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mother’s. She slept like a girl in a painting, on her side with her hands palm-to-palm beneath her cheek.
    Elizabeth set her cup on an end table and switched off the television. She reached for a quilt to cover her daughter, but just then the girl stirred.
    “You should be in bed,” said Elizabeth.
    “I was waiting up for you.”
    Elizabeth took a seat at the end of the couch, and Sarah turned onto her back and laid her legs across her mother’s lap.
    “I was watching the news,” the girl said. “They had a story about a guy who fell out a window. Is that why you’re late?”
    “That’s why.”
    “He fell six floors. It must have been gross.”
    “You should be in bed.”
    “They were cagey about it. They wouldn’t come out and say he jumped.”
    “They don’t know. There weren’t any witnesses.”
    A pause. Elizabeth tasted her tea.
    “Defenestration,” Sarah said. “That’s what you call it when somebody gets thrown out a window.”
    “It’s not for sure he was thrown.”
    “But he could have been. Do you think he was?”
    “I’ll tell you, but you have to promise not to talk to the press.”
    “I promise.”
    “It’s possible Tom Kristoll was defenestrated.”
    “Do you have suspects?”
    “It’s too soon to say.”
    “What about his wife? Does he have a wife?”
    “Yes.”
    “Have you talked to her?”
    “I saw her tonight, very briefly,” Elizabeth said. “She came in to identify the body.”
    “But you didn’t question her.”
    “It wasn’t the right time. She was in no condition to answer questions. And she had her lawyer with her.”
    “That’s two strikes.”
    “How’s that?”
    “She’s the wife, and if a man gets killed, you have to suspect the wife. And now she’s hired a lawyer.”
    “I don’t know that she hired him,” Elizabeth said. “Mrs. Kristoll is a professor, and her husband was a publisher. Some people don’t need to go hire lawyers—they already have them, like they have dog walkers or accountants.”
    “Still, it’s two strikes. The only way it could be worse is if she’s having an affair. That would be three strikes. Is she having an affair?”
    “That’s something I’ll have to ask her, if I can pry her away from her lawyer.”
    Elizabeth sipped tea. Sarah rose from the couch and stretched, arms reaching for the ceiling. Lanky was the wrong word, Elizabeth thought. Lithesome was closer to the truth.
    “Are you having an affair?” she asked.
    “Mom,” the girl said. She gave the word an extra syllable.
    “There are two soda cans on the counter by the sink,” Elizabeth said. “One Pepsi and one Mountain Dew. Billy Rydell is a known consumer of Mountain Dew.”
    “I’m not having an affair with Billy Rydell.”
    “Billy Rydell is sixteen,” Elizabeth said. “He’s a roiling sea of hormones. If teenage lust were a crime, it would be my duty to lock him up.”
    “Billy Rydell was here for twenty minutes. We talked about a project for school. Then he asked me to go with him to a movie.”
    “Ah.”
    “A matinee, tomorrow afternoon,” Sarah said. “I told him I’d have to clear it with you. I said you might be able to drive us. He turned pale at the thought. I think he’s afraid you might shoot him.”
    “I might. We’ll have to see about whether I can drive you. It depends.”
    “What does it depend on?”
    “Whether Tom Kristoll was pushed out the window. If he was, it’s going to fill up my afternoon.”
     
     
     
    Sarah went up to her room around one o’clock. Elizabeth followed suit a short time later. She showered, washed and dried her hair, and went to bed. She stared for a while at the window of her bedroom. A streetlight cast the shadows of branches on the curtains. When she slept, there were windows in her dreams.
    She walked down a long corridor with a window at the end, and as she approached she saw the silhouette of a man outside, but when she reached the window he was gone. Through the night, she had