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a news flash. Come on, Terry. I’ve dealt with the wife, Floss, out at Harmony. She’s a second-stage Alzheimer’s patient. I’m just curious.”
    The phone rustled in Christensen’s ear. He imagined Flaherty shifting his bulk in his plush leather execu-chair, trying to squirm out of the conversation. “She wandered away from her keepers and jumped into a ravine. There. Happy?”
    Christensen waited until he couldn’t wait anymore. “On purpose?”
    â€œPeople don’t jump into ravines by accident. That’s all I’ll say.”
    â€œDon’t be a stiff. What else?”
    â€œThat’s it. Really. There’s one witness who heard something and saw something strange—enough for the cops to take him seriously. It’s probably nothing, but Underhill wanted Brenna on board to help clear up the confusion. They don’t want rumors floating around ten days before the primary. You know how things get crazy in politics. And at this point, the Rosemond people are desperate for anything they can use against Ford Underhill…” Flaherty mumbled something and said he’d try Brenna’s cell phone, then hung up.
    â€œLater,” Christensen said to the dial tone.
    He checked his watch. Fifteen minutes until Annie and Taylor would be home. He wanted them home now. The house felt as big as a hangar. If he picked them up early, though, there’d be a battle about being the first to leave. Just stay busy, he thought. Find something to do. It’s only fifteen minutes or so.
    He and Brenna had decided the downstairs bedroom would be the office, so he moved quickly down the hall to do some unpacking. His oak desk—the one Molly had found at an auction, the one the seller claimed came from the Frick family warehouse—was shoved against one wall, its matching chair trapped in the corner by a stack of cartons containing his PC and Brenna’s Power Mac. Brenna’s chrome-and-glass workstation was against another, a black leather office chair overturned on top, wheels to the sky. It looked like a jet fighter’s cockpit seat after an ejection. The rest of the room was strewn with boxes—files, books, some boxes inscribed MISC OFFICE in black marker. He chose one of those, peeled the packing tape from its lid, and folded back the top flaps.
    One of Molly’s favorite photographs stared up at him from inside, a black-and-white shot she’d taken of a tuxedoed opera fan after a Heinz Hall performance. The man was reacting to a homeless woman on Liberty Avenue. He leaned away from her outstretched hand as if she were handing him a piece of dog shit. The picture had hung for years on the wall opposite his desk in the Bryant Street house, and he’d memorized its every detail. When he had packed up the house the week before, he’d taken it down and put it into the carton with the few others that Molly had deemed worthy of display. Annie had found him sitting on the floor that day, pondering the sad squares of discolored paint where each had hung.
    He flipped through the images. Molly’d worshipped Cartier-Bresson, and her own photographs showed it.
    Their common thread was a sense of humor, cutting at times but always driven by compassion. Molly had loved life’s everyday ironies, the little dramas played out at bus stops and on fire escapes where the subjects were unguarded and their emotions were open to anyone who cared to see. He’d watched her work once, from a distance. She moved like a hummingbird, pausing only briefly to raise her tiny Leica, capturing moments before moving again. He was certain that the opera fan and the homeless woman never knew.
    Empty walls surrounded him, as did the promise of a new life with Brenna. He’d reached a crossroads, and he thought a few long moments about his choice. Then he closed the carton’s flaps. A black marker and packing tape were where he’d left them in his