"No, thanks. I've got to be at a City Council meeting in ten minutes."

Sally left me with a lot to think about as I put the dishes in the dishwasher.

And I realized I'd forgotten to ask her about the aerial search. After I saw Angel leave on some errand of her own that afternoon, I did something peculiar.

I retraced Mrs. Totino's movements of the morning of the disappearance—no, the morning the disappearance was reported—as she had told them to Sally. I walked in the front door, looked around, went to the kitchen, went out the front door again, looked in the garage, went between the garage and the house to the backyard. I looked around it, and up at the window of our guest bedroom, the room that had been Charity's. Then I went in the front door yet another time. I was certainly glad we lived out in the country so no one would see this bizarre exercise, which netted me exactly nothing but chills up and down my spine.

I called Lynn Liggett Smith that afternoon. Conversations between Lynn and me were always egg-walking exercises. On the one hand, she'd married Arthur Smith, the policeman whom I'd dated and been very fond of for months before he up and married Lynn—who was pregnant. I didn't care so much about that anymore, but Lynn felt a certain delicacy. On the other hand, we would have liked each other if it hadn't been for that, I'd always thought. "How's Lorna?" I asked. I pictured Lynn at her desk at the Lawrenceton police station, tall, slim Lynn who'd lost all her baby-weight very fast and resumed her tailored suits and bright blouses with ease. I'd seen Lynn at the wedding, but of course she and Arthur hadn't brought the baby. Since I'd seen Lorna being born, I was always interested in her progress. "Is she walking yet?" I had a very shaky idea of baby chronology.

"She's been walking for months now," Lynn said. "And she's talking. She knows at least forty words!"

"Eating real food?"

"Oh, yes! You ought to see Arthur feeding her yogurt."

I thought I would pass that up.

"So what can I help you with today, Roe?"

"I wondered," I said, "if you would mind very much looking in the file on the Julius disappearance, and telling me exactly how the police searched." Long silence.

"That's all you want to know?" Lynn asked cautiously.

"Yes, I think so."

"I can't think of a good reason why not."

The phone clunked as it hit Lynn's desk, and I heard other detectives talking in the background as the click of Lynn's pumps receded. With the phone clamped awkwardly between my shoulder and ear, I wiped the kitchen counter. I tried to decide what I'd wear to dinner that night. Should we take a bottle of wine with us? What if the Andersons were teetotal? Lots of people in this area were.

"Roe?"

I jumped. The telephone was speaking to me.

"Every inch of the house was searched, and the garage apartment, too. No bloodstains. No signs of foul play. Gas in both vehicles, both vehicles running normally ... so they hadn't been disabled. Beds stripped and mattresses tested . ...ard gone over inch by inch. The fields visually surveyed. According to the file, Jack Burns requested an aerial search but the city didn't have enough money left in the budget to pay for one."

"Golly. Since there wasn't enough money, one wasn't done?"

"You got it."

"That's wrong."

"That's fiscal responsibility."

"I just never thought about police department budgets not permitting things like that."

Lynn laughed sardonically, and did a good job of it, too. "Budgets don't permit lots of things we'd like to do. Our budget doesn't even permit us to do some of the things we need, much less the things we'd like." "Oh," I said inadequately, still at a loss.

"But short of that, the investigation was very thorough. And the search was meticulous. There was a complete search of the house, an exhaustive search of the yard and the field around the house, and a lab examination of the two vehicles, all of which turned up absolutely nothing. Bus stations, airlines, train stations, all queried for anyone answering the description of any or all members of the family. That took some time, since they were all more or less average looking, though Hope was visibly ill. But no leads." "Eerie." I jumped at the sound of the pet door as Madeleine entered. She walked over to her food bowl and deposited something in it, something furry and dead. "Jack still talks about that case, when he's had a beer or two. Which is more often—" Lynn stopped, reconsidered, and changed the subject. "So how's your husband?"

"He's fine," I said, a little surprised. Arthur had strong views about Martin, and he had shared them with Lynn, I could tell. "He is a little older than you?"

"Fifteen years. Well, fourteen plus."

I could feel my brows contracting over my nose. I took off my glasses—the tortoiseshell pair today—and rubbed the little spot where tension always gathered. Madeleine was waiting for me to come over and compliment her. "I want to talk to you sometime soon," Lynn said, with an air of suddenly made decision.

Arthur and Lynn, through some law-enforcement channel, had heard something about Martin's former activities, I thought. All I needed at this point was someone else lecturing me. Or telling me something I didn't know about my own husband, pitying me.

"I'll give you a call when I'm free," I said.

A SPRING DINNER at an employee's house; our first social engagement as a couple since our wedding. I finally chose a short-sleeved bright cotton dress and pumps. Martin brushed my hair for me, something he enjoyed doing. I was ready to get it cut. Its waviness and resultant bushiness made it a pain if it got too long, but Martin really liked it below my shoulders. I would tolerate the extra trouble until another Georgia summer. Since the dress was blue and red, I wore my red glasses, and I felt they added a cheerful touch. For some reason, my husband found them amusing.

Martin wore a suit, but when we got to the Andersons‘, only a few houses down Plantation Drive from my mother's, we found Bill Anderson shedding his tie. "It's already heating up for summer," he said, "let's get rid of these things.

The ladies won't mind, will you, Roe? Bettina?" Bettina Anderson, a copper-haired, heavy woman in her mid-forties, murmured, "Of course not!" at exactly the same moment I did.

Our host took Martin down the hall to deposit his coat. They were gone a little longer than such an errand warranted. While they were gone, I asked Bettina if there was anything I could help her with, and since she didn't know me, she had to say there was nothing.

I was glad we hadn't brought the wine when we were offered nothing to drink stronger than iced tea.

Bill and Martin reappeared, Martin wearing a scowl that he made an effort to smooth out. Bettina vanished into the kitchen within a few minutes and was obviously flustered, but I noticed that when the doorbell rang again, it was Bettina who answered it.

I wondered how long the Andersons had been married. They didn't actually talk to each other very much.

To my pleasure, the other dinner guests were Bubba Sewell and his wife, my friend Lizanne Sewell, nee Buckley. Bubba is an up-and-coming lawyer and legislator, and Lizanne is beautiful and full-bodied, with a voice as slow and warm as butter melting on corn. They had married a few months before we had, and the supper they'd given us had been the best party we'd had as an engaged couple.

I gave Lizanne a half-hug, rather than a full frontal hug, befitting our friendship and the length of time we hadn't seen each other. Bettina turned down Lizanne's offer of help as well; so she was certainly determined to keep us "company." We chattered away while our hostess slaved out of sight in the kitchen and dining room. Lizanne inquired about the honeymoon, but without envy: She never wanted to leave the United States, she said. "You don't know where you are in those other countries," she said darkly. "Anything can happen."