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nurseries and coffee shops and views of the marsh and the bay—all of which any dyed-in-the-wool Summer Person was obliged at least to slow down for.
    Evie rode silently beside me. She’d found some classical music on the radio of our rented Taurus, and she slouched back in her seat with her eyes closed and her hands folded in her lap. I didn’t think she was sleeping. I figured she just didn’t feel like talking.
    We put Brewster behind us, and as we passed through Dennis I said, “How about something to eat?”
    â€œI’m not hungry,” she said without opening her eyes. “I just want to go home. Get something for yourself if you want.”

    I decided the couple of mugs of cop coffee, two bags of peanuts, and the Coke would last me. I wasn’t very hungry either.
    When we got to the Sagamore Bridge, which spans the canal that separates Cape Cod from the mainland, I pointed to the big sign. Desperate? Call the Samaritans , it read. Probably intended for folks who were tempted to leap off the bridge, although I’ve always suspected that the Samaritans got a lot of business from desperate weekend drivers stuck in the traffic.
    â€œShall we give ’em a call?” I said to Evie.
    She opened her eyes and glanced at the sign. “I’m not desperate,” she said. “I’m not in a very good mood, either. Don’t make jokes, please.”
    I shrugged. Under the circumstances, I figured she was entitled to any mood she wanted.
    Once we got over the bridge and were heading back home on Route 3, the traffic thinned out and we zipped along. I made a few conversational forays, all of which Evie either tartly rebuffed or ignored entirely, and we pulled up in front of her townhouse in Concord at a little after four-thirty without having talked about our experiences at the Brewster police station.
    I wanted to know what they’d asked her, what she’d said, how they’d treated her, and I was disappointed and a little hurt that she didn’t want to tell me or to hear about what I’d been through.
    But I knew Evie better than to push it. That’s how she was. I’d experienced her dark withdrawals before. Evie liked to think things through on her own before she talked about them. Eventually she’d get a handle on it. Then we’d talk.
    I got out of the car, opened the trunk, took out her duffel bag and her backpack, and started to lug them to her door.
    â€œI’ve got them,” she said.

    â€œI’ll carry them for you,” I said. “They’re heavy.”
    She touched my arm. “I said, I’ll take them.”
    I shrugged and handed the bags to her. “I assume that means I’m dismissed?”
    She nodded. “I need to be alone.”
    â€œIt’s Saturday,” I said. “Maybe our weekend on the Cape got ruined, but we always—”
    â€œI’ve spent enough time today with people who think I murdered somebody,” she said. Then she turned and trudged up to her door.
    â€œI don’t think you murdered anybody,” I called to her.
    â€œYes you do,” she said without turning around.
    I stood there and watched Evie unlock her door and drag her bags inside. Then I turned, got into my car, and headed home to my solitary apartment on the waterfront in Boston.
    I’ve been renting the same condominium unit on Lewis Wharf on the Boston Inner Harbor ever since I split from Gloria eleven years ago. My landlord keeps threatening to put the place on the market, and if he ever does, I suppose I’ll have to decide either to buy it or to move to something permanent.
    My place has one big bedroom, where I sleep, and a smaller one, where I store things. There are cardboard boxes in there that I haven’t opened in eleven years.
    The living room, dining room, and kitchen are one big room. It has floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors that open onto a narrow iron balcony overlooking