"Not that I know," she said, "but I can describe her if you like. She's just about my size, which would make her five foot five, a hundred and thirty pounds. She has streaked blond hair which she wears pulled back. Blue eyes." Tillie stopped.

"Oh wait, maybe I do have a picture. I just remembered one. Hold on."

She disappeared in the direction of the den and after a few moments returned with a Polaroid snapshot that she handed to me. The picture had an orange cast to it and seemed sticky to the touch. Two women stood in the courtyard, a full-length shot, taken from perhaps twenty feet back. One I guessed immediately was Elaine, smiling happily, trim and elegant in a pair of well-cut slacks. The other woman was thick through the middle, with blue plastic eyeglass frames and a hairdo that looked as if it could be removed intact. She appeared to be in her forties, squinting into the sun self-consciously.

"This was taken last fall," Tillie said. "That's Elaine on the left."

"Who's the other woman?"

"Marty Grice, a neighbor of ours. Now that was an awful thing. She was killed… oh gosh, I guess six months back. It doesn't seem that long ago."

"What happened to her?"

"Well, they think she interrupted a burglar breaking into the house. I guess he killed her on the spot and then tried to burn the place down to cover it up. It was horrible. You might have read about it in the paper."

I shook my head. There are long periods when I don't read the paper at all, but I remembered the house next door with its charred roof and windows broken out. "That's too bad," I said. "Do you mind if I keep this?"

"Go right ahead."

I glanced at it again. The image was faintly disturbing, capturing a moment not that long ago when both women grinned with such ease, unaware that anything unpleasant lay ahead. Now, one was dead and the other missing. I didn't like that combination at all.