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if he’d gone to pronunciation school or something.
    The squeak of the kitchen door announced the arrival of Mrs. Forbes. Helen waved her forward. “Take Eunice out to the kitchen,” she directed. “I’ll be in there in a minute.”
    Together, after a coupla tries, they managed to lever Eunice to her feet. Her tear-stained face was contorted nearly beyond recognition as she shuffled across the foyer and down the hall, holding her injured wrist before her like an offering. Mrs. Forbes stayed at Eunice’s side, offering a grandmotherly arm thrown around her shoulders and a calming whisper that everything was going to be okay. Helen Willis turned back toward the front door. She pointed with a trembling finger. “Get out,” she yelled, stamping her foot.
    “I’m calling the authorities.”
    Gray suit sneered at her. From the inside pocket of his suit jacket, he produced a small handful of paperwork and a black leather case. He flopped the case open about an inch in front of Helen’s face. Gold badge and plastic ID card. National somethingorother.
    “We are the authorities,” he said, snapping the case closed. Helen pushed the case away from her face. Blood roared in her ears. “Let me see that again,” she demanded. He ignored her. The big guy spoke softly into a tiny microphone attached to his collar. Helen bellied in closer, but before she could open her mouth, four more men burst into the foyer.
    Gray suit twirled a finger. “Everybody in . . .” He looked around. Pointed a buffed fingernail back across Ken Suzuki’s shoulder, over at the front parlor, the only room in the house reserved for formal occasions. “Put them all in there,” he finished. Two headed up the stairs. Another pair pushed past Helen and Ken, following Mrs. Forbes and Eunice toward the back of the house. The sound of pounding feet beat an unpleasant rhythm, a sound Helen Willis had never heard before, a sound more common to war zones, she thought, and then, inexplicably, her mind wandered to one of her favorite books. She envisioned Anne Frank hiding in that dank annex, imagining her anxiety at the sound of boots on the stairs, then the cold steel terror of the man with the gun. For some reason, the recollection emboldened her. She turned quickly toward Ken. “Call the police,” she said with as much command as she could muster. Her bravado wasn’t enough. One look at Ken Suzuki told her she was going to have to make the call herself. Ken stood like a Buddha carved in stone, fear in his eyes and granite in his feet. You could see it. Ken had been rounded up before. Ken wasn’t taking any chances here. He made a face at Helen. Shook his head in caution. Helen was having none of it. She shouldered her way past the big guy and started for the phone in the parlor.
    “By all means,” gray suit said. “Call the po-lice.” He put the accent on the wrong syllable and then smiled at his own little joke.
    7
    Helen was halfway to the parlor when she encountered Carman Navarre and Dolores Hildebrand, both of whom were being herded into the front room by one of the agents. Carman tugged at Helen’s dress. Helen stopped and put a hand on her shoulder. Carman was short and squat, a Down-syndrome victim and one of the most universally pleasant souls Helen had ever met. Nearly fifty years before, a police officer had found Carman wrapped in a hotel towel and stuffed in a garbage bin down in Long County. Unlike, say, Darl and Randall, whose grip on reality was at best tenuous, Carman was generally on top of things . . . as long as you weren’t in a big hurry for her to get there. Carman was slow to process information. She got things right, but took quite a while to do so. The agent sought to hurry them along. He reached for Carman, but Helen batted his hand away. “Don’t you dare touch her,” Helen said. “Don’t you dare.”
    Satisfied she’d deterred him, at least temporarily, she turned her attention back to Carman. “What is it,