t the other day?"

arthur was far too observant. "no, no, it didn't," i gabbled. "the fact is ..." i looked at melinda, desperately needing some help.

"the fact is," melinda said, glaring at me, "that roe caught poppy's mom and dad going through everything wednesday night, and she threw them out. so we had to clean up the study first."

i hadn't expected melinda to tell the truth, and i'm sure my startled face told arthur more than i wanted him to know.

he pulled over a chair that poppy had placed in the corner of the room, a pretty little wooden chair with a bright needlepoint cushion, more of poppy's work. i hadn't noticed it before, at least in the sense of imagining its possibilities, and i found myself planning to check out the cushion later.

arthur plunked himself down in front of us, looking up at us as we perched awkwardly on the high antique bed. my legs were sticking out at an odd angle, and melinda's feet were just barely touching the floor.

"what explanation did they give?" he asked. his voice was reasonable, but his expression wasn't. "and why didn't you call me?"

"i wasn't there," melinda said, maybe a little too quickly. coward! "sorry," she muttered to me. "can't help it."

"i came by with bryan pascoe," i said. "we made them leave, but they sure weren't about to tell us why they were here."

"what do you think they were looking for?" arthur asked.

suddenly, i realized that arthur had just come in the house without either of us admitting him. but we'd locked the door behind us. would the police get to keep a key? surely not, after the house had been re-opened to the family.

arthur had a key. though their affair was long over, he had a key, too.

for a brilliant red flash of a moment, i hated poppy with all my heart. i looked at arthur and wondered if i ought to fear him. over the years, i had felt many things for arthur: love, passion, anger, grief, annoyance, outrage, exasperation. but i had never thought i'd be frightened of him.

the tense silence stretched out unbearably.

"roe - and you, too, melinda - i did not kill poppy. i was crazy about her, and she was about me, but it didn't last. i never said anything to the chief, because i want to catch whoever killed her. i want to catch him myself. this is the last thing i can do for poppy. i want to do it right."

i looked at him doubtfully, but melinda was convinced. she turned to me. "i think we should," she said quietly.

"no," i told her emphatically. the news would spread everywhere. john would be hurt by this knowledge; john david would be even more wounded. sooner or later, the little bit of mortality that was chase would know about it.

"we have to," melinda said, just to me.

i gave her a very dark look and eased off the bed. she took up the letter and handed it to arthur. he put on a pair of reading glasses that he'd pulled from his breast pocket. as he read, we both watched him carefully. while he was busy, i slipped the two pictures into my pocket. melinda watched me and gave a tiny nod. arthur would probably burst a blood vessel if he saw them. as it was, disgust twisted his lips as he read the words scrawled on the paper.

"even her father," he muttered.

"that wasn't her fault," melinda said, instantly indignant. "for god's sake, she was thirteen!"

arthur gathered himself, glancing up at us, then back to the sprawling handwriting. i couldn't read him, had no idea what he was thinking. he folded the paper and put it in his pocket.

"there was something about her," he said.

melinda looked at me in consternation. though she'd known about arthur and poppy, this sudden wistful admission from the cop in charge of the investigation threw her completely.

"listen, arthur," i said as gently as i could. "maybe someone else should be in charge of this case. what about that cathy trumble? she seemed real able."

"she didn't know poppy like i did," arthur said. "i know the chief would take me off the case if he knew i'd been involved with poppy, but i'm the best investigator on the force, and i have to find out who did this to her. she was the most exciting, the most wonderful... i never dreamed anyone could be as wonderful as you were, roe, but poppy was something extraordinary."

melinda gave me a horrified stare. i could feel my cheeks flame red, and i turned my hands palm up. what could i say? for years after he'd dumped me (to marry lynn, and then divorce her), arthur had thought he loved me. for years he'd turned up at odd moments in my life, his eyes begging me to take him back. he'd never shown that level of devotion when we were dating, when it would have been appropriate and welcome.

maybe that was the way it had worked with poppy, too. he'd gotten hooked on her when she'd moved on to someone else.

"we were together when she shopped for that rug downstairs, the one that had all her blood on it," he said, almost conversationally. "she told me that every time she looked at it, she thought of me. we had sex on it."

that definitely fell into the category of "more than i want to know."

"but she switched to someone after you, arthur," i said. "who was it?"

