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said, “I want you to understand that Jan and I will be glad to help Stewart’s girls. And, naturally, I’ll give a large portion to my son.”
    Rice paged forward again and then asked abruptly, “But not a portion to your brother?”
    â€œWell, no. Aunt Edyth didn’t want him to have any of her fortune.” Rice did not remark that Aunt Edyth also didn’t want Jason to have any of it, either, but he did look quizzically at Susan, who continued defensively, “Anyway, Stewart’s not a young man anymore, so I think he’s pretty much used up all his chances at building a fortune from any investment I might make in him.”
    Rice cocked his head at her. “How old is he?”
    â€œFifty-seven.”
    â€œYour older brother, then.”
    She drew an indignant breath—she didn’t like false flattery—then saw he was making a joke, and let it out with a smile. “No, as a matter of fact, he’s nearly ten years younger than I am.”
    He did look authentically surprised by that. Susan smiled. Genuine flattery she did enjoy.
    He smiled back, then went back two pages in his notebook. “Now Alice, Edyth’s sister, your mother. She’s deceased, you said?”
    â€œThat’s right, and my father as well. He was a doctor, well-known in the cardiac field, so it isn’t as if we’ve been sitting around impoverished and impatient to get at Aunt Edyth’s money. My late husband did very well for himself, and my children are doing well also.”
    â€œBut not your brother Stewart.”
    She jumped at this opportunity to say something nice about him. “Oh, it’s not as if they’re living in a slum or anything like that! It’s—it’s more like in comparison. He and his wife own a nice house, and she’s a high school principal, so they’re doing just fine. Stewart always did march to his own drummer, and he seems happy, so…”
    â€œSo?”
    She blurted, “So there’s no need to go looking in his direction for a suspect.” He looked surprised at the strength of her assertion, and she smiled to soften it. “You’re going to have to do what you said, look outside the family.” She grimaced. “Funny, talking about the family made me almost forget this is a murder case. How awful. I hope you catch whoever did this.”
    â€œI do, too.” He made a final note and closed his little tablet. “I want to thank you for your cooperation,” he said, rising.
    She showed him to the door and then hurried to the phone to tell her daughter not to worry about the policeman going around asking questions.

Six
    T HE receptionist came back to the exam room to give Jan a jolt of déjà vu: “Your mother is on the phone. She says it’s urgent.”
    â€œThanks, Char. I’ll be in Doctor’s office.”
    Though the office belonged to Jan’s husband, she used the traditional nurse’s term, calling him “Doctor” as if that were his first name.
    She retreated to Hugs’s tiny private office, with its stacks of paper, books, file folders, X-rays, medical advertisements, and other detritus, then dug out the receiver on a half-buried phone and punched line 2. “Hi, Mom. What’s up?”
    â€œA policeman was just here,” said her mother, but instead of sounding alarmed, she sounded mildly excited, as if she had good news.
    Jan felt enormous relief. “What did he want?” she asked.
    â€œWell,” sighed her mother, “that’s the bad news: Aunt Edyth was murdered.”
    Jan fell into her husband’s desk chair. “You mean the mortician was right? From the way you were talking I thought the policeman came to say it wasn’t so! So what did he want?”
    â€œHe’s investigating, of course, trying to find out who might have done such a dreadful thing. He was very nice to me, a nice man altogether,