He took a deep breath, thinking how foolish his wild surmise would sound. “I’ve seen a Nereid, Thoe—or somebody’s trying to make me think I have.”

  She put her hand on his shoulder, and he could not believe her soft laugh other than friendly. “But how wonderful for you! With this, you may rate the stories you collect by their accuracy. That, I imagine, has never been done. Now tell me everything.”

  He did—the glimpse in the woods, the waving figure that had disappeared into the sea. “And so, when you said the Nereids you imagined had waved to you, I wondered…”

  “Whether I did not know more. I understand. But I think really it is only one of our girls fooling you. We Greeks, we swim like fish, all of us. Do you know of the Battle of Salamis? The Persians lost many ships, and their crews drowned. We Greeks lost some ships too, but very few men, because when the ships were sunk, the men swam to shore. You are from America, Doctor, where some swim well and many not at all. What of you? Do you swim?”

  “Pretty well,” he said. “I was on the team in college; I’m a little out of practice now.”

  “Then you may wish to practice, and it is so hot. When we part, go back to the place where you saw this girl vanish. There are many caves along this coast with entrances that are under the water. Those who live here know of them. Possibly the Nereids know of them too.” She smiled, then grew somber. “There are many currents, also. It is they who make the caves. If you are truly a good swimmer, you know a swimmer must be wary.”

  The Nebraskan was used to fresh water, and it was some time before he could bring himself to hold his eyes open in the stinging surge of the Saronic Gulf. When he did, he saw the cave almost at once, a dark circle in the sharply shelving bottom. He rose to the surface, took several deep breaths, swallowed and held the last, and dove; as he entered the cave’s mouth, he wondered whether it held an octopus—small ones were offered in the market at Nemos every Saturday.

  Twice he panicked and turned back. On the third attempt he reached the air, just when he felt he could go no farther.

  It was dark—a little light conveyed by the water from the brilliant sunshine on its waves, a little more that filtered down from chinks in the bluff. It was damp too, and full of the spumy reek of rotting seaweed. As he climbed from the water, two small arms encircled him.

  Her kisses were sharp with salt, her words Greek, but spoken with a lilting accent he had never heard. When they had loved, she sang a sea song to him, a lullaby about a child safe in his little rocking boat. After a time, they loved again; and he fell asleep.

  · · · ·

  The sun had set behind the bluff when the Nebraskan waded up through the surf. He found his clothes where he had hidden them and put them on again, humming the lullaby to himself.

  By the time he was halfway to his inn, he had recalled a song about a mermaid who lost her morals down among the corals. He whistled it as he walked, and he was trying to remember the part about two kelp beds and only one got mussed when he opened the door of his room and saw his own bed had not been made. He found the innkeeper’s wife in the kitchen and complained, and she brought him clean sheets (he was the only guest the little inn had) and made the bed herself.

  Next morning he set out along the beach, instead of the top of the bluff. He saw her while he was still some distance off, and thought at first that her body was only the sail of some unlucky fishing boat washed ashore. After another hundred steps he knew, without having to look at her face. He turned her over anyway, and tried to brush the sand from her eyes, then kicked at the little, scuttling crabs that had nibbled at her arms.

  A voice behind him said, “She was the maid at your inn, Doctor.”

  He spun around.

  “She loved you. Perhaps you do not think it possible.”

  “Thoe,” he said. And then, “Dr. Papamarkos.”

  “And yet it is.” The tall woman unscrewed the top from her canteen and drank. “You, I think, cannot imagine what village life is like for such a girl, who has no money, no dowry. Then a stranger comes, and he is tall and strong, rich to her, a learned man respected by everyone. She heard the questions you asked of others, and she whispered her plan to me. I promised to help her if I could. This is all the help I can give her now, to make you understand that once you were loved. When you record love stories from the lips of old people, remember it.”

  “I will,” he said. Something he could not swallow had lodged in his throat.

  “Now you must go back to the inn and tell them. Not about you and her, but only that she is dead and you have recognized her. I will remain to watch.”

  The path along the top of the bluff was shorter. He climbed to it, and he had gone perhaps two hundred yards along it when he realized he could not convey the news of a tragic death with any decency in his inadequate Greek. Thoe would have to tell them. He would wait until someone came.

  From the top of the bluff, he saw her take off her wide belt and canteen and drop them on the sand. The khaki shirt and trousers followed. She was lean—though not so gaunt as he had imagined—when she unbound her long, dark hair and dove into the sea.

  When she did not come up again, he clambered down to the beach for the last time. A sign had been traced in the wet sand beside the dead girl’s body; it might have been a cross with upswept arms, or the Greek letter ψ. There was nothing in the pockets of the khaki shirt, nothing in any pocket of the khaki trousers.

  The Nebraskan opened the canteen and sniffed its contents. Then he put it to his lips and tilted it until the liquid touched his tongue.

  As he expected, it was brine—sea water.

  In the House of Gingerbread

  The woodcutter came up the walk, and the ornate old house watched him through venetian-blinded eyes. He wore a redbrown tweed suit; his unmarked car was at the curb. The house felt his feet on its porch, his quick knock at its door. It wondered how he had driven along the path through the trees. The witch would split his bones to get the marrow; it would tell the witch.

