I told her it was in connection with another matter, and that I was trying to rule out the possibility that her husband's death had not been suicide.

"I never thought it was," she said forcefully. "But what else could it be? Listen, do you want to come to the house? I have two hours of tutoring to do tonight, but I could meet you tomorrow. Say four-thirty?"

She was waiting for me in the upper flat of a semidetached two-family house on Stafford Avenue, just a few blocks from where they used to play the tennis tournaments. She was a tall, angular woman with straight dark hair and a strong jawline. She had coffee made and we sat at her kitchen table. There was one of those black cat clocks on the wall, with the eyes rolling from side to side and the tail swinging like a pendulum. She said, "Isn't it ridiculous? The kids gave it to me for my birthday a couple of years ago, and I have to admit it's grown on me. Let's talk about Fred."

"All right."

"It never made sense to me that he would kill himself. They said he was having problems with his business. Well, he was in that business for over twenty years, and you always have problems. He never had trouble making a living. And we had two incomes, and we were never extravagant. Look where we live."

"It's a nice house."

"It's okay, and the neighborhood's decent, but it's not Sutton Place. The point is my husband wasn't under any great financial pressure. Look, after his death I ran the business myself long enough to straighten things out and get a few dollars for the stock and goodwill. The business was in fine shape. Day-to-day chaos, yes, but nothing unusual. Certainly nothing to kill yourself over."

"It's hard to know what goes on inside another person."

"I realize that. But why are you here, Mr. Scudder? You didn't schlepp all the way out here to talk me into accepting my husband's suicide."