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juncture on this bright spring afternoon. A man had been robbed of his life. To Carella, Lester Henderson was a vague political figure in a city teeming with strivers and achievers. To Pamela Henderson, he had been husband, father, perhaps friend.
    â€œWould you care for some coffee?” she asked.
    â€œThank you, no,” he said.
    She poured coffee from a silver urn resting on a table before sheer saffron colored drapes. She added cream and two lumps of sugar.
    â€œWhat are the chances?” she asked. “Realistically.”
    â€œOf?”
    â€œOf catching whoever killed him.”
    â€œWe’re hopeful,” he said.
    What do you say to a widow? We lose as many as we catch? Sometimes we get lucky? What do you say when you can see that all her outward calm is vibrating with an almost palpable inner tenseness? Her hand on the saucer was shaking, he noticed. Tell her the truth, he thought. The truth is always best. Then you never have to remember what you lied about.
    â€œThere were a dozen or so people onstage with him when he was shot,” he said. “Detective Weeks and his colleagues at the Eight-Eight are questioning them more fully now. They’re also doing a canvass of the area around the Hall, trying to locate any…”
    â€œWhat do you mean by questioning them more fully?”
    â€œThey already had a first pass at them.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œNo one saw anything. The shots were described as coming from different sections of the hall. This is common. Eye witnesses are notoriously…”
    â€œIs it possible there were two shooters?”
    He noticed the word “shooters.” Everyone watches television these days, he thought.
    â€œWe’re still waiting for reports from the ME and Ballistics.”
    â€œWhen will you have those?”
    â€œIt varies.”
    Tell her the truth. Always the truth. In this city, with the number of homicides committed here every day of the week, any kind of report could sometimes take a week or ten days to get back to you. “We’re hoping, given the magnitude of the case, it’ll be sooner rather than later,” he said.
    â€œThe magnitude of the case,” she said, and nodded.
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    â€œMeaning my husband was important.”
    â€œThe case is attracting attention, yes, ma’am.”
    â€œWhat do I tell the children?” she asked, and was suddenly weeping. She put down the coffee cup. She groped for a tissue in the box on the table, found the tag end of one, yanked it free, and brought it to her eyes. “I kept them home from school today, I don’t know what to tell them. My son was supposed to have baseball practice. My daughter’s on her soccer team. What do I tell them? Your father’s dead? They think he’s still upstate. What do I tell them?”
    Carella listened silently. He never knew what to say. He never knew what the hell to say. She kept sobbing into the tissue, crumpled it, took another from the box. He waited.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said.
    He nodded.
    â€œWhy are you here?” she asked.
    â€œThere are some questions we need to ask. If you’d rather I came back some other…”
    â€œNo, please. Ask me.”
    He hesitated, took his notebook from the inner pocket of his jacket, opened it, and looked at the list of questions he and Ollie had prepared. They seemed suddenly stark. Her husband had been killed. He cleared his throat.
    â€œCan you tell me what time he left here yesterday morning?”
    â€œWhy is that important?” she asked.
    â€œWe’re trying to work up a timetable, ma’am. If we can ascertain when…”
    â€œI wish you’d stop calling me ‘ma’am,’” she said. “I’d guess we’re about the same age, wouldn’t you? How old are you, anyway?”
    â€œI’m forty, ma’am.”
    She looked at him.
    â€œMrs. Henderson,”