"Nightclub performer. Interesting."

"I do voices, you know? I used to be a ventriloquist. Now I'm a mimic; imitations, that sort of thing. Nothing great. I get by."

"And Adam?" I said. "What did Adam do?"

"He was a real-estate broker, and a shrewd investor in the stock market. He was a stodgy stingy man — which is probably why he never got married. He was like a father to us but, actually, he never helped us with money unless it was an emergency. But advice — plenty. And criticism — plenty. I can't say he was bad to us, but he wasn't really good to us. I hope I'm making myself clear."

"Yes. Very clear, Miss Troy."

"Now about the wills."

"Wills?" I said.

"Last wills and testaments. We all have like it's called reciprocal wills. If one dies, whatever he leaves is divided amongst the rest of us. I'm sure you know about reciprocal wills."

"Yes, of course."

"All right. Now last year, Adam made a real big win in the stock market and he suggested that we take a vacation together, a winter vacation, and that he would pay for all of it. A couple of weeks of skiing, fun, out-of-doors, up in Vermont. Two weeks in a winter wonderland, you know?"

I nodded.

"We, the rest of us, Joseph, Simon, and I — we arranged for those two weeks — the two middle weeks in November — and we all went up to a lodge at Mt. Killington in the Green Mountains of Vermont." She shuddered and was silent. Then she said, "I don't know how it began. Maybe we all had it in our minds, maybe that guilt was like a poison in all of us, but it was Joseph who said it first."