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said proudly. They moved to Connecticut in 1950, so Mickey could work out of the home office.
    The boys were born in Canaan. When Geoffrey, the younger boy, started school, Marion went back to work fulltime, as a bookkeeper at Mickey’s office. Marion’s father had died, and her mother Hanna took care of the boys and the house. She cooked big meals and grew plants—Swedish ivy, flowering cactus, and trailing philodendron. The boys called their grandmother Nanny, or Nan, and soon everybody else did too.
    Marion and Mickey, and Mickey’s brother Murray and his wife, Dorothy, were just about the only Jewish families in town. But they seemed to be accepted, especially Mickey. His real name was Meyer, but he was so jaunty and sociable that Mickey seemed a much better name. He became a junior vice-commander at the VFW, and he was always a star of the annual Variety Show. He volunteered for the ambulance corps, and once had his picture taken with Dr. Ernest Izumi, the Assistant Medical Examiner for Litchfield County.
    Marion wasn’t as outgoing as Mickey, but she joined the VFW Auxiliary. Canaan was an easy town for knowing people: Dr. Martin, the dentist; Mario, the barber; and John Bianchi, who had been appointed State’s Attorney for Litchfield County, the prosecutor’s job, in the summer of 1972. Before that, when he was in private practice, John Bianchi had handled Mickey and Marion’s property sale, and he’d handled some matters for Barbara Gibbons, too. He knew about her problems. “Around here, people know when you part your hair,” was a local saying. Sometimes that seemed like a good thing, sometimes not.
    At the VFW Auxiliary, Marion got to know Joanne Mulhern, wife of the state trooper. Jim Mulhern was young. He had a fresh, boyish face, and he seemed especially friendly with young people. They seemed to trust him. One night Arthur Madow was in a car accident in Hudson, New York, and at two in the morning Jim Mulhern was the first person Arthur thought to call. Mulhern got out of bed and drove all the way to Hudson to help Arthur out. In midsummer 1973, the Madows put up new wallpaper in their dinette, a dark blue and red poppy print, and Jim Mulhern came over to help. Then, when Jim Mulhern put in a sidewalk at his house on Church Street, the Madow boys went over to help him. Peter Reilly and Paul Beligni helped too. Sometimes Peter stayed all night at the Madows’, although he usually went home. Barbara was often depressed and drank too much, and although it felt good to be away from her, he always decided, sooner or later, that he ought to go back. Peter felt Barbara needed him. Besides, when he didn’t come home, Barbara often would call up other people’s houses, looking for him. It was easier just to go home. One night near the end of the summer, when Peter had been visiting the Madows and Marion drove him home, Nan went along for the ride. Barbara was sitting outside in the twilight; she’d been reading. Peter hopped out, and Barbara walked over to the car. Barbara knew Marion by sight, but she’d never met Nan, so Peter introduced them.
    Nan motioned toward the house, small and squat, looking closed and even sinister in the gathering dusk, nothing but marsh and the mountain around, and looked at Barbara curiously. “Aren’t you afraid to live out here?” Nan asked Barbara, who laughed and said she kept a gun in the house and was never afraid.
    When the phone rang, Marion was close enough that she could reach out her hand and pick it up, still watching the TV screen. One of Kelley’s men had just jumped up on the tank and yelled to his buddies that he wanted to go with them across the river to get the gold.
    Geoffrey had just come in from the Teen Center meeting. He had picked up a bag of chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen and was walking into the den, taking a bite, as Marion spoke.
    â€œYour Mom sick, Peter?” the others