Russ paused. “My number came up.”

“And you’re leaving next week?”

“Wednesday.”

The chief bit the inside of his cheek. “How’s your mom taking it?”

“About as well as you’d expect.”

“I’ll make sure to drop in on her now and again. To keep an eye on things.”

To do Russ’s job for him. “I’m sure she’ll appreciate that.”

The chief looked as if he were going to say something else, but he merely extended his hand. “Good luck to you, then.” They shook. “I don’t need you to make a statement. You can go.”

“Sir?”

The chief cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Who is that old lady? And why was she going into the reservoir like that?”

The deep lines around the chief’s eyes crinkled faintly. “Curious, are you?”

“Yes, sir.”

Liddle glanced toward the emergency-room doors. “That’s Mrs. Ketchem.”

“Ketchem? Like the clinic? And the dairy?”

“That’s the one.”

“But she must be rich!”

The chief smiled at him. “If she is, you can’t prove it by me. Rich or poor, all folks have troubles, Russell.”

“Was that why she was trying to, you know, kill herself?”

The chief stopped smiling. “I’m going to call that an accident. She’s an old woman, working out in the sun, getting up and down… it’s natural she became disoriented. Her daughter and son-in-law moved back to the area recently. I’ll have a talk with them. Maybe we can persuade Mrs. Ketchem that it’s time to give up her house and move in with them.”

“But she wasn’t disoriented. She was walking into that water like you’d walk into the men’s room. She knew exactly what she was doing.”

Chief Liddle gave him a look that somehow made him draw closer. “Attempted suicide is a crime, Russell. It might require a competency hearing and an involuntary committal at the Infirmary. Now, as long as she has family to take charge of her, I don’t think she needs to go through that, do you?”

“But what if she’s… I don’t know, sick in the head or something?”