Jack made a note of the time. He was about to give the signal to his own cabbie to beat it when he noticed a familiar lady turning the corner. It was Mrs. Burwell, strolling alone down the avenue, a white stole glowing like a fur lifesaver around her neck. She smiled and nodded at a passing couple, approached her doorman, had a few quiet words with him, then ventured inside.

Jack recalled Mrs. B. telling him about her weekly Junior League dinner meetings. The DA obviously made interesting use of his evenings when his wife was occupied. Like clockwork, he'd had it all timed perfectly, making it home just before the little woman.

But Jack was on the job now. And once he got that flash picture in his hands, Mrs. Burwell would no longer be in the dark.

"Dust out, buddy," he called, then told the hack to take him back where he belonged. "Downtown."

CHAPTER 1 Opening-Night Jitters

When it concerns a woman, does anybody ever really want the facts?

– Philip Marlowe, Lady in the Lake, 1947

Quindicott, Rhode Island Present Day

LISTEN, BABY, YOU can't solve a puzzle when half the pieces are missing…

That's what Jack Shepard advised me after I'd found the corpse that bright, spring morning, even though I pointed out his declaration had a few holes in it. People guessed at half-solved puzzles all the time.

"What about Wheel of Fortune?" I argued. "You can buy a vowel and sound out the words. You don't need all the pieces."

Jack wasn't impressed with my TV game-show analogy, partly because the show hadn't been invented until decades after he'd been shot to death in my bookstore, but mainly because he'd had more experience with homicide than yours truly, and not just because he was a victim of it.