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not very organized of you.”
    “Look,” I said, taking out the hand-tooled Navajo leather wallet Ben had given me for Christmas, “until we talked to Maybeth, I wasn't convinced that Ronnie was innocent.”
    “And you are now?” Vida queried.
    “No,” I said, leaving a tip on the table and getting up, “it takes more than an unintentional slip from somebody we don't know to ensure Ronnie's innocence. In fact, Maybeth thinks he did it. The only reason I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt is because I don't think he'd go to all this trouble to run me down and ask my help unless he really didn't kill Carol Stokes. Besides, it bothers me that some goon is using Ronnie for a punching bag at the jail.”
    “If Ronnie did commit the murder, he'd still be desperate,” Vida pointed out. “More so.”
    “I suppose,” I admitted, then looked at Vida sideways. “Whose side are you on?”
    “Yours, of course,” Vida declared, her navy blue duster flapping at her calves as we left the café. “Where's the daughter?”
    “Carol's daughter, the one who found the body?” I shrugged. “I've no idea. Maybe she's the one who's cleaning out the apartment.”
    The Lexus was parked two doors away, just out of a bus zone. Vida didn't say anything until we reached the car. Then she stood at the passenger side, staring up Phinney Avenue. “What's that?” she finally asked, pointing across the street and down a couple of blocks. “Is that the Norse Home?”
    “Yes,” I replied, following Vida's gaze in the direction of the Lutheran retirement residence. “Why?”
    “Olive Nerstad,” Vida said. “She married Burl Ner-stad's older brother Burt and moved to Seattle. Burt committed suicide by jumping off the Bainbridge Island ferry a few years ago. I can't think why. Nobody heard he was sick, so what excuse could he possibly have for killing himself? Anyway, I heard that Olive moved into the Norse Home sometime after Burt died.”
    I gritted my teeth. Even though she disdained myhometown as a vast and faceless metropolis, Vida still managed to find connections to people she knew. For all I knew, Olive Nerstad was a shirttail relation. Vida's extended family seemed to surface everywhere. If I should ever climb the Himalayas, I wouldn't be surprised to find a Runkel or a Blatt or a Gustavson pumping some hapless sherpa for the local gossip. “You want me to make a U-turn in the middle of Phinney and drive down there?”
    “Why not?” Vida said, now getting into the car. “There's not a great deal of traffic. I'm rather surprised.”
    Dutifully, I turned the Lexus around, headed south, and found a place in the parking lot that was reserved for visitors. I had no idea what Vida expected to find out from Olive.
    “Do you keep in touch?” I asked warily as we approached the front desk.
    “Not recently,” Vida admitted. “She stopped sending me Christmas cards after Burt jumped. They never found him, you know. I think that upset Olive. She may be a little… queer.”
    The pert young blond who welcomed us looked like she was about sixty years away from becoming a permanent resident. I wondered if it ever occurred to her that someday her eyes would fail, her joints would stiffen, and her hair would turn to gray. I'd thought about it on nursing-home visits, and my reaction was to run away as fast as I could, while I still could. But I knew I couldn't ever run far enough or fast enough.
    The atmosphere at the Norse Home wasn't gloomy, however. A handsome couple in their seventies nodded and smiled at the receptionist as they headed out for the evening. Notices on a big bulletin board called attention to choral practice, square dancing, and travel. Considering that Norwegians in particular seem to live to be about a hundred and ten, I supposed that many residentslooked forward to a long and happy life. At least I liked to think so.
    Olive Nerstad was in Apartment 205. Apparently, she was accepting visitors, so we took the