I slathered peanut b.u.t.ter on a piece of bread for my lunch and poured a gla.s.s of milk.

"Can I help?"

"Not unless you can make that a.s.shole pay his child support on time."

I sat down and munched, watching her. "It's never going to happen, Meghan."

She sighed. "I know. Getting mad doesn't change anything. I could just kill him for dumping Erin off like that yesterday, though. How could I have been so stupid?"

It took me a moment to figure out what she was talking about. "You mean marrying him?"

She groaned. "Of course that's what I mean."

I c.o.c.ked my head. "Why did you marry him?"

"Oh, I don't know. I mean, I thought I loved him, of course. Maybe I really did. At least I'd have the love-is-blind excuse." She leaned back in the chair. "But he had that thing, you know. That boy thing. It's horribly appealing."

"Tell me you're not talking about what I think you're talking about."

"What? No! He had a kind of little boy... vulnerability, I guess. You know what I mean."

Actually, I had no idea what she meant. Richard seemed any" thing but vulnerable. "Well, at least you got Erin."

I know. I guess she's yang and he's yin. I can't have one without the other."

"Well, it does work. He's an a.s.shole and she's an angel."

She laughed. "Yeah. At least I get the angel most of the time. I'd really hate it if it was the other way around."

I grinned and nodded, unable to speak. I'd eaten my peanut b.u.t.ter too fast and had to drink most of the milk to unglue my mouth.

"How much do I owe you?" I asked once I could talk again.

She told me, and I got out my checkbook and started writing. I tore out the check and handed it to her. "When do you want to go over to the funeral home?" I asked.

Meghan stuck a stamp on an envelope and gathered the rest of the paperwork into a pile in the middle of the table.

"How about now? I'd like to get it over with."

I agreed.

SIXTEEN.

DOWN THE HALL FROM the funeral director's office, organ music echoed in the chapel. Mr. Crane, dressed in a tasteful dark suit, leaned over his desk and informed us in quiet tones that Walter's body definitely wouldn't be released from the morgue in time for the memorial service. However, they would let us know when they had access to the body in case anyone wanted to be present for the cremation. Crane himself offered to perform the honors at the service; he was an ordained minister and officiated over many of the nondenominational funerals. Sounded good to us. We chose a couple hymns and tidied up a few other details.

When we rose to leave, the director asked us whom he should bill. Meghan and I looked at each other.

"Send it to me," I said.

He nodded and made a notation, and we left.

On the short drive home, Meghan asked, "Do you really want to pay for Walter's funeral? There must be some other way."

"Maybe I'll get reimbursed. I imagine Walter had enough left to pay for a simple service and cremation. And what was I going to do, tell Mr. Crane to send the bill to Tootie? Or Debby?"

She was silent. Then, "If he left everything to Debby you might find yourself out of luck on the money."

"It'll be fine. I can juggle some things around and cover it if I have to." And maybe I'd find a will, a safe deposit receipt, a reference to a lawyer, something in the two remaining file boxes to tell us Walter's financial wishes.

"I'll help. If you get stuck with the bill."

"You don't have to," I said.

"I know."

We were almost back home when I thought of dropping by Caladia Acres for a few moments to check in on Tootie. She could meet Meghan, and we could fill her in about the fire. Meghan turned her Volvo around, and we headed toward the north edge of town.

"Didn't the police tell her about the fire?" she asked.

"Detective Ambrose didn't mention it. After all, the house didn't belong to her-or to Walter."

"Are you sure you want to be the one to tell her?"

"You want her to read about it in the paper?"

"No. You're right. I have to say, after all you've told me I'm looking forward to meeting this lady."

We parked and went in. The dahlias on the reception counter were the same ones from Friday and beginning to look a little tired. No one was behind the desk, so I led Meghan down the hallway to Tootie's room.

The door was open a crack. I knocked. A quiet response from inside bid us to enter, so I pushed the door open. Tootie Hanover sat in a wheelchair in the center of the room. Daylight streamed through the windows, illuminating the colorful carpet, the rumpled bedclothes, and Tootie's vibrant-green silk dressing gown. Her white braid hung down over one shoulder and curled in her lap. The disarray of the room and dishabille of the woman surprised me, but her drooping posture and tired eyes shocked me. She waved us toward the two wingback chairs. Meghan sent me a questioning look as we settled into them.

"Tootie, this is my friend and housemate, Meghan Bly. She's been helping with the funeral arrangements and with packing up Walter's things. In fact, she knew Walter longer than I did."

Walter's mother nodded to Meghan. "It's so nice to meet you, dear. I want to thank you for all your help." Her voice, so resonant the day I'd met her, emerged today as a dry murmur.

"It's lovely to meet you, as well, Mrs. Hanover. And I've been very happy to help in any way I can during this difficult time."

We sat for a few moments, Tootie with apparent indifference, Meghan trying to reconcile my description of Walter's mother with the woman she saw before her, and me, completely at sea.

After about a hundred years, I said, "We came to tell you about the memorial service-the last details that we worked out with Crane's."

"All right, dear," she said.

