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Arch’s friend, Sam Rodine. It was near enough to Marla’s house that she could meet me there. While Tom murmured into the phone, the coroner’s black van pulled up beside the curb. A warm breeze swished through the aspens. The babble of voices on the street increased in volume.
    “I don’t believe this,” muttered John Richard.
    “No, Marla … Goldy’s fine, just upset,” Tom was saying. “But I need you to take care of her for a while. Meet her over at the Rodines’ house and bring some iced coffee or something. Just be with her, okay?” While he was talking, his eyes never left the two men from the coroner’s staff who were goingabout their grim work in the ditch. I noticed John Richard’s eyes never strayed toward that spot.
    “Look, Marla, Goldy will tell you what’s going on when she meets you, okay? I need to go,” Tom said in his conversation-ending voice. “She’ll be tied up here for about fifteen minutes, so … Sure you can get dressed that fast. Yes, Goldy is with me now. No, we’re not at home. Marla, please … Okay, look, Goldy and I are over on Jacobean, here in the country-club area.”
    Marla’s squawk through the receiver was audible across the porch. Of course Marla didn’t need to ask
where
on Jacobean we were. She was the one who had called me seven months ago and in a tremulous, indignant voice, announced the name, address, and all the vital statistics she’d gleaned on John Richard’s latest conquest, Suz Craig.
    “No,
don’t
come over, we’ve got enough confusion as it is. Goldy won’t be here too much longer….” Tom sighed. “Yes,” he said finally, “John Richard Korman is here, too. Marla, remember what I said. Goldy will be on her way to the Rodines’ place in a quarter of an hour.” Then he muttered, “See you later,” and disconnected. Well, that was one way to get out of a conversation.
    Tom leaped off the porch without explaining where he was going. He stopped to talk to someone from the coroner’s van, then hustled back to us. He held up a hand to me: five minutes.
    “Okay, Mr. Talkative,” said Tom to John Richard. He sounded almost cheery as he snapped the phone back on his belt. “You’ve been wanting to talk and now you’ve got your chance. How about telling us exactly what happened here?”
    “That’s
Dr.
Talkative to you, schmuck.” John Richard tossed his head, suddenly cairn. His changes in mood, of course, were well known to me. “And I’ve been Mirandized. I’m not saying another word until I talk to my lawyer.
Just
the way you told me to.” Then John Richard turned. His dark blue eyes spit fire at me even as his voice remained hideously even. “But as for you, I
know
you’re behind this. One way or another, I’m going to find out how. And if you tell my son about this in any way that makes me look bad, I’ll have you hauled into court so fast you’ll think our breakup was a caterers’ picnic.”
    Oh, sure
, I thought. But I didn’t want to hear his empty threats. I was leaving. Of course, I wanted to ask John Richard what kind of “mixing up” he and Suz had done the night before.
Mixing up.
What a euphemism. How about, “I beat up women when they don’t do what I want?” In the near distance, sirens wailed. I shivered and wondered about the ID bracelet that Suz had so proudly given John Richard. And why would John Richard think Suz wanted to call
me
this morning? The sirens shrieked louder and a police car, lights flashing, burst into view. I knew better than to try to have any further conversation with John Richard.
    The police car squealed to a stop behind the coroner’s van. A uniformed policeman and a tall, dark blond plainclothes woman I didn’t recognize came up to the porch and asked if I was Goldy Schulz, the person who’d found the dead woman. Was I ready to make my statement? they wanted to know.
    Just then, there was one of those unexplained moments of utter silence. The breeze dropped. Thecoroner’s