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for a minute go say hello to Mercer Wallace and tell him I’ll be with him as soon as I get off the phone.“
    “Oh, Jed, thank God you called,” I gushed into the receiver, unable to articulate anything that sounded less like soap opera dialogue and more like the paralyzing terror that had knotted my stomach. I was talking over his words as he was saying, “Alex? Alex? I can barely hear you,” through the crackling static of a transatlantic line.
    “Do you know what happened, Jed? Are you still in Paris?
    Have you heard anything about the murder? Are you going to be home soon?“
    I kept spitting questions into the phone, and with the awful echoing in the bad connection I was missing the answers that Jed tried to give back.
    “Yes, Alex, I know all about it. My secretary filled me in first thing this morning, and the story of the murder is even big news today in Europe. I’m worried about you though it must be awful for you.”
    I don’t know why I tried so hard not to cry as I talked to him: “I need you so badly. Please come back I just want you to hold me. Please let me know when you’ll be home.”
“Of course, Alexandra, I’ll try to get back immediately. I love you, darling. I’ll call as soon as I know when I can fly out.
Unfortunately, everyone on the deal came into Paris for these meetings, so it’s impossible to break away. Be strong, darling we’ll get you through this.”
    I’m so sick of being strong, I complained to myself after exchanging sophomoric farewells with Jed and hanging up the phone. Being strong for victims who can’t do it themselves, being strong for weak-spirited strays of all varieties who crossed my threshold, being strong for strangers who truly did depend on the kindness of others.
    When I had the opportunity to stop and think about it, I was well aware that it was a complete pain in the ass to be expected to be strong for everyone all of the time especially because no one ever wants to see me through a moment of weakness.
    I’m tired of being Scarlett O’Hara. In my next life I’m going to come back as Melanie Wilkes, fragile and helpless.
    I blew my nose with a tissue from the supply kept on my desk to service the victim population that passed through every day, and called out to Laura that I wanted her to send Detective Wallace into my office.
    Mercer and Mike came in together a few seconds later.
    “Before you get started,” Mike said, “Chief Flanders wants to know if you have any idea who Isabella was taking with her to the Vineyard.”
    “No one, Mike. That was the point of it. She wanted to get off by herself for a few days and make some decisions about the scripts that had been sent to her for upcoming roles.”
    “Well, Coop, I know you hate it when people lie to you, but she wasn’t alone in your cozy hideaway. At least not all the time. Looks like she had a playmate.”
    “How do they know she wasn’t alone?” I asked, trying to hold my annoyance in check.
    “Maybe she met some friends on the island and invited them in for a drink, or…”
    Everything was getting to me today. I don’t know why it should irk me that Isabella didn’t spend her last few days on earth alone, but I assumed that I was overreacting to news of her tryst because I was so lonely at the very same moment.
“The obvious signs. Not only was Lascar sleeping in your bed, Goldilocks, but the other side of it was rumpled up pretty well, too.
Coffee mugs in the sink, food in the frig.
    Flanders says get this his wife read in People magazine that Lascar was a vegetarian, but there was a big steak bone in the garbage and some hot dogs ready for a barbecue.
    Right next to the yogurt.“
    “Well, tell them to talk to her friends, not to me. She clearly didn’t want me to know. Now let me talk to Mercer about his case while you show the Chilmark Police how to play Dick Tracy, okay, Mike? If you need to use Peopleto solve the case, I’ll get you a subscription.”
    Mercer Wallace was