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tired. ”The police can give you any further... details.”
    I went back to Tranh. ”A minute ago, you said you’d noticed Veronica’s bathing suit before seeing her body.”
    ”Correct.”
    ”So, you believed she was dead?”
    ”Veronica was facedown in the pool and not moving.”
    ”What did you do then?”
    ”I jumped into the water and swam to her. When I pulled her out, she was not breathing, so I ran to the phone. There.”
    Tranh tipped his head toward an arrangement of patio furniture and wicker sideboard with some towels the colors of the tiles. I could see a cordless phone on one of the wicker shelves.
    Without looking back at Tranh, I said, ”You didn’t try to give Veronica CPR?”
    ”I was never trained to do it.”
    Now I turned my face back toward his. Throughout my questioning, I couldn’t remember Tranh so much as blinking.
    ”Lieutenant?”
    I glanced at the Skipper. ”Sorry, Colonel.”
    ”Don’t apologize for doing your job.”
    Helides said it in a way that sounded like a hint. I glanced around the room, finally seeing the bracketed mount high on the wall behind us.
    A video camera. ‘You have the attack on tape?”
    Helides shook his head. ‘The camera was generally engaged, as a safety monitor on anyone in the pool. However, that day it had been turned off.”
    ”Why?”
    ”Buford Biggs—one of the players in Spiro’s band—has a son who is intrigued by filmmaking. Kalil wanted to take footage of the party toward editing it into a video.”
    ”I don’t understand, Colonel. Wouldn’t that mean the camera up there should have been working?”
    ”No,” said Helides, sounding even more tired. ”No, Kalil—and Veronica—wanted only his own footage.”
    ”So, no tape from the pool camera.”
    ”Nor from any of the others in the house.”
    I looked to the glass wall, steamed by ambient humidity to the point of being translucent instead of transparent. ”And no one on the waterway or across it would be able to see in here.”
    ”That’s right. In the winter, we keep the door closed.”
    ”The door?”
    ”That glass expanse is more door than window, Lieutenant. It’s designed to allow the entire pool to be used on summer.”
    ”What do you mean by ‘entire’?” I said.
    ”You’re looking at only half the surface area. The rest is outdoors, the glass wall dividing the warmer, interior water from the colder exterior.”
    I stared at the point where the glass wall met and extended down into the water, seeming to be sealed shut against the bottom of the pool. ”Can the wall be opened?”
    ”Only from the inside,” said Helides.
    I was about to say something more when a subtle, skittering sound came from behind us. I turned around but didn’t see anyone.
    The Skipper spoke to me. ”That was just David.”
    ”David?”
    ”My other son. He’s younger than Spiro by ten years, Nina...” A twinge of pain crossed the good side of his face. ”Their mother died bearing him.”
    ”Where does David live?”
    ”Here.”
    ”He came home to be with you?”
    ”What?” said Helides, another look of confusion replacing the pained one.
    ”After your granddaughter died, your son came here to be with you?”
    A tone more tired than any so far. ”David never left home, Lieutenant.”
    Before I could ask why, Nicolas Helides shivered. ”It’s chilly here. Let’s go back to the library.”

    Afternoon sunlight slanted through the big window opposite the fireplace, near where Justo Vega was speaking quietly into the telephone, his shoulders rolling a little with his internal music. Tranh repositioned the Skipper’s chair so that the rays from outside fell across the old man’s torso without shining in his eyes. Even so, a plaid stadium blanket materialized from behind another chair, Tranh spreading it over Helides’s legs.
    The Skipper waited until he was finished, then motioned me to the brass-tacked couch. ”The party was on January eleventh, a Sunday. Because my pool