Van Adder just frowned. "I thought you didn't want to think your friend killed him."

"She didn't," Timmie assured him. "But somebody did."

Van Adder lay the newspaper in his lap. "Somebody didn't. Victor had too much to drink and didn't move in time to save himself. That's what I think, and the police couldn't convince me otherwise."

"You're absolutely right," Timmie said with a gentle smile anybody who'd worked a hall with her would have recognized. "He was too drunk to notice. But it's what he was supposed to notice that's the problem. That fire wasn't an accident."

"How many arson cases have you investigated, Ms. Leary?" he asked.

Timmie straightened, fully aware that there were witnesses. It didn't seem to matter. Incompetence demanded comment.

"How many have you investigated, Mr. Van Adder?"

Setting aside his paper and coffee, Van Adder climbed to his feet. "If you weren't Joe's daughter," he threatened, "I'd just take you over my knee. You have a couple of courses in nursing school, and you think you can teach me my business. Well, little girl, I've been doing this for almost thirty years. I don't need a forensic nurse to tell me how."

"Maybe you do."

It was Angie's turn to react. "You'd better watch yourself," she warned, on her feet as well. "You're on probation here."

Van Adder waved her off as unnecessary. "Really?" he asked Timmie with an offensive smile. "You're going to teach us all how to do our jobs, huh? You're going to show me how it's done? What the hell can a forensic nurse do, anyway?"

It was Timmie's turn to smile. "She can run for coroner," she said, and then walked out.

* * *

Bad nurse. Bad, bad nurse.

Timmie spent the entire walk to Restcrest berating herself as a pigheaded fool. She'd probably just cost herself her job. Any hope of a job. But she couldn't let that smarmy son of a bitch dismiss not only her but his own responsibilities as if they were insignificant.

Little girl, was it? He was going to put her over his knee, was he? She hadn't had any choice after that. She'd had to finish him off, just to see the look on his face. The only problem was that she'd also effectively sabotaged any hope she'd had for a future in this town.

Worse. She'd probably talked herself into running for an office she didn't want, just to prove a point.

Bad, bad nurse.

"Oh, good, you brought them."

Timmie looked up, startled. She hadn't even realized she'd made it all the way to her dad's unit. But there she was, faced with the inevitable proof that it was THURSDAY, and that the weather was COOL AND DAMP. Timmie guessed they weren't allowed to use the much more appropriate SHITTY. If the weather didn't clear up by tomorrow, Halloween was going to be a bust. But that wasn't her problem right now. Her problem was smiling at her with all the dedication of a true believer.

Timmie held out the bag. "All here."

The nurse, a bright young thing with enough energy to exhaust Timmie, peeked into the bag as if she were looking for Halloween candy. "Oh, I really love this part of the job. It's like This Is Your Life."

Timmie almost laughed. That wasn't Joe's life at all. It was Joe's life the way Timmie wanted to remember it, which bore no resemblance to the truth. The truth she'd left back with all the piles of tax returns and half-finished crossword puzzles.

"It's the best I could do for now," she said instead as the nurse lifted out a 1982 World Championship pennant. Also in the bag were the 1964 and 1967 pennants, a baseball from the forties signed by the Gashouse Gang, a poetry textbook, a leather bomber jacket from the Eighth Air Force, a small, amateur painting of a little white house in a field, and a battered tin whistle. The poster was from when he'd opened for the Clancy Brothers at The Bells from Hell, a club he'd played in the Village, the tin whistle visible in his immense hands as he smiled over Tommy Clancy's shoulder.

"This is wonderful," the nurse said, her eyes alight as she lifted the painting. "Is this his house in Ireland?"

Timmie looked at the clumsy rendering with sheep standing as large as cows in the background. "It's his grandmother's home. Dad's never been there."

"Really?" the nurse asked, really surprised. "I could have sworn he grew up there."

Timmie smiled. "So could he."

"How about photos?" she asked. "Those are very important. Especially the rest of his family, your mother and sisters."

"I'm working on it. For now, though, it'll only be me."

The nurse blinked, trying hard to understand. This kind of nurse would, Timmie thought. A lovely woman, truly delighted to be here with her little old people, happy to reacquaint them with their treasures every time she passed by. This was the kind of nurse who saw her career not as a convenience, but a calling.

It was to Alex Raymond's credit that he could still command a staff like that, which was one of the reasons Timmie knew Murphy was wrong.

"Your dad's in his room, if you want to see him."

Timmie knew the nurse would probably be very understanding if Timmie said no, she didn't want to see him, especially after spending all day wading around in the detritus of his life.

It wouldn't make Timmie understand any better. Or feel any better about herself. After all, one of these days she was going to have to grow up and deal with it all. So she went on in to where he was sitting on the edge of his bed, hands on knees, patiently watching the wall.

The room was lovely, sunny and pastel and comfortable, with her father's easy chair along one wall and the sunflower quilt his grandmother had made him neatly folded on his bed. The staff had even figured a way to tuck a bookshelf in the corner so he could be with some of his beloved books. Not that he could read them anymore. He remembered their friendship, though. He stroked them like cherished children every time he went near.

"Hi, Daddy."

Slowly he looked over, his eyes clouded and vague. Fogged, ruined mirrors that could no longer reflect. Timmie fought the same damn old clutch of grief she'd struggled with for as long as she could remember.

"What do you want?" he asked, frowning.

Timmie sat down. The nurse, walking in behind her on crepe-shod feet, put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't expect it to get better yet just because he's here," she said quietly.

Timmie wanted to hit her. She wanted to hit something.

"I just wanted to say hello, Joe," she said instead, understanding more than the nurse thought.

He tilted his head in that odd, wry greeting he'd learned from his own father. "Then, hello."

As she sat there in that quiet room beside her silent father, Timmie tried to convince herself that there might well be some danger in Restcrest. People might be dying here who had no business doing it, people whose only illness was confusion. Her father could be in real danger.

Timmie studied the sharp relief of his cheekbones, the broken ridge of his hawk nose, the deep well of his eyes. She thought about the brilliance of his words, the terror of that gun.

Tentatively, the way she did to Meghan while she slept, Timmie lifted a hand and stroked her father's hair. It was cleaned and shiny from the staff's attention, brushed into a thick, noble cap that looked nothing like it had when he'd been tied to his chair at home. She stroked his hair and hummed a few verses of "Only the Rivers Run Free."