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recognizing what it was.
    â€œHow is it possible?” she murmured. “Who would do such a thing?”
    If she was expecting an audible answer to either of those two rhetorical questions, none was forthcoming—not from Champagne Al, and not from me, either.
    Turning his back to her, Alan fiddled with the control on the galley stove, removed the cover plate, and then waited. When the well in the bottom of the stove filled with fuel, he lit one end of a twisted-up paper towel and used that to light the stove. Once satisfied that the fire was properly started, he replaced the cover, set a grimy coffeepot to heat, then turned back to Else, who had yet to touch her glass.
    Alan studied her for some time but said nothing. Finally, he plucked a pack of cigarettes from hispocket, withdrew one smoke, and lit it with a wooden match he struck on his pants leg. He dropped the used match into a chipped, broken-handled coffee mug that was filled to within an inch of the top with an accumulation of ashes, spent matches, and dead cigarette butts.
    Leaning impassively against the sink, Alan exhaled a plume of unfiltered Camel cigarette smoke that quickly filled the small galley. He seemed disinclined to say anything at all to break what was fast becoming an unnervingly long silence.
    â€œI finally got Gunter to stop smoking,” Else whispered sadly. “That seems pretty silly now, doesn’t it? Stopping smoking may prevent lung cancer, but it doesn’t make much difference if someone decides to murder you.”
    With no more warning than that, Else Gebhardt’s tears returned. When two of them slipped silently onto the table, she quickly wiped them away. Meanwhile, Alan Torvoldsen remained oddly silent. It seemed as though the effort of carrying Else from one dock to the other had somehow robbed him of the ability to speak. Or the need.
    â€œHe was a good man, Alan,” Else continued softly, her glance searching Alan’s impassive face. “Gunter was a lot like you, you know,” she added. “I’ve always been sorry about what happened. I’m sorry you two could never be friends. I think you would have liked him.”
    Alan Torvoldsen’s eyes narrowed in a look that might have been anger or anguish, I couldn’t tell which, and the fleeting expression disappeared before I had a chance to catalog it. With his eyesonce more carefully veiled, he stared off over the disheveled graying hair on Else’s once-blond head. His distant gaze seemed to drill a hole deep into the smoke-yellowed, years-old pinup calendar tacked to the bulkhead above and behind her.
    The stark, empty expression on his face wasn’t suitable for casual indoor use, or for mixed company, either. It came uncomfortably close to the thousand-yard stare I’ve seen occasionally on the faces of Vietnam vets who are going down for the count, unfortunate losers who are trapped in that crazed, memory-filled catch-all mental health professionals call Delayed Stress Syndrome.
    Forgotten between his fingers, Alan’s smoldering cigarette dribbled a trail of gray ashes across the already ash-strewn galley floor. When he noticed it finally, he shook the rest off into the mug-turned-ashtray he still held in his other hand.
    â€œWe won’t ever know that now, will we, Else, so you could just as well forget it,” he returned darkly. “Drink your drink.”
    The comment seemed blunt and unkind, and it was barked out more as a command than an invitation. Else’s fingers inched uncertainly toward the glass. When her fingertips finally touched it, she looked up at him. “I’m sorry it happened,” she said, “but thank you.”
    The words she spoke seemed strangely out of whack with what I thought was going on. It was as though she was talking about something else entirely—something that had nothing to do with either her husband’s death or with the brimming shot glass sitting on