A door beside the desk swung open and a man appeared.

He was young, but with an older man’s mien. His face was soft and pouchy, his blond hair cut in a short, square style that few guys in their twenties would have chosen. His name tag read, Freddy. He looked at me. “Are you here to see Hugh Hennessy?”

“That’d be me,” I admitted.

He gestured to the door, for me to follow him.

“It’s too bad you didn’t get here a little earlier,” Freddy said. “You just missed his daughter.”

“Marlinchen was here?”

“A very pretty girl,” he commented, and I heard no lechery in it. “She’s been here quite often.”

We walked back through a hallway, then through a glassed-in breezeway to another wing. Outside the glass I could see open space, lawn and pathways, and beyond that a deep pond.

“Is Mr. Hennessy alert?” I asked. “Is he verbal?”

“Alert? I think he’s aware,” Freddy said. “Verbal, no. He has expressive aphasia. That means that we think he understands a lot of what’s going on around him, but when he tries to speak, it doesn’t make much sense.”

“Is that the extent of the damage?” I asked.

Freddy shook his head. “He’s in a wheelchair right now, for weakness on the right side of his body, but we’re working on that. And some neglect.”

“Neglect?”

“Where someone loses awareness of one side of the body, and one side of their surroundings.”

“I see.” For a moment I’d thought Freddy was telling me Hugh had been improperly cared for, elsewhere.

We stopped outside a door. “This is his room,” Freddy said.

Inside, the air was still and quiet. The room held two low beds, but Hugh Hennessy wasn’t in either of them. He sat in a wheelchair by the window, chin on chest, eyes closed.

“Is something wrong?” I asked, worried.

Freddy smiled at my alarm. “It’s all right. He’s just fallen asleep.”

He was slender of build, his hair light brown, cut sharply across the forehead in the style of a man who doesn’t put much stock in his looks. I wasn’t prepared for him to look so young, even in the ravages of poor health. The air-conditioning gave me another chill, and I wondered why they kept it so cold where old and infirm people were.

Freddy tipped his head to one side. “Are you feeling all right?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said. “Why?”

“You look a little off-color,” he said.

“It was hot outside,” I said, as if that explained everything.

Hugh Hennessy’s eyelids fluttered, and his pale eyes half opened. I couldn’t tell if he was awake, or saw me, but guilt stabbed me, as though he’d caught me in his room under false pretenses.

“Actually,” I told Freddy, “I’m not feeling so great. I’m going to get some air.”

“That’s fine,” he said gently. “Come back when you’re feeling better.”

The hospital’s parking lot had an Entry Only arrow at one end and an Exit Only arrow at the other. Following the prescribed direction, I had to make a right turn onto a side street to get back to the road I’d taken to the hospital. That’s why I saw the slight form of Marlinchen Hennessy, waiting on a bus bench.

I stopped the Nova and called from the window.

“Remember me?” I said.

She looked up, startled.

“I was just driving by and I recognized you,” I said. “Where are you going?”

“Home,” she said.

“Want a lift?”

“My house is a ways from here,” she said, still wary.

“That’s okay,” I said. “It’s a nice day for a drive.”

A criminal, someone with experience of the cops, would have known it was too coincidental to be true, a detective driving by and innocently offering a ride. But Marlinchen was young, and when I looked over my shoulder, feigning worry about another car approaching, she felt guilty.

“Come on if you’re coming,” I urged.

Marlinchen picked up her backpack and ran out to me. She jumped into the passenger side and slammed the door. I accelerated and we were on our way. Gotcha, I thought. She wasn’t going to be fleeing this interview, not at 65 miles an hour.

It was a sad day that I had to take pleasure in cornering a teenage girl as though she were a hardened perp, but you take your victories where you can get them.

“Roll down the window if you want,” I said. I was still alternating between too hot and too cold; it wouldn’t make much difference to me. Marlinchen rolled her window halfway down.

“Were you coming from school?” I said. “I didn’t think there were any out in this area.”

“No, I get out of school at noon,” she said. “I’m a senior, and all my graduation requirements were satisfied, so I took an abbreviated schedule.”

“That must be nice,” I said.

“I’m enjoying it.” Her tone sounded a little more relaxed and confident.

“So what brought you out to this area?”

“I was at the hospital,” Marlinchen said briefly.

“Really? Why?” I’m giving you a chance here. Tell me the truth.

“I volunteer there, when I can,” she said. She wasn’t looking at me.

Too bad, Marlinchen. There goes your no-hitter. “That’s nice of you,” I said. “Convenient, too. Gives you a chance to visit your father.”

For a moment, the only sound was the Nova’s rumbling engine. Then I heard Marlinchen sniffling. She laid her head against the door frame of the Nova, and her shoulders shook.

Suddenly it didn’t seem so funny to me that I’d been reduced to entrapping a teenage girl with her own evasions. I had pursued Hugh’s whereabouts as though it were just an intellectual exercise, not thinking of the human feelings underneath.

I spoke as gently as possible. “Your father’s had a stroke, your mother’s dead, you’re the oldest in the family, and your twin brother’s whereabouts are unknown,” I said. “That’s a lot of trouble to deal with, and usually the last thing I’d do is pile on, but I can’t help you if you keep lying to me.”

Marlinchen didn’t answer. She cried for a while as we got off the 394 and onto the secondary roads that threaded the wetlands around the big lake, where bait stores and diners ceded to houses set back from the road. I began to realize just how far Marlinchen had ridden on a bus to see me down at the detective division.

“I’m going to need specific directions pretty soon,” I said, relieved to have something normal to say.

“Oh,” Marlinchen said. Her voice was wet, but she seemed more composed as she straightened in her seat and began to direct me.

The Hennessys lived on a little peninsula that ran out into the lake, at the end of an unmarked dirt road. I’d expected a writer to live in something opulent, but the Hennessy house, while big, was unpretentious. It was two stories, with an exterior of weather-beaten wood. Tall lilac trees, still in bloom, crowded the front door, and dark purple irises irregularly cropped up around a crooked stone path. The grass in front clearly hadn’t been mowed recently. A smaller building stood off to the side, perhaps a carriage house in the home’s early-twentieth-century life. A willow fountained over its far side.

The dirt driveway ran alongside the house, and as I pulled up in the Nova, I realized the back of the house, facing the lake, was its true “front.” Here was a broad, covered back porch, with French double doors. A high window on the second story looked out over the lake, with a trellis of ornamental grapevines crawling up alongside it. A wide, grassy slope led down to the lake, where an apron of rocks ran along the water’s edge, holding off the erosion process. A single tree stood halfway to the water’s edge, several creamy blossoms among its dark, glossy leaves.

I killed the Nova’s engine. I could leave now, but it would undermine everything I’d done since calling Marlinchen over to get in my car. Her willingness to lie was well established. If I put off this conversation until tomorrow, she’d have time to massage the facts to her liking, in readiness for our next meeting.