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I was legally guilty then, legally a felon, with no further right to polite and respectful treatment. But that was a year later. Before, damn it, when I was first arrested and questioned, I was Madeleine Rustin Ellershaw, Attorney at Law. I was Mrs. Roy Ellershaw. I had a very good position with a very good law firm. I was the wife of a respected research scientist. I had a lovely house in the best section of town. I was accustomed to a little… a little courtesy.” She shook her head irritably. “Oh, I’m making it sound so petty, aren’t I? But when you’ve been brought up, well, gently, tenderly, always treated as an important human being, you can’t quite cope with people suddenly acting as if you were… dirt.”
    I said, watching her, “Don’t talk about it if you don’t want to.”
    She licked her colorless lips. “I have to talk about it,” she said quietly. “I’ve been living it over and over for eight years, nine since they marched into my beautiful home like storm troopers and showed me the warrant and mouthed
Miranda
at me and dragged me away all dressed up in my new and very smart and expensive black crepe with the rather good diamonds Roy had given me for my birthday. And sheer black stockings and pretty high-heeled pumps and my hair up because he always said he found the back of my neck very sexy. Oh, God, I still remember every detail of that awful night. I keep thinking of all the things I should have done to protect myself—you’d have thought I had no legal training at all, the things I let them get away with! But the whole thing was so totally unexpected, so completely incredible… I think I was actually in shock. I kept telling myself it was all a ridiculous mistake, it just had to be, and the best thing to do was just ride along with it, and in a minute somebody would come in and say, sorry, we got the wrong Ellershaw, and they’d take me home with abject apologies and Roy would be there waiting for me, wondering where I’d got to.”
    She stopped. I remained silent, letting her find her own way. I just divided the remains of the coffee between her cup and mine and shoved the box of doughnuts closer to her. She hesitated, glanced down at herself, shrugged, and took one.
    “I really shouldn’t, of course, I’m much too big already; but I didn’t eat either breakfast or lunch today, I couldn’t.” She drew a long breath. “It had been a very busy time for me at the office, Mr. Helm,” she said. “I knew something was bothering Roy, but I had so many business problems of my own to think about that I never took time to… I know now that he must have wanted to talk about it, but I was full of my own important affairs. I thought I was doing quite enough when I ran some stupid little bank errands for him.”
    She stopped, and discovered the doughnut in her hand, and took a bite, watching the flickering colors of the freeway traffic through the sheltering, leafless trees. At last she breathed deeply once more and went on.
    “In fact, I was rather annoyed that he’d bother me when he knew how busy I was. And then I got a nice bonus, big enough to let me know they really had their eyes on me and were making wonderful plans for my future with the firm. We had to celebrate, of course, and Roy made the dinner reservations; and we got dressed up for the occasion; but as he was tying his tie the phone rang. It was a very short conversation. He only said that, yes, this was Dr. Ellershaw. He listened a bit and hung up. He reached for his coat and told me he had to step out for just a minute. I… I was annoyed at the delay and reminded him that our reservation was for seven-thirty. He kissed me gently on the cheek so as not to smear my fresh lipstick; and he said that it really wouldn’t take a minute, he’d be right back… But he wasn’t. Ever.”
    She was silent for a moment, watching a pair of crows flying over the trees, talking raucously to each other. They settled in the woods