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life,” he said simply.
    â€œDescribe one thing you did this morning,” the off-camera voice said. “And why you think we should know about it.”
    Lewis thought for just a moment. “I finished translating a particularly difficult haiku,” he said. He waited, as if for a response. When none came, he went on. “I’ve been translating the work of Bash–o, the Japanese poet. People always think translating haiku must be easy, but in fact it’s really, really hard. It’s so dense, yet so simple. How do you capture that wealth of meaning?” He shrugged at the camera. “It’s something I started doing in grad school. I’d taken a lot of Japanese courses, and I was really taken with Bash–o’s book,
Narrow Road to the Interior
. It’s the story of this journey he took through Japan’s northern interior four hundred years ago. But, of course, it’s also about his own . . . Anyway, it’s a short work, laced with haiku. There was one in particular, a famous one, that I struggled with, kept putting off. This morning, on the taxi coming here, I finally finished it. Sounds funny, doesn’t it, since it’s only, what, nine words long?” He stopped.
    It was hard to reconcile the handsome face with that other one, shown in the police photos: the yawning mouth, the wide unseeing eyes, the dark lolling tongue.
    Sudden fade to black. Lash withdrew the tape, slotted in the other.
    Another scribble of numbers. Then Lindsay Thorpe appeared on the monitor, thin and blonde and deeply tanned. She looked a trifle more nervous than Lewis had. She licked her lips, traced an errant hair away from her eyes with a finger.
    â€œWhy are you here?” the off-camera voice asked again.
    Lindsay paused for a moment, looked away. “Because I know I can do better,” she replied after a moment.
    â€œDescribe one thing you did this morning. And why you think we should know about it.”
    Lindsay looked back at the camera. And now she smiled too, displaying perfect, gleaming teeth. “That one’s easier. I took the plunge, bought my round-trip ticket to Lucerne. There’s this special tour group taking a one-week hike through the Alps. It’s kind of expensive, seemed like a bit of an extravagance, especially on top of the fee for . . .” Her smile turned a little shy. “Anyway, I finally decided I was worth it. I recently ended this relationship that just hadn’t been working out, and I wanted to get away, maybe get a little perspective on things.” She laughed. “So I put the ticket on my Visa this morning. Nonrefundable. I leave the first of next month.”
    The tape ended. Lash removed it and shut off the player.
    Five months after these interviews, the Thorpes were married. They moved here not long after. The most perfect couple anyone could remember.
    Lash dropped the tapes into the envelope and started for the door. As he opened it he paused to turn back, asking once again for an answer. When the house remained silent, he shut and locked the door carefully behind him.

SIX
    C ruising at thirty-five thousand feet on his way back to New York, Lash inserted his credit card into the seatback slot, plucked the air-to-ground phone from its handset, and stared at it a moment.
What does an expert do when something makes no sense?
he thought.
Simple. You ask another expert
.
    His first call was to directory information; the second to a number in Putnam County, New York.
    â€œWeisenbaum Center,” came a clipped, efficient voice.
    â€œDr. Goodkind, please.”
    â€œWho may I say is calling?”
    â€œChristopher Lash.”
    â€œJust a minute.”
    Among private psychologists, the Norman J. Weisenbaum Center for Biomedical Research was both revered and envied for the quality of its neurochemical studies. As Lash waited through ethereal, New Age music, he tried to picture the center in his mind. He knew it