Meghan jumped in then, sparing us all my awkward stabs at conversation, and filled in the particulars. When she'd finished, I asked if Tootie had heard about the fire at Walter's. She hadn't, but she barely blinked when we told her.

"We'd already removed some mementos for you to go through, as well as his files. The fire was unfortunate, but nothing was lost that we wouldn't have been boxing up for the Salvation Army anyway, and I'm sure the owner was insured," I said.

"Well. I'm glad of that." She nodded to herself. "Yes. Good."

I said, "The police may want to look through the papers."

"All right."

"Tootie? Didn't Detective Ambrose come to see you yesterday?"

She sighed again. "He came. He had so many questions."

But apparently he hadn't told her he thought her son had been murdered. Well, for once I'd keep my mouth shut.

Meghan leaned forward. "Mrs. Hanover, are you going to be all right? Is there anything we can do for you?"

Tootie shook her head a fraction. "No, dear. I'm fine."

I stood, at a loss. "I suppose we'll see you at the service tomorrow, then."

"Yes" She gazed at the silver tea set on the side table, her voice rustling just above a whisper.

Meghan stood. "It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Hanover. Please take care of yourself."

Tootie nodded without attempting a smile and raised her hand in farewell. I hurried Meghan to the front desk, where Ann, the nurse from my first visit, now sat.

"Hi! Are you here to see Tootie again? I'm sorry, I don't remember your name."

"Sophie Mae Reynolds. We've already been to see Tootie. What's wrong with her? Is she drugged?"

"Urn, no. She's not drugged. But she has changed, hasn't she? Listen, can I talk to you a minute?" I didn't like the expression on her face.

"Of course."

Ann led us to a sofa against one lobby wall and sat down. Meghan and I sat on either side of her. She lowered her voice, so that we both had to lean in to hear her.

"Tootie isn't doing so well."

"We noticed," I said.

"In the last few days, she's gone downhill. Physically, I mean. But I think it's more than that. She's giving up"

I shook my head. "I don't know her that well, but she immediately struck me as a woman who was very... determined."

"And she was. She overcame a great deal of her pain through sheer willpower for years. And never with a word of complaint or bitterness. But her son's death, well, it appears to have sapped her vitality, drained away whatever it was that made it possible for her to meet each day with such resolution."

"Is it that bad?" I asked in alarm. "You make it sound like she's at death's door."

Ann stood up. "No, no, nothing like that. At least not yet." At my look of distress she said, "She may recover. They sometimes do. But I've seen grief wear away at others until they just don't care anymore. And not caring is a giant step toward dying."

"I ... I don't know what to say."

"I'm only telling you because she doesn't get very many visitors, and she seems to like you. I thought you'd want to know"

"Of course." A part of me didn't want to know, though. Because with knowledge came a kind of responsibility, a feeling I should step in and try to stop Tootie's downward spiral. But what could I do? I stood staring after Ann until Meghan took my arm and steered me toward the door.

Back at the house we started dinner. Meghan arranged garlic and chives, lemon slices, and cracked pepper on a salmon fillet, which she then wrapped into a foil packet and placed in the oven. I snipped sun-dried tomatoes into jasmine rice, added some vegetable stock, and put the pan on the burner. Meghan dumped a package of frozen peas into a colander in the sink and defrosted them under cold water, while I lined the olive and toasted sesame oils, a jar of crushed ginger, and salt on the counter for her. She juiced a lemon and began mixing the cold pea salad, while I sliced green onions and dug the pine nuts out of the freezer to add to the rice when it was done cooking. Erin came in halfway through our preparations and chattered about her afternoon. I was glad to see her so cheerful.

After eating, Erin and I cleaned up.

"Monopoly?" Meghan called from the living room. Her voice sounded m.u.f.fled. I peered around the corner and saw why: her head was buried in the trunk where we kept games and puzzles, and all I could see was her behind sticking in the air.

"And Clue," Erin said from beside me.

We gathered the games and spent most of the evening playing them at the kitchen table. When Erin went to bed, Meghan began to make her daughter's lunch, and I went upstairs to continue going through Walter's papers.

Two hours later, I'd discovered Walter took blood pressure medication, had gone to the Evergreen State Fair in August, had no credit card records, paid his utility bills on time, and seemed to use a prepaid calling card for any long distance phone calls he made. But, other than those gems of information, I didn't find anything worth a darn.

SEVENTEEN.

I SPENT MONDAY MORNING swirling together white and blue peppermint soap and white and red cinnamon soap, leaving them to harden in the molds while I ran upstairs to don my funeral clothes. Erin had insisted she wanted to come, so Meghan had taken her out of school for the afternoon. We left a little early, in case the funeral director needed to talk to us about anything before the service began.

The chapel wasn't crowded when we arrived. Two women whom we'd seen at the funeral home the day before sat in pews halfway back. I wondered if they were seat fillers for what could be a poorly attended memorial. The tempo of the invisible organ music slowed our steps up the central aisle, and the three of us slid into the second pew. Then Tootie Hanover came through the door. Ann pushed her wheelchair to the front and helped her get settled.