“What?” she said stupidly.

She couldn’t understand what he meant. The heat and the long wait had drained her. Her brain stirred sluggishly under the sting of his voice.

Galton stood in front of her now, no longer familiar and sympathetic but somehow menacing.

He said angrily, “You’ve known that woman all your life.”

She stared up at him until the sun dazzled her eyes unbearably and she had to raise an arm to shield them.

The cold stirring deep inside her was fear, fear that activated a store of self-defense she had never been called upon to use.

“I never saw her face. I told you that,” she said. Her pale gray eyes held his with fierce intensity. “The side of her head nearest me was covered with blood.” Her voice was sharp, definite. For the first time in her life she was speaking to an older person, a lifelong acquaintance, in a tone that was within a stone’s throw of rudeness.

She saw in his face that he had not missed it.

“You better think again, Catherine,” he retorted. “That’s Leona Gaites, who was your father’s nurse for thirty-odd years.”

3

CATHERINE GAPED AT him.

“What on earth…” she stammered. “Miss Gaites…what is she doing out here?”

Even through her shock Catherine saw some relief touch Galton’s face. Her unalloyed amazement must have gone some way toward convincing him of her ignorance of the dead woman’s identity. Her innocence.

My innocence? Her anger grew. It felt surprisingly good. She was so seldom overtly angry.

“Well, come on,” Galton was saying in a more relaxed voice. “The coroner’s jury is here. You have to testify.”

Catherine lost that portion of the day. While she automatically delivered her simple account to a ring of sober faces, she was remembering Miss Gaites.

The incongruity of seeing starched, immaculate Leona Gaites in such a state!