My first three faxes were lying on the desk. I picked them up, tapped them into a neat pile, and turned them over. The first was from Marty. It was handwritten and very short.

“No news.” And he’d signed his name.

Sometimes, like two dogs with one bone, the boys in blue don’t like to share.

I sat down on the daybed and read the wills, saving the good stuff, I figured, for last. In the older will, Harry’s next-to-last will and testament, written when Harry’s wife, Marilyn, was alive, monies were in trust so that she would have no trouble living in the style to which she’d become accustomed, for all I knew, since birth, and substantial sums were allotted for her sister Arlene and Arlene’s offspring, Bailey Poole and Janice Poole Richardson. Most of the money—about two-thirds of it, all invested in what I assumed was a well-diversified portfolio—was left in trust for Harbor View, and it seemed to me to be enough that at no time in the foreseeable future would the institution be short of cash. The trust was to be managed by Harry’s partner, Eli Kagan, whose sons, Nathan and Samuel, were each left what appeared to be a very modest stock package, something that might have been more a gesture to Eli than actual affection for his sons. No surprises at all in this will, everything glatt kosher, as my grandmother Sonya would have said.

On the second will, the signatures would barely have been dry if this had been the original, but of course it wasn’t. Harry’s lawyer had that. This will was full of surprises, some of which I didn’t think would go down well at all with most of the people named as heirs. The will still named Marilyn’s relatives, Arlene, Bailey, and Janice, who was now Janice Poole—divorced, I assumed, sometime between the last two wills. But this time they were given small amounts of stock and some tokens of their departed relative’s affection for them. Actually, when I looked over the “tokens,” it occurred to me that the purpose of those gifts might be to make sure it didn’t appear these relatives had been overlooked. In other words, the gifts were so trivial compared to those in the earlier will that their presence there might have been to prevent a lawsuit.

Fat chance, I thought, turning the page.

The Kagan boys fared no better and no worse in this will. They had apparently neither fallen from favor nor gained any ground. The surprise was yet to come.

The bulk of the money was left in trust for Harbor View. So far, so good. But the trustee was no longer Eli Kagan. The trustee and manager, the person now named to take over Harry’s role, was none other than Venus White, who had every reason to think that as of Friday, which I was sure was the day the heirs would be made aware of the provisions of the new will, her life would be in danger.

Although, if those bugs were still functional, she might already be in danger.

This was no ordinary will—the sort where the lawyer could simply mail copies to each heir. There would be questions, shouting, tears, accusations. Friday was going to be one hell of a day.

I looked back at the will. Interestingly enough, no stock package, real estate, or real property was left directly to Venus. She would, however, as trustee, be able to take a percentage of the estate she was managing as a yearly stipend. Whether or not she would, only she knew.

I got up and erased the note on my blackboard, feeling a pang of guilt as I did. Despite the reminder, I’d neglected to call my aunt Ceil to wish her a happy birthday.

I made three lists. On the left I wrote the names of people who would profit from Harry’s new will. On that list I wrote one name: Venus White.

On the right I listed the people who would have gained more had there not been a later will. On that side I wrote: Eli Kagan, Arlene Poole, Bailey Poole, Janice Poole.

In the middle, under the heading No Change: Samuel Kagan, Nathan Kagan.

Then I wondered what Samuel would think, sweating away seven days a week at Harbor View and getting not much beyond the satisfaction the work itself gave him. It was, it seemed to me, a job with no future. And Harry’s will did nothing to change that.

As for Nathan, I wondered if he had any connection to Harbor View at all, or if he’d wisely opted out of Eli and Harry’s folie à deux.

I wondered how all of them would feel, and when I thought I knew, I went downstairs to give Dashiell one last outing, opening the door to the garden just as the phone rang.

“Alexander,” I said, very much in the work mode, both wills still in one hand.

“Did I wake you?”

“No. I’m up.”

I walked outside and sat on the steps.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about your case,” he said. “So, did she tell you who the guy was, the on-line lover?”

“You bet. It was Harry.”

“Dietrich? The old man? No kidding.”

“Pinkie swear.”

“Incredible, of all the people it could have been. Was that the end of it, when they met, saw who the other was?”

“No,” I said, thinking about the new will. “They were really in love. It wasn’t over until Harry was killed.”

“Star-crossed lovers,” he said, my hopeless romantic.

“We’re not exactly talking Romeo and Juliet here. These are not teenagers.”

“He was only seventy-four,” Chip said. “That’s the prime of life for a man.”

“Oh, please.”

“Okay, so he was old enough to retire and move to Miami, but still. That doesn’t mean he no longer had feelings, desires.”

