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had not Frank persuaded his two partners to take the young man in.
    The door opened at the top of the stairs.
    The figure towering above her—six foot three of him plus four stair steps still to be climbed—broadcast a smile much as a lighthouse emits a beam.
    “Nina!”
    “Hello, Jackson.”
    She continued to climb until his arms encircled her and lifted her up the final two steps.
    “Nina, it’s so good to see you.”
    “You too, Jackson.   You too.”
    And it was good to see him.   She’d always liked him, always enjoyed the mutual dinners together, Jackson and LaToya, then their child Alyssha scampering around, Fridays at one home, Sundays at the other.
    The two men talking cases, she and LaToya talking whatever else in the world remained.
    A bit of slight sadness at each parting as she and Frank realized there would not be children for them.
    But no matter…there had been so many good things to make up for that one lack.
    “It seems like a year since we’ve seen each other,” he said, ushering her into the office.
    It had hardly changed.   The same leather sofa beside the receptionist’s desk.
    A different receptionist of course.
    “Maya, this is Nina Bannister.”
    “How do you do.”
    A slender and attractive woman, secretarial and bespectacled.
    How long had Frank been in this office before he could afford a receptionist?   Two years?
    More?
    “Maya, Nina’s husband was Frank Bannister.   We all owe him our jobs.   Our careers, for that matter.”
    “Oh my.”
    There was nothing for her to say to that, of course, and Nina was relieved when, pleasantries over, she was seated in Jackson’s office, and the business at hand could be dealt with.
    “So,” she found herself saying, “he’s finally gone.”
    Jackson’s face, like a blue-black moon, darkened, and his voice rumbled over the desk as solemnly as the news it transported.
    “Yesterday morning.   Eight forty five A.M.”
    “In New Orleans?”
    “Yes.   That’s where he’d been for some time.   In private care.”
    “There were physical problems? And some mental?”
    “So I understand.   I’ve dealt, you understand, only with the man’s attorneys for the past years.”
    Nina nodded.   There was silence in the room for a time.
    It seemed appropriate; a life halted in middle age, a life wasted in institutions. She sighed.
    Finally Jackson Bennett continued:
    “This is, of course, a very big thing.   Big for Bay St. Lucy.”
    “I know.   Have you told anyone?”
    He shook his head.
    “Only Peter and Marvin,” he said, referring to the two other partners.   “And they’ve kept it to themselves.   We’ll be having a press conference this afternoon.”
    “All hell will break loose.”
    He smiled.
    “I’m sure that’s true.”
    “It’s strange.   I guess fate may be operating here.   You know Margot Gavin?”
    “From Chicago—runs the shop on Eighth Street?”
    “Yes.   She and I have kind of bonded in the last few months.   Only yesterday morning she was talking about buying the Robinson place.”
    “She didn’t know?”
    “No.”
    “I thought everyone in town did.”
    “Well, she’s not that social. But anyway, it’s as though the subject came up in her shop at the precise moment that Mr. Robinson was––”
    She found it hard to say the word “dying,” but “passing” seemed somehow overly formal, and so what had happened to Arthur Robinson the previous morning simply hung there over the desk, a wordless concept.
    “I’m sure that was only a coincidence.”
    “I hope,” she said, “that you’re right. And yet, so many bizarre things have happened in connection with that house, that family. I told Margot about it being haunted; but the truth is more strange. It’s not that ghosts have been haunting the house; it’s that the house has been haunting the town.”
    “Yes.   And for two decades.   But now that’s over.”
    “Hard to believe.   How much money is involved, do you