"I don't feel like you'd think," Robin said ambiguously. He took his hand back and raked it through his hair, which was long enough to get seriously rumpled.

"Oh? And how would I think you'd feel?"

"You'd think I'd feel like you did when you lost Martin."

"No, I wouldn't."

"Why not?"

"Because I really loved Martin, and you didn't love Celia." And then I closed my eyes and put my hand over my mouth, because I never should have said that.

Robin didn't speak, and I opened my eyes just a sliver to take a peek at his face. He looked sad. He didn't look heartbroken.

"I guess not," he said, looking down at his hands, dangling between his knees. "It was great for a while, but the last few months, I've been feeling like she was keeping secrets from me."

"Secrets? What kind?"

Robin raised his eyebrows at me so I'd elaborate.

"Like ... an ‘I'm pregnant' kind of secret, or an ‘I know who stole the nuclear warhead,' or ‘I was witness to a mob rubout'?"

Robin almost smiled. "I think it was more in the personal category."

"Did you notice anything different about her?"

"Yes," he said, as though he'd just realized that. "Yes, there was a lot different about her. Sometimes she seemed like she was staring into space, not even in the same dimension. Sometimes she'd fall."

I remembered seeing Celia stumble in the parking lot of Great Day.

"It was like she wasn't always in control of her own body. I suspected she was using drugs, for a while, but I'd never seen a recreational drug affect anyone quite like that. And I never saw her using, never."

Her hand flying out to graze Joel's cheek, her horrified face...

"So maybe she was ill. Maybe she did die of some natural cause?" That would be great for those of us among the living. Though it sure hadn't looked natural to me. Could she have had some kind of fit?

"The police don't think so. But maybe they just have to act like it's a homicide, until they know different."

"Did you tell Arthur all this that we've talked about?"

"No, he was more interested in establishing where I'd been all morning. He did tell me he wanted to talk to me again later, not to leave town. As if I would."

I sat forward in my chair, preparatory to getting up to head to the bathroom. Not only did I need the facilities, I needed to rinse out my mouth and brush my hair. I had that sticky feeling I always get when I fall asleep in the daytime.

"Go pour yourself some tea," I said. "I have to excuse myself for a minute." The downstairs bathroom didn't have a window, so I had to switch on the light to examine myself. I looked exactly like I'd just woken from a nap: rumpled hair, smudged makeup, sticky mouth. Yuck. I cleaned up, polished my glasses, and felt much more alert when I joined Robin in the kitchen. Angel had come in, and the two were in conversation about Angel's previous movie experiences and Robin's loathing of Hollywood.

"I thought you loved it out there," I said, surprised.

"I did at first," he admitted. "I liked being somebody to people I thought were important. I liked being a noteworthy person. Writers don't get that too much, even in Hollywood, where you'd think they'd be revered. Those beautiful faces have to have words to say, after all. When I first arrived out there, I had a desirable property—my unfinished book—that several studios wanted. At first a really famous actress had an option on it. She wanted to play you." He grimaced, an expression I really couldn't interpret. "But then she went into rehab, and the option lapsed, and enthusiasm was cooling. The book actually came out, hit the best-seller list for a month, and interest built back up. A studio optioned it for one of its up-and-coming boy actors. They were going to beef up the role of Phillip."

Phillip, my half-brother, had been staying with me when the murderer was arrested.

"Go on," I said.

Robin looked weary, but he did offer me a little smile. "Then the boy wonder backed out because he got a chance to do the new musical version of Treasure Island, and he wanted some stage credentials. In the meantime, the book went off the best-seller list, naturally. So, after all the hills and valleys, this production company optioned it for a made-for-cable miniseries, and hired Celia for it a few months before she won the Emmy."

"Was that when you met her?"

"Yes," he said, and wiped a big hand across his eyes. "That was when I met her."

"I'm sorry," Angel said. I nodded.

"Like I said," Robin told us, visibly pulling himself together, "it was really over. There was a lot to admire in Celia, a lot of talent, but she also had a full measure of the selfishness actresses sometimes have. And there was definitely something going on with her these past few weeks."

"Someone coming," Angel said.

Then I heard the crunch of the gravel as a car made its way up the driveway.

Arthur was here, as he'd said earlier. I sighed. I just couldn't help it. I wondered how Lynn, his ex, was doing, raising their little girl. I'd heard Arthur took the child every chance he got, but still...

By the time Arthur knocked on the front door, Angel was making some coffee and I'd put some cookies on a plate. It was my attempt to soften the edges of an official visit. It didn't work, of course. Arthur was glad of the coffee, turned down a cookie with a pat of his waistline to explain the refusal, and got immediately down to business.

Angel and I went over our morning in detail, including approximate times and whom we'd seen and when we'd seen them. Arthur was particularly interested in my account of who I'd noticed at Celia's trailer door, but I pointed out that I hadn't been watching every second, and I'd only observed the door for maybe ten minutes. You had to figure that the murder had happened after Will, Mark, and the unknown woman (Arthur thought she must be a sort of sub-assistant director named Sarah Feathers) had spoken to Celia. That would have been while Angel and I were talking to Carolina.

"That Tracy girl who works for Molly's Moveable Feasts had as good a view of the door as I did, and for far longer," I said.

"Yeah, but her attention was constantly distracted by people coming up and wanting juice, coffee, a pastry, to pass the time of day ..."

I nodded. I could believe that.

Arthur wrote everything down and asked me and Angel a million questions. Robin sat silently and listened. Just when I thought we must be through, he said, "Do you live out here alone, Roe?"

"Yes."

"Do you think that's a good idea?"

I could feel my eyebrows draw together in a frown. "If I weren't comfortable with it, I wouldn't do it, Arthur," I said, in a final tone.

Because I'm short, some people think I'm helpless, or feeble, or silly. Arthur had known me for years; Arthur had even told me he loved me on more than one occasion. Why he would love a woman who would live in a place that terrified her when she had adequate means to move, I don't know, but he had that little smile that made me nuts. Patronizing.

"Do you really think you're safe out here?" he asked, trying ever so hard to sound gentle.

"Hell, Arthur, I've got a security system that's hooked up to the police department switchboard!" I could feel my face getting hot. Arthur had an amazing ability to make me angry. I was not about to tell him that this very day I had made up my mind to move.

"Okay, okay!" He held up a hand, palm outward, placatingly. "But for a woman alone, living in town is safer."

Much more of this, and I'd feel the steam coming out of my ears. "If you've gotten all you need from Angel and me ..." I said, making sure there was a nudge in my voice.

"I ought to be going, too," Robin said. "They may need me back at the motel. I'm sure Joel is having a meeting this afternoon to decide what to do."