away, asked her to come over and pick her up, give her a ride home. Anderson said she did. She said Widdler told her she had to pee, so they stopped at Anderson’s house, and Widdler went in the bathroom. That’s when Widdler picked up the prescription bottle and the hair, Anderson says.”

“She’s saying that Jane Widdler murdered Leslie,” Lucas said.

“Yep.”

“Anderson never saw a body?”

“She never saw the car, she says,” Smith said. “She says Widdler told her that she was afraid to wait in a dark area, and walked out to Cretin. She said she picked up Widdler on Cretin, took her back to her house to pee, and then took her home.”

“How long was the phone call?” Lucas asked.

“About twenty-three seconds.”

“Doesn’t sound like a call between a guy about to commit suicide, and his lover,” Lucas said to Del.

“I don’t know,” Del said. “Never having been in the position.”

“SHE’S GOT THIS STORY, and she admits it sounds stupid, but she’s sticking to it. And she does it like…” Smith hesitated, then said it: “…like she’s innocent. You know those people who never stop screaming, and then it turns out they didn’t do it? Like that.”

“Hmm,” Lucas said.

“Another thing,” Del said. “Even if we find some proof that Widdler was involved, how do we ever convict? A defense attorney would put Anderson on trial and shred the case.”

“So you’re saying we ought to convict Anderson because we can?” Lucas asked.

“No,” Del said. “Though it’s tempting.”

“You oughta go over and talk to her—Anderson,” Smith said to Lucas.

“Maybe I will,” Lucas said. “All right if I take a noncop with me?”

“Who’d that be?”

“A bartender,” Lucas said.

AMITY ANDERSON had never been big, and now she looked like a Manga cartoon character when the crime boss fetches her out of the dungeon. She’d lost any sparkle she’d ever had; her hair hung lank, her nails were chewed to her fingertips.

“This is all off the record,” Lucas said.

Anderson’s lawyer nodded. “For your information: no court use, no matter what is said.”

Lucas introduced Sloan, who’d put on his best brown suit for the occasion. “Mr. Sloan is an old friend and a former police officer who has always had a special facility in…conversations with persons suspected of crimes,” Lucas said carefully. “I asked him to come along as a consultant.”

Everybody nodded and Anderson said, “I didn’t know about any killings. But I knew Leslie and Jane, and when Mrs. Donaldson was killed, I worried. But that’s all. I didn’t have any proof, I didn’t have any knowledge. With Mrs. Bucher, it never crossed my mind…then, when I read about Marilyn Coombs being killed, I thought about it again. But I pushed it away. Just away—I didn’t want to think about it.”

Sloan took her back through the whole thing, with a gentle voice and thin teacher’s smile, working more like a therapist than a cop, listening to the history: about how Anderson and the Widdlers had become involved in college, and then drifted apart. How the surprise call came years later, about the quilts. About her move to the Cities, occasional contacts with the Widdlers, including a sporadic sexual relationship with Jane Widdler.

“And then you drove down to a barn full of stolen antiques and began stealing them a second time—with a key you had in your pocket,” Lucas said.

“That’s because Jane set me up,” Anderson said through her teeth, showing the first bit of steel in the interrogation. “I couldn’t believe it—I couldn’t believe how she must have worked it. She knew I was friends with Don Harvey. He’s a very prominent museum person from Chicago, he used to be here. She said he was coming to town, and if he authenticated some paintings for them, that they would give me fifteen percent of the sale price, above their purchase price. She thought I had some influence with Don because we’d dated once, and were friends. If he okayed the paintings—I mean, if he’d okayed that Reckless painting, I could have gotten seventy-five thousand dollars in fees for that one painting.”

She shook her head again, a disbelieving smile flickering across her face: “She gave me a key and said she’d send me a map in the mail. I got it out of my mailbox when you were watching me.”

Lucas nodded. They’d seen her get home, go straight to the mailbox, and then out to the car.

“John Smith found the map…” Anderson began.

“He said it was a really old map, Xeroxed, with your fingerprints all over