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motioned toward a wing chair. "You'll find that comfortable," he said. Then he put his arm about Meg's shoulders and gave her a squeeze. They sat down on a sofa. "She told me," he said. "Too bad, but water under the dam, water over the bridge, water spilled, or something. It's done and what do we do about it now?"
    "Not a thing yet," Barbara said. "Until we know when Wilkins was killed, we sit tight.
    Wally, are you certain you didn't accidentally pick up the boat and slip it into your pocket?"
    His grin broadened. "Barbara, my coat was in the foyer. If I'd done that it wouldn't have been by accident. Nope. Jay did it."
    "Why?" Barbara asked. "Was there an old score to settle? Was he jealous over Meg? Why would he have done such a thing?"
    "I don't know. I can't figure it out, no way. We weren't really friends in the long gone days, just collaborators and coworkers. I never did a thing to him, and after they got me I told him he was out of it. And he was."
    Meg shook her head. "It was pretty well-known that Wally and I were a thing. Jay never paid any attention to me."
    "Okay," Barbara said. "What did he say about his wife when you saw him at the casino?"
    "I saw him first," Meg said, "and he was not very interested. I didn't mean a thing popping up from the past. In fact, he didn't ask a single question about us, where we'd been, what we'd done. I don't think he was interested then or later. I said for him to come say a quick hello to Wally, that we were getting ready to leave, and he went with me to the blackjack table. He didn't mention his wife until Wally left the table and said hello. I don't think he liked the way Wally looked him over or something and he sort of moved back a step," Meg said. "It was as if to make up for that little bit of awkwardness that he began to talk about her, that she was away on a trip, and he was lonely. He could be quite charming, a salesman at heart. He asked when we would be back in town and invited us to come out to his house on Monday. We weren't together more than ten minutes. On Monday, we were with him a little longer, maybe half an hour."
    "What did she mean, the way you looked at him?" Barbara asked.
    "It was spooky that he was so much like his father. I might have looked him over pretty hard," Wally said.
    "On Monday night, what did he say about his wife?" Barbara was feeling dissatisfied and frustrated and told herself there was nothing more to pursue in this line, but she asked and waited for their answer.
    Meg supplied it. "He said he had called her sister and his wife had not gone there to visit. He didn't know where she was, and he was worried. He had called the police to report her missing, but they said to wait a few days. He said she'd had a nervous breakdown a couple of years ago, and he was afraid she was suffering major depression, that she might not be responsible, that she might even harm herself, commit suicide. He was not leaving the house, for fear she would finally call and he wouldn't be there." She glanced at Wally. "That's about it, I think."
    He nodded. "We never met her but even so I guess my sympathy was for her, not him," Wally continued. "If he was as much like his old man as he looked like him, she had cause to hightail it out. He left to get her picture to show us. That has to be when he put the boat in my coat pocket."
    "Full circle back to the boat," Barbara said. "Okay. But there could be a reason for his asking you to the house. Try to think of what it might have been." She started to get up.
    "There's another thing or two," Wally said. He had his arm around Meg's shoulders again and drew her closer. "We know it was a mistake to take the damned boat back, and that someone could have seen Meg. I'll take the rap before I let them hang it on Meg. Keep that in mind."
    No trace of her dimple or his affable grin was in sight. Her lips tightened slightly and she shook her head a little. Wally evidently tightened his grip on her shoulder.
    "If Jay was killed