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blue, and the morning star refused to leave, lingering by the wings until the last possible second before making her exit. In another week, it would be too dark to ride at five-thirty.
    We clipped along at a brisk walk, our breath visible in the chilly hill-country air.
    “Name this,” Richard said, letting fly with some stunning aria or other. It was beautiful, but I had no clue what it was. My appreciation of opera is absolute. My ability to identify anything but the overture to
The Barber of Seville
—which incidentally had always been my father’s favorite opera, if you could say he had a favorite, since he pretty much loathed them all equally, but he liked it because in the end the Bartolo didn’t have to pay a dowry for Rosina to marry Count Almaviva— isabsolutely nonexistent. Richard was always trying a “Name That Tune” situation with me in the futile hope that I would pick up something along the way. My standard for judging classical music is whether or not I would like to have it played at my funeral. So far, in addition to “Happy Trails to You,” which even I know is not considered classical music by most people, about ten pieces have made the cut for what I sincerely hope is not my final selection.
    I looked up at the trees and fiddled with my reins a second. It did sound familiar. “It’s right on the tip of my tongue. Don’t tell me. Don’t tell me. It’s from
La Traviata
, right?”
    “Wrong. It’s from
Le nozze di Figaro, The Marriage of Figaro
. Mozart.”
    “I know what
Le nozze di Figaro
is.” I was getting a little annoyed with this tutoring. It had been going on for months and was clearly a complete waste of time.
    “Okay,” Richard said, clearly enjoying himself. “Name this.” Off he went again. He had the most perfect, big, rich tenor voice. He could even sing at a trot.
    “That,” I said with conviction, “is Rodolfo’s big number in
Bohème
.”
    “Wrong,” Richard said. “It’s from
Tosca
. And it’s not a ‘number,’ it’s an ‘aria.’ I can’t believe you don’t recognize it, Lilly. You watched me conduct it five times in Viareggio this summer.”
    “Really?” I said. “Well, aren’t I a dope? Okay, Mr. Puccini, you name this.” I held up my middle finger in Richard’s general direction and gave Ariel the green light. We shot off down the road at high speed, leaving Richard laughing and singing in the dust.
    Of course, he caught us; there was no way Ariel and I could outrun Richard on Hotspur. Unfortunately, in a test of physical endurance, the combination of muscle,testosterone, and determination almost always prevails over litheness, beauty, and quick wits. Besides, I like being overpowered occasionally by a well-muscled, long-legged, determined cowboy, especially when it’s Richard. Also, it helped keep my mind off the fact that Alma Rutherford Gilhooly had been shot ten hours ago and Jack Lewis hadn’t yet called to ask me for help. I wondered if they’d come up with anything on the boot prints. I’d measured them, and they appeared to be about size eleven or twelve, pretty standard.
    We got back to the house at six, red-cheeked, robust, ornery. Even Baby, my wire-haired fox terrier, who had waited for us at the barn, leapt from one piece of living-room furniture to the next, big smile on her face, before curling up in front of the small fire in the breakfast room and going back to sleep. Her life was very good.
    “When I die,” Richard said, “I want to come back as your dog.”
    “Me, too.”
    I called the hospital. Alma was still holding on, but only in the barest possible sense. The prognosis was not optimistic.
    “A gentleman called,” Celestina, my cook, said in perfect English. Celestina uses her Mexican accent only around strangers. She refreshes the accent every year when she and her husband take their whole family to Acapulco for Easter vacation. She is the third generation of Vargases to live on the Circle B. “Wanted