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big California farm, is a lot different from New York, Fortune.”
    â€œIt is,” I agreed. “Have you heard from Felicia?”
    â€œFelicia?” he said, exactly as his wife had. They say people grow like each other in a long marriage. “What should I have heard from her? She’s not mixed in this!”
    I told him what I’d told Mrs. Crawford. “Whatever it is she knows, or thinks she does, she’s scared enough to carry a gun and trust no one.”
    â€œBut what? Something about Francesca?”
    â€œI’d say so,” I said. “Something Francesca told Felicia she wouldn’t tell you or your wife. Your wife admits she was apart from the twins. Were you apart from them too?”
    His blue eyes seemed to lose light, and his polished public face wentloose like a man who is unsure. There was something about the way it happened that said it had happened before, often. A private face now that hinted at confusion, weakness, ineffectuality. As if his public manner was a façade, a front of confidence, and under it he was hollow and accustomed to having someone else make the real decisions that he carried out with his public smile and lawyer’s eyes.
    â€œI was busy, up in Albany so much,” he said. “I left them to Katje. Then, later, it seemed too late. At least for Francesca. I leaned over backwards to get to know her. She never helped. Yet I think I loved the older girls best, in a way.”
    â€œFelicia could be in danger,” I said bluntly. “Francesca was killed for a reason, and the killer won’t take a chance on Felicia whether she knows anything or not as long as she’s running around acting as if she does.”
    â€œWhat can I tell you?” Crawford said. “What do I know?”
    â€œAbout Abram Zaremba and the Black Mountain Lake development,” I said.
    His manner changed as if a steel rod had gone up his spine. The impression of softness, indecision, vanished. Whatever gave him that aura of ineffectuality wasn’t in his official work. The lawyer faced me now.
    â€œWhat concern is that to you?” he snapped.
    â€œIt concerned Francesca, right? She fought it?”
    â€œConservationists! A bunch of juveniles and old women who don’t have any idea of reality. A mayor has many things to consider, Fortune. It was my opinion that the benefits to the city, the desperate need for housing, out-weighed the ecological factors. That was my decision, and it stands unless the people throw me out, which is their right.”
    Before he finished his speech, a door to the left opened, and Anthony Sasser stepped quietly into the room. The businessman got around. I wondered if he’d been listening all along in an adjacent office? He moved with ease, a man in his own backyard. He sat down to my left, silent and alert. I ignored him, faced Crawford.
    â€œWho else objected to the project besides conservationists?” I said. “Maybe the taxpayers? Or maybe they would object if they knew how the deal was arranged? You built a dike at public expense, maybe paid Zaremba even for the land you built the dike on? You put a nice road into Zaremba’s lodge. You created a drainage district so the taxpayers can buy bonds, the taxpayer foot the whole drainage bill? Drainage that will make useless land a goldmine?”
    â€œIt’s a proper arrangement under our conditions,” Crawford said. “Land is limited here. Zaremba’s land, when reclaimed, will benefit the whole community.”
    â€œBut first it benefits Abram Zaremba—a lot,” I said.
    Anthony Sasser spoke from my left. “Abram Zaremba is a businessman, he made a smart investment. It’s all legal.”
    â€œYou in on the project?” I asked Sasser.
    â€œI wish I was,” Sasser said. “It’s a good deal for everyone. Marty there is right.”
    â€œMark Leland didn’t think it was a good deal for