Mary and I were colleagues, not friends. We’d already exchanged condolences at Hannah’s funeral, and I decided that I didn’t need to squander any more time on social niceties. She hadn’t exactly concurred with my desire for a consultation, but she hadn’t overtly refused, either. I said, “Mary, do you know that Hannah saw Mallory Miller for an intake session not long before she died?”

From the flash in her eyes, I knew instantly that Mary had not known. Her “No” was absolutely superfluous. “You’re sure?” she added.

“She consulted with Diane about it right after the session. Diane didn’t know who the kid was at the time, but she’s put things together since. It was Mallory.”

Mary’s brain was full of infants and infant things and she seemed to be struggling to shift gears to contemplate the weight of my news. “Anything that relates to what happened to her?” she asked.

“No, not directly.”

She changed her expression. “About what happened to Hannah?”

“Diane suspected there was. She went to Las Vegas last weekend to talk to Rachel Miller about Mallory. Diane thought that Rachel might be able to fill in some pieces.” I paused. “You knew Rachel was living in Las Vegas?”

“Of course. Why didn’t Diane just talk to Bill?”

Not “Mallory’s father.” Not “Bill Miller.” Bill. “Let’s say that because of what Hannah told Diane about the session with Mallory, it wasn’t an option.”

That got her attention. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, Alan.”

I didn’t want to give Mary any more information than I had to. “Diane disappeared on Monday evening in a casino and nobody’s heard from her since.”

“What?”

“She walked out of the casino with two men and she… vanished.”

“Diane went to Las Vegas because of a discussion she had with Hannah about a single intake session with Mallory?”

“Within two weeks of that intake, Hannah was dead and Mallory was missing. Diane felt she had a responsibility to try to figure out what had happened. You know Diane.”

“God.” Mary turned her head as though she couldn’t bear looking at me. “What do you think I might know that would be… pertinent?”

“What do you know, Mary?”

She walked away and began folding a pile of recently laundered sleepers and impossibly small T-shirts. “I wish it were that easy, Alan. I wish it were that easy.” She looked back at me. “You know the rules we play by. Did Diane ever find Rachel? I wonder how she’s doing sometimes. She was so resistant to treatment.”

“Diane tracked her down, yes. At a wedding chapel in Vegas, not surprisingly. Had she talked with her? I’m not sure about that.”

The triplets were quiet. Grace was singing them a Raffi song-“Down by the Bay.” From which parent she’d inherited the ability to carry a tune wasn’t at all clear. It was a recessive gene, though. Guaranteed.

“What do you want from me?” Mary asked. The question wasn’t particularly provocative; Mary seemed sincerely curious.

“I’d like to know what Bill Miller was up to. His daughter told Hannah that he was up to something. I’m worried that Diane has gotten herself in the middle of whatever that was.”

“The police?”

“In Las Vegas? No help.”

“Up to?” she said. Her breathing had changed. “What do you mean, what Bill was ‘up to’?”

“I’m not sure. Bill seems to have access to money he shouldn’t have. He’s spending a fortune to support Rachel in Las Vegas. I’d like to know where it comes from.”

She reacted physically to my words: She stepped back. “Alan, I-”

“Do they have family money?”

“No. They don’t. I shouldn’t be talking to you about this.”

She was right; she shouldn’t be talking with me.

It was her problem, one I didn’t want to give her time to contemplate. “What do you know about a guy named Canada?”

“Oh God,” she said. “You know about Canada? How do you know about Canada?”

“Raoul is in Vegas looking for Diane. He found Canada.”

I wasn’t about to tell Mary that I was treating Bill Miller. But I found it interesting that Mary knew about Canada, too. Was that good or bad? I couldn’t decide.

Was Canada good or bad? I didn’t know that either.

“What do you know about him?” I asked.

“Bill asked for some advice about him once. About trusting him. His motives. That’s all I know.”

“When?”

“Years ago. Not too long after Rachel moved.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him that, given what he knew about the man’s background, it would be hard to predict how reliable a… Canada would be. Whether he could be trusted with Rachel’s welfare. I told him I could argue it either way, psychologically speaking.”

“Background? What do you mean?”

“Canada grew up with a schizophrenic mother. She left him when he was young, like eleven. Took off with a guy she met in a bar. He’s haunted by it.”

“Makes sense.” But in my business, hindsight almost always makes sense. Foresight is the more valuable, but much rarer, commodity. “Which way did you end up arguing it with Bill?”

“Alan, please.”

“Help me find Diane, Mary.”

“I argued against it. I suggested that Bill use social services to help him with Rachel if he couldn’t afford a home health care agency.”

I changed tactics. “Do you know why Hannah was in your office the morning she died? Not in her own office?”

“No.”

She’d answered quickly, maybe too quickly. It’s not that I didn’t believe her reply; it was that I wasn’t sure if I believed her reply.

“But you’ve wondered?”

“Of course I’ve wondered.”

“Is there any reason Hannah would have been in your office?”

“I didn’t think she’d ever been in there without me. Ever.”

“But she had a key?”

“Yes, we each had a key to the other’s office.”

Diane and I had keys to each other’s office, too. “Why would she have left her purse in the middle of her office floor?”

Mary opened her eyes wide and shook her head at that question. “She left her purse on the floor?”

“Yes. Right in the middle of her office. That’s where it was when Diane and I got there.”

“That’s too strange. The police didn’t tell me that. It’s so not Hannah. She kept it in the back of a drawer in her file cabinet.”

“Are your records in your office? I didn’t see them the day that I found Hannah.”

“What records?”

“Practice files. Specifically, your case file for Rachel Miller.”

“I have cabinets built into the back wall. They look like wainscoting.”

I’d been distracted by other things that day. The image of Hannah splayed over the leather cube, hitchhiking her way into death, continued to intrude on my thoughts with some regularity.

“Rachel’s chart is there?”

“I assume it is. Why would Hannah’s death have anything to do with the Millers, Alan? I still don’t see the connection.”

I could have told her that I didn’t see the connection either. Instead, I tried the truth. “Hannah met with Mallory a couple of weeks before Christmas. Before too long, one of them was dead, the other one was missing.”

She pondered for a moment before she said dispassionately, “Correlation doesn’t imply causality, Alan.”

Ah yes, science.

“I think we both know it doesn’t rule it out either, Mary.”