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impression that she was responding mainly to my suggestion; in reality, Strike might or might not have been wearing tags.
    The only other piece of information I elicited was that Strike had arrived sometime after August 24, and I got that date by accident. Having abandoned my direct questioning about Strike, I gently asked Mellie about her own dog. Mellie produced a sheaf of snapshots that showed an adorable Boston terrier. Her name was Lily, and Mellie went on and on about her. Lily, I learned, had lived to fifteen and had gone to heaven. Father McArdle had said so. Mellie then produced a card with a picture of the Virgin Mary. In clear script, someone had written Lily’s name on it, together with the dates of her birth and death. Lily had died on August 24.
    “Were Lily and Strike friends?” I asked. “Did they play together?”
    Mellie looked confused. Then, having apparently decided that I’d said something silly, she declared with a hint of scorn, “Lily was in heaven.”
    “So Lily went to heaven, and then, after that, Strike got here.”
    Mellie’s response was loud and emphatic: “Of course!”
    I gave up. Mellie and I then took a look at her backyard, which had a five-foot-high chain-link fence and a chain-link gate secured with a snap bolt. Either the missing Strike or another dog, perhaps many others, had dug holes in what remained of the grass, but some forsythia and a mock orange tree had survived. Visible at the rear of the fence was evidence of Strike’s means of escape. The earth by the fence showed the signs of recent digging. Right under the fence itself was a small depression.
    “Under and out,” I said.
    Mellie repeated the phrase.
    “When we find Strike, I’ll fix this for you,” I promised.
    Before Rowdy and I left, I wrote my name and phone number on a pad of paper next to Mellie’s phone. Whether or not she could read, the information was worth leaving. Mellie had people to help her, and one of them would presumably read my number for her if she needed to call me. We agreed that she’d let me know immediately if Strike returned. I promised to do what I could to find the missing Siberian.
    Pulling out of Mellie’s driveway, I saw that the official vehicles no longer blocked the street. A small group of people had gathered on the sidewalk, but I had no desire even to pass by and drove in the other direction. Preoccupied with Mellie, I’d managed to blot out the image of the body on the tiles. It now returned to me. She had had my slim build. Her hair had been medium length, its color a pale brown with maybe a hint of red, a familiar shade, one that occurs in golden retrievers. Or so my father has always insisted. It is, in other words, the color of my own hair.
     

CHAPTER 6
     
    As soon as I got home, I called Francie to tell her about the murder and to inquire about Mellie’s safety. Our conversation was brief. “Mellie won’t open the door to strangers, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Francie assured me. “And she has good locks. Once Mellie masters a routine, she follows it. She always locks up. I’ll break the news to her about what happened. She won’t see it on the news. She watches TV, but mainly sitcoms and children’s shows, a few animal programs, and she doesn’t listen to the radio. Or read the newspaper, of course. News upsets her. Well, it upsets me, too. She can read, sort of, but she doesn’t. I mean, she can print her name, and she can read words on signs and packages, stuff like that, but that’s it. I wondered whether she might like reading children’s books, but I tried a few, and I got nowhere. I’m sure she had unhappy experiences in school. The printed word makes her feel inadequate. In any case, one of us can always stay there tonight. Sorry, but I have to run.” Her tone suggested urgency. “Our preschool is a media-free zone, and one of the toddlers keeps showing up in a Thomas the Tank Engine T-shirt.”
    Cambridge. It’s worse than