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very words show up
eventually in the Record . Small-town hotlines.
    Greene held up the bottle. 'You okay yet?'
    'I better not, Ray.' He screwed the cap back on.
'Do me a favour and call up Bob and Gail
Chandler. We should go there now.' He nodded
and left, closing the door behind him. Hazel looked
at the phone and then took it off the hook. The
more she tried to hold the thought in her head that
there was a procedure to be followed, the more she
felt that something uncontainable had happened
to her town, something that would resist all
protocols. She felt a presence behind her, breathing
on her, casting its shadow. Someone had come
through town – without being seen, apparently –
and carried off Delia Chandler. Who was this
person? Why did he kill her the hard way, when it
looked as if she'd already agreed to the easy way?
Where were they going to begin?
    Robert and Gail Chandler's house was out in
Hoxley. The entire way Greene stared out the
window at the fall scenery and the failing light, and
that suited Hazel, lost in her own thoughts. Some
of the horror of the morning would have had time
to sink in for Bob Chandler; she dreaded what kind
of state they'd find him in.
    When they got to the house, Hazel recognized
Gord Sunderland's car sitting at the curb. 'Gord,'
she said when he rolled down the window, 'we
don't have a comment at this time, and neither do
the Chandlers. You're just going to have to wait for
a statement back at headquarters.'
    'Is there going to be a statement?'
    'Not today,' she said. 'Monday morning, business
hours.'
    'That's for the boys from Hillschurch and
Dublin, Hazel,' he said. 'I'd appreciate a one-onone.'
'I can't make any promises, Gord.'
    'The Westmuir Record is the main source of news
for the people of this county, Detective Inspector.
They expect a thorough report from us, and the
Monday paper was already put to bed Thursday
night. If you don't want me speculating aloud,
you'll call me at my office when you're done here.'
    'I'll call you. Will you go now?' He closed his
window without another word and she waited for
him to drive off. Greene came up behind her.
    'What'd you offer him?'
    'Knitting tips.'
    'He's a sucker for the knitting tips,' said Greene.
    The Chandler house was a nicely appointed
second home – after their children, Diane and
Grant, had left the childhood house in Port
Dundas, Bob and Gail had bought themselves this
brand new bungalow, the first in a new subdivision.
Now it was surrounded by variations on its theme:
where there had once been the Hoxley farm, there
were now eighty homes, all built in the last fifteen
years, that looked like they'd been assembled out of
a builder's Lego kit with eight different window
types in it, six roofs, twelve front doors, eight
variations on the lintel, a couple of turrets, and a
bunch of gables. Mix them all up and they turned
into homes with a soupçon of individuality, but to
Hazel, they looked like a botched exercise in
architectural cloning.
    Inside, the prerequisite Robert Bateman and
Alex Colville lithographs, laminated posters of
different varieties of chilies in the kitchen, and a big
abstract over the fireplace. The Chandlers welcomed
them into the house sombrely, and now Bob and Gail
sat on the couch across from the two chairs occupied
by the officers, each of whom held a glass of ice water
in their hands. After the offering of regrets and after
Gail had dried again a face that had been drenched
in tears all day, Hazel put her glass under her chair
and took out her notebook.
    'I know this isn't easy for you folks,' she said. 'But
we do have to ask you some questions.'
    'Go ahead,' said Bob Chandler.
    Hazel flipped open her notebook and turned to a
clean page, fixing it down with the black elastic.
'First off, Bob, Robert ... how was your mother's
mood recently? Did she seem upset to you about
anything?'
    'Well, she had cancer, Hazel.'
    'And how do you think she was coping with it?'
    'I guess okay. She was resigned.'
    Hazel