it had been ten years ago, when he did not even seem to recognize her.
“Do you think I might come inside, for just a minute . . . ?”
“Oh,” he said. “Sure,” and he opened up the door, and she wiped her bootsoles carefully on the welcome mat and stepped in.
No lights on in the kitchen but light enough from the window to see it all as it had been: the yellow-and-blue-tiled counter, the same coffee maker, the deep sink where she and Meredith had stood rinsing dishes and looking out at the summer dusk; the round oak table where they’d sat drinking coffee or sometimes wine while the men watched football and the kids thumped about upstairs in Holly’s room.
“Sit,” he said, and as she moved to the table something crunched under her boots, bits of cornflake maybe, or cookie crumbs. The broom stood leaning against the counter, as if he’d begun to sweep but had become distracted, perhaps by her arrival. The garbage had gone sour, and there was the smell of woodsmoke too. From where she sat she saw the coals pulsing in the darkness of the living room, the curtains drawn, the face of the TV black and empty.
He went to the counter and began to set dirty plates into the sink. He poured out the old coffee and she said, “Please, don’t bother. Could you just . . . ?” and she looked at the broom again, and then she looked at the space beside the refrigerator where it had always been kept and there was something else there, set back into the recess but not far enough that it could not be easily reached. It was a hunting rifle. She never knew he owned one.
She looked away and found him watching her, the empty coffeepot in his hand.
“Can you just sit down with me for a minute?” she said. “Please?”
It was darker in the kitchen when she’d finished. The coals in the living room had gone black and there was no sound in the house other than the sounds she and Gordon made themselves, clearing their throats, shifting in their chairs. The three sheets of stationery lay faceup on the table and beside them lay the white square of cloth. Gordon’s hands rested on the edge of the table, one hand folded over the knuckles of the other.
“Well,” he said at last. “It wasn’t me who shot at him. If that’s what you’re wondering.”
“No,” she said. “That never even occurred to me, Gordon.”
The refrigerator was in the corner of her eye but she would not look at it; would not look away from his face.
“Where has he gone?” he said.
“I don’t know. As far from here as he can get, I suppose. He’s not answering his phone.”
Gordon nodded. “Don’t worry, Rachel,” he said, but it sounded to her like something one was expected to say at such times. He was staring at the piece of cloth.
“Do you recognize it?” she said.
“I saw it when he showed it to me. Last week, I guess that was.”
“I mean before that. From back then.”
Gordon frowned. “The better question is, do you?” he said. “It was you who bought the blouse.”
She stared at the cloth. “When I first saw it I was so sure. Now that I see it again here . . . I mean, it’s a silk pocket.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t swear to it, Gordon.”
“You wouldn’t have to. That blouse is still in a bag somewheres in the sheriff’s evidence room. Wouldn’t take much to match it up.”
“There could be DNA on it,” she said hopefully.
“Yes,” he said. “Could be. Could be Danny’s. Could be yours. Could be mine.”
“Could be that deputy’s.”
He stared at the silk cloth. As if to see the DNA himself.
“There’s something else,” she said. “Something not in the letter. Something Danny didn’t even know about.”
Gordon was silent, watching her with eyes that had seen too much, knew too much, and that now waited to know a little more, and she stopped herself. Did she have to say it? Did he have to know this too?
“Do you remember a girl named Katie Goss?” she said.
“I remember that name.”
“She was his girlfriend at the time. Danny’s girlfriend.”
Gordon said nothing, and Rachel went ahead in a rush—telling him about Audrey going up to Rochester, telling him what Audrey had not told her, Rachel, not in so many words but which anyone—any woman—would know just by looking at the girl. That Moran had