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"There’s a surprise Your house is gone, fish tanks and all, and your husband’s in the hospital with tubes coht?"

"I suppose"

"Unless she did it," Dot said "That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? And it’s what I’d have been thinking ranted that you were the one who did it She was out chauffeuring the kids to their sleepovers, wasn’t she?"

"She dropped off her son first," he said, "and when she delivered her daughter, the other mommy invited her in And there were two other irl sleepover"

"How old were the daughters?"

"I don’t know," he said "What difference does itto sound like a ht Except those girls were college age, and they should have been ashamed of thein bottle?"

"I think it ine At some point she called her husband, and he told her to stay as long as she wanted because he was busy with his fish"

"I suppose he was pasting them in an album," she said, "like you and your stamps"

"She called home before she left," he said, "but when he didn’t answer she assumed he was asleep Then she drove home in time to watch the firemen at work They’d taken him to the hospital by then"

"So her alibi’s solid"

"It looks that way"

"Just good luck that she wasn’t ho went pear-shaped"

"Pear-shaped?"

"I’ve been watching English mysteries on the BBC," she said "And once in a while an expression creeps into my speech She wasn’t home, and neither were the kids Just her husband"

"And the fish"

"Collateral dae," she said "Innocent byswimmers It’s awfully damn convenient for her, isn’t it?"

"It does look that way"

"Not that she did it, but that she had it done I suppose the saht occur to the cops"

"You’d think so"

"And they’ll ask her a couple of questions, and she’ll fall apart"

"Aenerally do"

"Is she our client, Dot?"

"I think she’s got to be somebody’s client," she said, "but I don’t know if she’s ours or not The job caot it froet through There’s no way she can i"

"The question did come to mind"

"We’re clear," she said, "and why shouldn’t we be? You didn’t do it"

"No"

"So what you can do now," she said, "is catch the next plane back to Julia and Jenny If the Fish Whisperer recovers, I’ll tellour hands of the whole business"

"And if he dies?"

"Then I ask for the second payonna prove you didn’t do it, or sub it out to so I have to do?"

"Like what? Put on a white coat and hang a stethoscope around your neck? And sneak past hospital security so you can punch the guy’s ticket? He ceased to be our probleuess you’re right"

"Of course I’ht Go home, Keller"

"Well," he said, "I can’t Not for a while"

Back in his roo hot shower When he was done drying off, he tossed his towel on the floor of the shower stall

That’s what the little card told you to do, but it was hard for Keller to get used to it If you returned your towels to the rack, that ain If you felt fresh towels ood idea, you were supposed to throw theeured it was the least he could do

But he couldn’t throw a towel on the floor without iot into bed, letting his oneher lifetiht not have been suffering froree of mental illness or iood retted the talks they hadn’t had So he had them now occasionally, when he waited for sleep to overtake hi about the towel, and why he’d thrown it on the floor Well, if that’s what they want you to do, she said, that’s a different story But I didn’t bring you up that way

And then they were talking about Denia Soderling and her husband’s stamps He’d be in Cheyenne for most of the week, he told his mother, because he’d booked appoint buyers to the Soderling hoave hih the albums and pick out the stamps he wanted as his coone clear across the country to spend a week in thefor your trouble is some stamps?

He tried to explain, but hisany If I sent you to town to sell our cow, she said, I swear you’d coic beans You remember that story? You used to love that story, and I used to love telling it to you, but I never for a ospel