"she told me," arthur said, "long ago... she told me that when she was inducted into the uppity women, she was going to make sure i got a promotion. chief of detectives is coming up. jeb green's gotten a better job in savannah. poppy told me my career would take off. she promised me so much, and gave me so little."

she'd told cartland she'd help him progress in state government. he'd been so besotted with her, he'd been willing to leave his wife and children. poppy had been trying to be a total package: illicit lover, career advancer, wife, mother, suburban queen. i wondered if i'd ever known the real woman. what had she been like when she was alone?

"we never really knew her," melinda said to me. she sounded as sad as i felt. she hooked her dark hair behind her ears and gave arthur a determined look. "listen, detective smith. we don't want to hear any more about you and poppy. what we want is to know what to do about the letter. and we want to know what you're going to do about her mother."

arthur seemed to jerk himself out of the pool of reminiscence he'd fallen into. "what about her mother?" he asked. "does this have something to do with the messages bryan pascoe has been leaving at the station?"

"if you returned your phone calls, you could have picked her up already," i said, angry and somehow hurt by all arthur's unwelcome revelations. i explained about the gas station receipt, about the attendant's memory of the day poppy had been murdered.

"i'll go find out."

arthur left in a hurry, determined to track down the wynns and interrogate them. after he'd gone, melinda and i had to gather ourselves back together for a few minutes. we were quite shaken by arthur and his odd behavior.

"even if it was sandy wynn who killed poppy, and that part of it gets wrapped up," melinda said, "we still have to finish this job." she waved her hand at the bedroom, still considerably out of order.

"you're right. john david shouldn't find this stuff." i stuck the plastic id tag into my pocket to dispose of later with heavy scissors. i ripped the fellatio picture and the frank snap of cartland sewell into tiny bits and flushed them down the toilet. neither of us wanted to give those to arthur. i didn't know how i was ever going to look bubba in the face again, as it was. "that wasn't the same person," i told melinda as the picture bits disappeared. "in both those pictures. different guys."

"oh? i guess i didn't compare." she gave me a lopsided smile.

"well, the one in the close-up picture was a lot, ah, bigger in diameter than cartland's."

"think of knowing that about someone," melinda said, and, amazingly, she giggled. "you know, avery is my one and only. pretty rare in this day and age, huh?"

i nodded respectfully. my own list was quite short, but it did have more than one name on it. "i can't understand anyone letting poppy take pictures," i said. "i'm feeling pretty much on the naive side, too. it seems like common sense would tell the man that such a thing could only lead to trouble. you can deny and deny - but if the other person has a picture, denials are pretty useless."

"avery and i sure wouldn't do that," melinda said. "and i can't see the point. i know what he looks like. he knows what i look like. what's the point of taking pictures? just something for the kids to find and bring out in the middle of a dinner party, right?"

"that's my opinion, too. i just don't get it."

"maybe we're just too middle-class?"

i laughed. "maybe so, melinda. maybe so."

i called my house to see if phillip had returned. when he didn't answer, i called the finstermeyers and got josh's mom, beth.

"we were just trying to call you," she said. "listen, would it be all right if i took the boys christmas shopping with me? the bodine mall is having all kinds of after-thanksgiving sales, and with these two guys for bodyguards, i thought i might come out of it alive. i'd have them back by seven or eight tonight."

"sure, that's fine with me." phillip seemed to be really clicking with josh. i felt quite pleased about that. "um, could i speak to phillip for a minute?"

"sure."

"hey, sis." phillip's voice was deeper and more relaxed than i remembered it.

"listen, phillip, do you have enough money for a trip to the mall?"

"well, i am sort of broke."

"on your way out of town, why don't you swing by poppy's house - mrs. finstermeyer will know where that is - and i'll spot you some cash."

"thanks!" phillip sounded quite enthusiastic. "oh, and roe? when i went to your house to get my coat, i saw you had a few messages on the answering machine. i didn't listen to them, because i was in a big hurry."

"thanks back at you," i told him. "i'll check them before too long."

in a few minutes, i'd handed phillip the entire contents of my billfold, and melinda and i went back to work.

two hours later, we were tired and rumpled. melinda had started sneezing from breathing so much dust. and we had found only one more memento, a stained male bikini. when i held it up, melinda said, "i don't even want to think about that." i could not have agreed more. i dropped the shiny black thing right into the garbage bag - the third one we'd filled with the odd trash that everyone accumulates. melinda and i were just not capable of returning 1998 sales slips, old tissues, and outdated catalogs to their original places, especially since we had no idea where those places had been.

we lifted the bare mattress and the box spring, we checked under the bed, and we shifted all the furniture slightly. we looked over, under, and inside everything.

after a vacuuming and a final look around, melinda and i agreed that the bedroom was cleaner and more orderly than it had been before someone came into the house on tuesday. for our grand finale, we remade the bed. the police had taken the linens to the lab.

we trailed wearily downstairs and sat at the table beside the glass doors. with the stained rug gone and all trace of the blood removed, it was a lot easier to forget what had happened on this spot. since john david had never seen poppy's body, i hoped he might be able to tolerate staying in the house.