“You’re picturing a little love nest in God’s waiting room? Look, he was short and fat, as ugly as a cheap motel room, and old enough to be her father. All that aside, he was married to someone else when they fell in love. Some Romeo and Juliet.”

“Meaning the families wouldn’t have been unhappy at the romance?”

“Oh. That Romeo and Juliet.”

“Rachel, I would still love you if you were short, fat, and old enough to be my father.”

There was a pause. He waited for me to comment. I waited for him to continue his adolescent fantasy, get it done and out of the way.

“You don’t think my heart would have seen beyond a homely-as-a-junkyard-dog visage, that I would have seen and loved the real you underneath?”

I kept that answer to myself. “That’s not how it was with Venus and Harry. All those hours on-line, they became soul mates. What they saw when they met in the flesh, that wasn’t going to change it. At least, that’s what Venus said. And then there’s this new will—that sure lets me think Harry thought the world of her, both before he met her and afterward.”

“Don’t tell me.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“What do I think?”

“That Harry left her a bundle.”

“He didn’t?”

“Uh-uh. No money. No houses. No cars. Not even a stock portfolio.”

“Then what?”

“He left her in control of the trust for Harbor View.”

Chip whistled.

“So she was right,” I said, “She is in hot water. More than she knows, because I’m so mad I could strangle her. Do you believe this? She thinks her life’s in danger, but she neglects to mention the cause.”

I must have been shouting, because Dashiell came over to see what I was so steamed up about.

Chip groaned.

“Sorry,” I said. But all I could think about was Venus, the way she eked her story out at the gym, that diamond necklace, the one she kept hidden at work, winking at me as she pulled the wool over my eyes. “Damn.”

“You’re worried about her?”

“That, too.”

Then there was a silence. I thought it might be nice if I acted like a normal human being for the rest of the call.

“What did you do today?” I asked.

Took the kids horseback riding. I’m a little rusty at it. I need to get into a hot tub. But first, tell me what I’m missing by being here and not in New York.”

“Ah, the East Coast news. Well, it’s all good for a change.”

“Truly?”

“Absolutely. For starters, New York was chosen for chip research.”

“No.”

“It’s true. It was in the Times.”

“Potato or corn?”

“Semiconductor. I don’t know what this is, so I didn’t read the rest of the article. But still.”

He laughed.

“Next, the Donald was foiled big-time. He tried to get some old lady’s house in Atlantic City condemned so that he could add more parking for his casino. Get this. He said her house was ugly, and the parking lot would beautify Atlantic City.”

“His greed must be boundless.”

“Yeah, and he’s no gentleman.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow. Sleep tight,” he whispered.

“You, too.”

“And be careful.”

“I will,” I promised, after he’d hung up.

I put the phone down on the top step and walked out into the garden, looking up at the sky, streaks of gray and inky blue, a cloud cover, no stars visible.

Earlier in the evening, while I was returning Harry’s new will to the back of Venus’s file drawer, Homer hadn’t been listening outside the office door. He’d been in the kitchen, brewing tea, setting out two place mats on the butcher block counter, filling a bowl with fresh, cool water for Dashiell, from the looks of things, polishing up the teaspoon he then set out on the carefully folded napkin, making sure it had no spots on it. When I’d joined him in the kitchen, Harbor View as quiet as a mausoleum, he’d jumped up and pulled out the stool on my side of the counter and taken the napkin off the plate of homemade cookies, then asked if Dashiell could have a dog biscuit—one of Lady’s, he’d said, but he’d checked the expiration date on the box, and they were still fresh. He’d taken his napkin, I thought to put it on his lap, but no, he’d wiped his eyes with it. Looking at him, this little man with his polished shoes, I wondered again if he had stolen Lady from Harbor View, if he had taken away the dog that made everyone, including himself, happier than they were before she’d come.

Or if, one recent night, he had lurked outside on West Street, sitting on the seat of a bicycle, then riding it full tilt into the man who had employed him, the man he’d called a saint, unable to look me in the eye when he did.

Despite his lie, I didn’t think so. But that was because some unrealistic and juvenile part of me didn’t want to believe—as if I didn’t know better—that murderers could seem so nice, that a man who had plotted and killed wouldn’t think to offer water to a thirsty dog or worry about a senile old lady’s aluminum foil tiara.

Someone else could have been here the night Venus had whispered into her tapped phone, someone who, unlike Homer, had something to gain from Harry’s death.

Or at least thought so.

Standing in my garden, no sound to distract me, I thought about the service at the Society for Ethical Culture, where I would more than likely meet the person who had executed Harry Dietrich, a person who had great expectations about the benefits that would fall to them upon Harry’s death, a person who, when Friday rolled around, was going to be gravely disappointed.

And really annoyed.

Unless whoever it was already knew the awful truth.