.

"Oh, that was just the excuse she used when she tried to worm her way back into our lives, Miss Cooper. But by then I'd talked to a psychiatrist, an expert in substance abuse. I found out how manipulative addicts are, and neither my husband nor I was going to let Emily under our roof, no matter what story she made up to weaken our resolve. The doctor assured us she was just spinning a tale."

"What did she tell your husband?"

"That she had to leave New York because her life was in danger," Brandon said, waving the idea off with the back of her hand. "That was Emily. Always exaggerating things, always over-the-top with her storytelling."

"But was there someone in particular she was afraid of?" I wanted to make clear to Sally Brandon that Emily's murder suggested she might have had some legitimate reason to be terrified at the time she had sent out her SOS.

"It was this boyfriend of hers, she claimed. He'd moved in with her-we could only imagine what kind of problems that young man must have had. I guess she couldn't get him out of her apartment when she was ready to, so she wanted to come back to the country for a spell."

"But was he abusive to her?" I asked. "Is that what she was worried about?"

"She never mentioned anything hurtful he did to her," Sally Brandon said softly. "I might have believed that. No, this was-well, frankly, this sounded like Emily in one of her drunken stupors."

"How so?"

"Emily told my husband her boyfriend had killed a woman. She said that's why she was so frightened of him. She was convinced he had buried someone alive."