"i wish we could tell some of the other uppity women what we're looking for. they'd help us," melinda said.

"yeah, it's too bad we can't tap into that energy," i said, leaning my head on my folded arms. i could not remember ever having felt so tired in my life. i must be getting old, i thought, to let some housecleaning exhaust me to such an extent. "but it would defeat the purpose of us searching if we let everyone in on why we needed to do it."

"listen. cara embler's out swimming. in this weather!" melinda shivered. it had turned into a raw day, and cara was either dedicated or an utter fool to be out swimming in the cold, wet air.

"better her than me," i muttered. "you know she's going to be the next uppity woman?"

"oh?"

"yes, she was next on the list after poppy."

"and she's so energetic."

"all that exercise. she has to do something to keep busy, since she doesn't work, i guess."

"i'm glad avery isn't a doctor. they're gone so much. swimming is lots better than eating when you're lonely, like i do." melinda cast a disparaging eye down at her own somewhat-rounded stomach.

"you look great to me."

"well, i can hardly fit into the size i was wearing before i had charles," melinda said frankly. she was punching buttons on the phone. "i have to check in at home."

i was left staring at a wedding picture of john david and poppy. i tried to imagine maintaining a marriage so screwed up that the partners would not be interested in each other's infidelity. my mother had certainly cared when my father had been unfaithful. boy, had she cared! though they would never have fought in front of me, i'd been a teen, and i'd been aware of the thick tension in our house.

i recalled john david crying that morning in the motel room, and i tried to grasp what people could do to each other short of killing each other. in the background, i heard melinda's voice as she talked to her baby-sitter, her laughter as the girl probably passed along something cute marcy had said.

my mind wandered back to the previous monday, the day of poppy's death. my phone call from her, our conversation. how irritated melinda and i had been with our sister-in-law.

our drive over to swanson lane, my march into the house. the unlocked front door.

i wondered if poppy usually kept it locked, or if her mother had surprised her by just walking in. my eyes opened wide as i considered this new idea. why had sandy picked that particular time to try to retrieve the letter? it had been dated a year and half ago. that meant that when poppy had been pregnant, she had demanded that letter from her father in exchange for - what? marvin's never seeing his grandchild? poppy wouldn't have known then that she'd have a boy.

okay, back to the basic memory, i told myself. the front door had been open. i had walked in. i had called up the stairs. i had walked up the stairs. the shower had been dry, so i'd known poppy had been out of it for a while. the room had been neat; the bed had been made. the closet door had been shut. i could even picture my feet moving downstairs in those shoes, my favorites. then i'd seen moosie, right? (who was still missing, incidentally. i made a mental note to check on that.)

the cat had stropped my ankles, then run ahead of me into the kitchen. i'd felt the cold air keenly, the closer i got to the back of the house. when i'd come into the kitchen and looked over the breakfast bar to my left, i'd seen the glass door open.

i hadn't been able to see poppy's body until i'd come around the end of the breakfast bar with its high stools. there was poppy's body, sprawled on the floor. she lay half in and half out the door, partially on the rug under the dining table, partially on the linoleum. i'd heard cara splashing in the pool. i'd looked out into the backyard, over poppy's body, and seen the concrete around poppy's own pool dotted with darker water stains. looked down again at poppy, horribly dead, her hands ... i had to gulp back my nausea.

could sandy wynn have done that to her own daughter?

the older i got, the less i seemed able to understand or predict the behavior of those around me. instead of gaining wisdom, so that people seemed simpler, i learned more about the complexity of human nature.

"so, what do you think?" melinda's voice made me jump.

"i think that we've probably found everything there is to find," i said. "i may be wrong, and if i am, there'll be hell to pay. we didn't find anything of arthur's, for example, and we know he was one of poppy's lovers. maybe that means he was already here, searching. maybe he's the one who trashed the bedroom. maybe he just wouldn't let her photograph him, or he was too alert for her to risk taking some little memento. or maybe that black underwear was his." melinda and i wore matching expressions of disgust as we considered that.