  It rang its bell.

  · · · ·

  Tina Heim opened the door, keeping it on the chain but more or less expecting a neighbor with coleslaw. She had heard you were supposed to bring chicken soup for Death; here it seemed to be slaw, though someone had brought Waldorf salad for Jerry.

  “I’m Lieutenant Price,” the woodcutter said, unsmiling. He held out a badge in a black leather case. “You’re Mrs. Heim? I’d like to talk to you.”

  She began, “Have the children—”

  “I’d like to talk to you,” he repeated. “It might be nicer if we did it in the house and sitting down.”

  “All right.” She unhooked the chain and opened the door.

  He stepped inside. “You were busy in the kitchen.”

  She had not seen him glance at her apron, but apparently he had. “I was making gingerbread men for school lunches,” she explained. “I like to put a few cookies in their lunches every day.”

  He nodded, still unsmiling. “Smells good. We can talk in there, and you can watch them so they don’t burn.”

  “They’re out already, it only takes a few minutes in the microwave. Can you—” It was too late; he had slipped by her and was out of sight. She hurried through the dark foyer and shadowy dining room, and found him sitting on a dinette chair in her kitchen. “Can you just barge into someone’s home this way?”

  He shook his head. “You know, I didn’t think you could bake in a microwave oven.”

  “It’s hard to get cakes to rise, but nice for cookies.” She wavered between hospitality and anger, and decided on the former. It seemed safer, and she could always get angry later. “Would you care for one?”

  He nodded.

  “And some coffee? Or we have milk if you’d prefer that.”

  “Coffee will be okay,” he told her. “No, Mrs. Heim, we can’t just barge into somebody’s house; we have to get a search warrant. But once you let us in, you can’t stop us from going wherever we want to. I could go up to your bedroom now, for example, and search your bureau.”

  “You’re not—”

  He shook his head. “I was just giving you an example. That’s the way the law is, in this state.”

  She stared down uncomprehendingly at the little mug with the smiley face on its side. It was full of black coffee. She had poured it without thinking, like an automaton. “Do you want cream? Sugar?”

  “No, thanks. Sit down, Mrs. Heim.”

  Tina sat. He had taken the chair she usually used. She took the one across from him, Jerry’s chair, positioning it carefully and feeling as though she had gone somewhere for a job interview.

  “Now then,” he said. He made a steeple of his fingers. It seemed an old man’s gesture, though he looked no older than she. This is my house, she thought. If this is an interview, then I’m interviewing him. She knew it was not true.

  “Mrs. Heim, your husband died last year. In November.”

  She nodded guardedly.

  “And the cause of death was—?”

  “Lung cancer. It’s on the death certificate.” The covers of a thousand paperbacks flashed past in her imagination: Murder on the Orient Express, Fletch, The Roman Hat Mystery. “You said you were a lieutenant—are you on the Homicide Squad? My god, I’m in a mystery novel!”

  “No,” he said again. “This isn’t fiction, Mrs. Heim. Just a little inquiry. Your late husband was a heavy smoker?”

  She shook her head. “Jerry didn’t smoke.”

  “Maybe he’d been a heavy smoker, and quit?”

  “No,” she said. “Jerry never smoked at all.”

  Price nodded as though to himself. “I’ve read that sidewise smoke gets people sometimes.” He sipped his coffee. “Are you a smoker, Mrs. Heim? I didn’t see any ashtrays.”

  “No. No, I don’t smoke, Lieutenant. I never have.”

  “Uh-huh.” His right hand left the handle of the smiley mug and went to his shirt pocket. “As it happens I smoke, Mrs. Heim. Would it bother you?”

  “Of course not,” she lied. The ashtrays for guests were put away in the cabinet. She brought him one.

  He got out a cigarette and lit it with a disposable plastic lighter. “I’m trying to quit,” he told her. He drew smoke into his lungs. “Was your husband a chemist, Mrs. Heim? Did he work in a chemical plant?”

  She shook her head. “Jerry was an attorney.” Surely Price knew all this.

  “And his age at death was—?”

  “Forty-one.”

  “That’s very young for a nonsmoker to die of lung cancer, Mrs. Heim.”

  “That’s what Jerry’s doctor said.” Not wanting to cry again, Tina poured coffee for herself, adding milk and diet sweetener, stirring until time enough had passed for her to get her feelings once more under control.

  When she sat down again he said, “People must have wondered. My wife died about three years ago, and I know I got a lot of questions.”

  She nodded absently, looking at the little plate on the other side of the dinette table. The gingerbread man had lain there, untouched. Now it was gone. She said, “They X-rayed Jerry’s lungs, Lieutenant. The X-rays showed cancer. That’s what we were told.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “But you don’t believe Jerry died of cancer?”

  He shrugged. “And now your little boy. What was his name?”

  Tina tried to keep all emotion from her voice, and felt she succeeded. “It was Alan.”

  “Just last month. Must have been pretty hard on you.”

  “It was. Lieutenant, can’t we be honest with each other? What are we talking about?”

