“Don’t sputter, dear,” Louisa answers. “It doesn’t become you.”

“Why are you talking to lawyers?” Anastasia continues. “Are you worried about money? Afraid there won’t be enough to keep you in style, Mrs. Rawlings?”

“No one’s worried about money, dear.” Louisa’s voice is even, her words measured, as if she’s coaxing a toddler out of a tantrum. “There’s plenty to go around.”

Another set of tires crunches in the driveway and Louisa turns to lift the muslin curtain from the window above the sink once more. She smiles through the glass and then faces us again, but doesn’t tell us who’s here.

Anastasia gets up to see for herself. “Oh my!” she exclaims, pressing her fingertips to her cheeks in mock shock. She turns toward Louisa and glares. “What a surprise. The indelible husband.”

Louisa laughs, seemingly oblivious to her stepdaughter’s malignant stare. “Glen Powers is here,” she says to the Kydd and me. “He’s my ex-husband.”

“Ex-husband?” Anastasia shouts the word, though she’s standing almost on top of Louisa and only a few feet from the Kydd and me. Her hair billows around her like a shroud. “Ex-husbands disappear, don’t they? Or at least take a little time off?”

Louisa doesn’t react, so Anastasia tries her luck with the Kydd and me. “Not this guy,” she tells us. “Not for a goddamned minute. She divorced this guy so she could marry my father…”

Anastasia points at us for emphasis, and I notice for the first time that her fingernails are extraordinarily long, painted the color of bruised plums.

“…and what does Powers do?” she continues. “He takes her out to dinner.” She pauses for a moment and leans on the counter, winded. “And we’re not talking about a onetime event here,” she adds. “He does it every month.”

“Anastasia, you mustn’t talk out of turn,” Louisa says calmly. “It isn’t ladylike.”

“Every month,” Anastasia repeats.

“The third Thursday of each month,” Louisa says, dismissing Anastasia with a wave of her hand, “Glen and I get together for a bite to eat. Herb’s partners hold a dinner meeting on that night each month, so he never minded. In fact, Herb rather liked Glen. They were both big on the boating scene. They got on quite well.” She tosses her head toward Anastasia. “His prim and proper daughter, though, finds the whole thing scandalous.”

“It’s unnatural,” Anastasia says. “It’s sick.”

“So Glen Powers never remarried?” I ask Louisa. These are the first words I’ve squeezed in since Anastasia arrived.

“He did,” Louisa says, “a year or so after we divorced. But it didn’t last.”

Anastasia throws her arms in the air. “What a surprise! The pitiful man’s still stuck on his first wife, the one who ditched him for the rich guy. The pitiful man takes her out to dinner whenever she’ll allow it. And the pitiful man’s second marriage didn’t last.” She sends an exaggerated shrug to the Kydd and me. “Go figure.”

The doorbell rings and the sounds of the front door opening and closing tell us the caller is letting himself in. Anastasia shakes her long locks. “Make yourself at home, why don’t you?” she yells out.

Louisa closes her eyes and looks like she’s praying for patience. She leaves her post at the sink and heads toward the living room, apparently eager to greet this particular guest. Glen Powers reaches the kitchen doorway before she does, though. “Louisa,” he says, taking her hands in both of his, “I just heard. Good God, are you all right?”

Anastasia snorts and looks up at the ceiling. “All right?” she repeats, shaking her heavy tresses again. “Look at her. Does she seem broken up to you?”

Glen Powers doesn’t let on he hears. Louisa leads him into the kitchen and introduces him to the Kydd and me. He offers each of us a firm handshake and then turns to the surly stepdaughter. “Anastasia,” he says, “it’s so nice to see you—as always.”

She growls at him. It’s a real one—guttural, menacing—but Powers seems unfazed; he doesn’t even look at her. He scans the room instead, as if he expects to find someone else here. His eyes alight on the boyfriend, who’s now holding Lucifer near the scene of the crime. “Lance,” he says, giving him a short wave, “I knew you’d be in the neighborhood.”

Lance returns the wave by lifting the dainty dog and it emits another yip-yip-wail.

Glen Powers turns back to Louisa. He’s handsome, fifty-something, blue-eyed and sandy-haired, with a well-toned body that suggests it sees the inside of a gym a few times a week. “Let me help,” he says. “I’m here for as long as it takes, staying at the Carriage House.”

The Carriage House is an antique bed-and-breakfast near the center of Chatham and it’s the ultimate in casual elegance. Even now, in mid-October, Glen Powers is lucky to get a room there. If it were July, he’d have had to book a year in advance.

“Let me help,” he repeats. “What arrangements have been made so far?”

“Arrangements?” Louisa looks blank.

Anastasia smacks her maroon lips and steps closer to Glen. He backs up. “Hello-o-o?” she chants, her baritone down to a bass and her face too close to Louisa’s. “When people die, it’s customary in civilized societies to make arrangements. A wake? A memorial service?”

Louisa shakes her head. “But we haven’t found Herb yet,” she says. “We don’t have his body.”

“His body?” Anastasia plants her hands on her substantial hips and pivots toward the Kydd and me, her heavily outlined eyes opened unnaturally wide. “My father wanted to be cremated,” she tells us. “The whole family knew that.” She tosses her hair toward Louisa. “Even her.”

“That’s true,” Louisa says, “but still.” She shakes her head. “It seems like we should find him first.”

“My father’s been dead a week,” Anastasia snaps at her. “And you haven’t even begun to make arrangements?”

Louisa looks uncertain, as if she thinks perhaps Anastasia has a valid point, as if the idea of a funeral hasn’t occurred to Louisa before now.

“Well, of course you haven’t,” Anastasia continues. She turns toward the Kydd and me, and a synthetic smile spreads across her face. “You’ve been way too busy commiserating with your lawyers.”

Glen Powers clears his throat. “Maybe now’s not a good time to discuss it,” he says to Louisa. “Let’s talk over dinner.”

Louisa looks at the Kydd for a moment and then back at Glen, shaking her head. “Not tonight,” she says. “I’m afraid I’m rather exhausted by all of this.”

Anastasia laughs and turns toward Lance. “What did I tell you?” she demands. “It’s a good thing we came down here. We’ll have to take care of my father’s arrangements. His waif of a wife is way too exhausted.”

I can think of a lot of words to describe Louisa Rawlings. Waif isn’t one of them.

Lance nods a silent agreement toward Anastasia, something I suspect he does often, and the beast yips again.

“Tomorrow, then,” Glen says to Louisa. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

“We’ll see,” she answers. “Let’s talk in the afternoon.” Her glance at me is almost imperceptible. “I have a rather busy morning.”

Glen Powers seems eager to take his leave. He bids all of us good-bye, even Lucifer, and then heads out of the room far more quickly than he entered. “I’ll see you out,” Louisa says.

The Kydd turns to me as soon as they’re gone. “I’d better get started on that research,” he says. His eyes, though, send a more desperate message. Let’s get the hell out of here, they scream. Fast.

I couldn’t agree more. I’ve had about enough of Family Feud too. I nod at him and we both stand to repack our briefcases.

Lance and Lucifer remain stationed against the far wall as we pack up, Satan’s namesake momentarily soothed by Lance’s constant stroking. Anastasia strolls to the kitchen sink, where she yanks the curtain aside to watch Glen Powers and Louisa in the driveway. When a car door slams, she drops the curtain and shakes her shiny hair. “That guy,” she says to no one in particular, “is a special kind of stupid.”