"you sure he wasn't the one in the, you know, the picture with poppy?" she carefully found something else to look at while i tried to remember. it wasn't that arthur had looked awful naked - quite the contrary - but i just couldn't remember. there hadn't been anything outstanding in the pertinent department.

"i just don't know," i said finally, and melinda nodded. "to return to our original subject, i just don't think poppy would have risked hiding anything really awful down here in the more or less public rooms. not only might john david have found it but also she'd have realized chase would be walking very soon. and there were other people in and out. baby-sitters and friends, and other lovers even. i think we've found it all, or very close to all."

"but are we comfortable with stopping now? just letting the chips fall where they may?"

melinda was sitting opposite me, her thin hands folded together. i tried to pretend i had some energy. i sat up straight.

"yes, i think so," i said, not sounding sure at all.

"you're right," melinda said more decisively. she was sure enough for the two of us. "i think she put everything, um, naughty up in their room, where she could keep a close eye on it, and i think we've found everything. i can't imagine another hiding place in that room. we looked everywhere."

"no, we didn't."

"what?"

"we didn't look in the needlepoint cushion of that chair."

melinda knew instantly what i meant. she was out of the kitchen and up the stairs in that smooth, unhurried stride that made her look so efficient. she was back in a moment, cushion in hand.

she handed it to me, and i looked it over. poppy had done the needlepoint for the top of the flat cushion herself. i have no craft ability whatsoever, so i couldn't have told you what kind of pattern it was, but the design was thistles on a cream background. the top was shaped like a large pancake to match the round seat of the chair. the bottom of the cushion was covered in a sage green silky material. it had turned out real pretty. now we were about to deface it.

"i feel bad about this," i said, hesitating over the pretty thing. a dead woman's hands had crafted this, and i was reluctant to begin. i wriggled the padding in a sort of wave motion, and i felt something rustle inside the cushion.

"oh hell, there's something in there," i told melinda.

we looked at each other with a kind of despair. i felt dirty outside because of all the dust we'd stirred up in the corners of the bedroom - though that had been easy enough to clean up - and i felt dirty inside because of all the dirt we'd discovered in poppy's life - which wasn't easy to dispose of at all. it was a neat parallel, and it made me sick. i never wanted to know this much about another human being, i decided. people needed their secrets. my mother had always told me that ignorance is dangerous, but the way i felt now, ignorance would be true bliss.

melinda said, "i can sew it shut if we just cut a thin slit."

the sharpest knife we could find glided easily into the sage green material. melinda held the cushion absolutely flat and still while i enlarged the opening. melinda's fingers were far longer than mine, so she assumed the task of extraction. tweezed between her long forefinger and middle finger, the piece of paper hissed like a snake against the silk as she drew it out.

i unfolded the paper with as much terror as if it had been an actual reptile.

it was the results of a dna test. "a paternity test," i told melinda. "it looks like poppy took two samples in to be tested against chase's dna. she paid for it up front, cash. get this - it was ordered by dr. stuart embler." i looked at melinda significantly, then returned my attention to the letter. "she told them - well, i can't figure out exactly what she told them, but subject a was not the father, and subject b was."

melinda opened and closed her mouth several times, as if she thought she knew what to say, then decided that she didn't. i knew exactly how she felt.

"what are we going to do?" she asked finally.

"what a good question," i said. "and i don't have the slightest idea what the answer is. should we make an appointment with aubrey?"

"but he'd know then. we can't have anyone knowing if we can prevent it. on the other hand, this seems like too much for us. this is really huge."

"yes."

"chase may be john david's son, and he may not. my god, what will happen to chase if he isn't john david's?"

"he'll still be poppy's son, so that means..."

"her parents will get him? absolutely not."

"but we don't have the right to lie about it!"

"no! but we can't take chase away from john david!"

"but he has another father! a real father!"

"maybe john david is the real father. maybe john david is subject b."

we both took a deep breath. "i say we burn this piece of paper," i said. i looked at my sister-in-law steadily.

"i say we should sleep on it and talk to aubrey tomorrow," melinda countered, neatly reversing her trend of a few moments before.

i was sorely tempted to grab it from her hand and rip it to shreds, as i had the repulsive pictures. why the hell had i remembered the cushion on the chair? john david would never in a million years have messed with that cushion. if it had crinkled when he sat on it, he still wouldn't have opened it up, an opinion i based simply on john david's being a man.

well, the deed had been done, and we were the possessors of yet another piece of unpleasant knowledge.