  “All right.” He took another sip of coffee. “Anyhow, you’ve still got two more. A boy and a girl, isn’t that right?”

  Tina nodded. “Henry and Gail. But Henry and Gail aren’t actually mine.”

  For the first time, he looked surprised. “Why’s that?”

  “They’re stepchildren, that’s all. Of course, I love them as if they were my own, or anyway I try to.”

  “I didn’t know that,” he told her. “But Alan was—?”

  “Our child. Jerry’s and mine.”

  “Your husband had been married before. Divorce?”

  “Yes. Jerry got full custody. Rona doesn’t—didn’t—even have visiting rights.”

  “Like that,” he said.

  “Yes, like that, Lieutenant.”

  “And now that your husband’s dead?” Price flicked ashes into the salad plate that had held the gingerbread man.

  “I don’t know. If Rona tries to take them, I’ll go to court; then we’ll see. Won’t you tell me what this is about?”

  He nodded. “It’s about insurance, really, Mrs. Heim. Your husband had a large policy.”

  She nodded guardedly. “They paid.”

  Price was no longer listening, not to her. “Did Henry or Gail stay home from school, Mrs. Heim? It’s only one-thirty.”

  “No, they won’t be back until after three. Do you want to speak to them?”

  He shook his head. “I heard footsteps upstairs. A kid’s, I thought.”

  “Henry’s eighteen, Lieutenant, and Gail’s sixteen. Believe me, they don’t sound like kids stamping around up there. Do you want to go up and see? You don’t need an excuse—so you said.”

  He ground out his cigarette in the salad plate. “That’s right, I don’t need an excuse. Alan was poisoned, wasn’t he, Mrs. Heim? Lead poisoning?”

  She nodded slowly, pretending there was a lovely clay mask on her face, a mask that would be dissolved by tears, broken by any expression. “He ate paint chips, Lieutenant. In his closet there was a place where the old paint was flaking off. We had repainted his room, but not in there. He was only two, and—and—”

  “It’s okay,” he told her. “I’ve got two kids of my own.”

  “No, it will never be okay.” She tore off a paper towel and stood in a corner, her back to him, blowing her nose and dabbing at her tears. She hoped that when she turned around, he would be gone.

  “Feeling better now?” he asked. He had lit another cigarette.

  “A little. You know, it’s not fair.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “Your smoking like that. But you’re still alive, and Jerry never smoked, but Jerry’s gone.”

  “I’m trying to quit.” He said it mechanically, toying with his cigarette. “Actually, some insurance people pretty much agree with you, Mrs. Heim.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Your husband had a policy with Attica Life, a hundred thousand dollars.”

  Automatically she shook her head. “Two hundred thousand. That was what they paid.”

  He inhaled smoke and puffed it from his nostrils. “It was a hundred thousand, but it had a double indemnity provision for cancer. A lot of them do now, because people are so worried about it. Cancer generally means big hospital bills.”

  This was it. She waited, fists clenched in her lap.

  “Not with your Jerry, of course. Or anyway, not so much. He was dead in what? Three weeks?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Three weeks after he went into the hospital.”

  “And anyway he had hospitalization insurance, didn’t he? With his law firm?”

  She nodded.

  “And you’d taken out policies on the kids too, and on you, naturally. Twenty-five thousand on each kid, wasn’t it?”

  “It still is. We have a very good agent, Lieutenant; I’ll introduce you.”

  “It still is on Henry and Gail, right? Twenty-five thousand with double indemnity for accidental death. When little Alan died, that was accidental death. A little kid, a baby, swallows paint chips—they call that accidental poisoning.”

  “You think I killed him.” If only my eyes could blast, she thought, he’d be frying like bacon. He’d be burning in Hell. “You think I killed my husband and my son to get that money, don’t you, Lieutenant?” She tried to picture it, his brown suit blazing, his face seared, his hair on fire.

  “No,” he said. “No, I don’t, Mrs. Heim. Not really.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  He ground out the new cigarette beside the last. “Your insurance company’s making waves.”

  He paused, but she said nothing.

  “Do you blame them? Two claims, big claims, double indemnity claims, in less than two years.”

  “I see.” She felt drained now; the fire had gone out. “What do you want me to do—take a lie detector test and say that I didn’t murder my husband? That I didn’t poison Alan? All right, I will.”

  “I want you to sign something, that’s all. This will most likely be the end of it.” The hand that had fumbled for his cigarettes was fumbling again, this time in the breast pocket of his tweed jacket. “You can read it if you want to. Or I’ll tell you. Either way.”

  It was fine print on legal-length paper. Her eyes caught the word exhumation. “Tell me,” she said.

  “This will let them—the Coroner’s Office—check out your husband’s body. They’ll check his lungs, for example, to see if there really was cancer.”

  Gravediggers working at night, perhaps; men with shovels methodically, stolidly, resurrecting those same lumps of earth. Yes, surely by night. They would not want the funeral parties to see that—Rest in Peace. They would have lights with long, orange cords to help them work, or maybe only battery torches. “Can they do that?” she asked. “Can they actually tell anything?” She remembered the woman in the Bible: Lord, it has been four days now; surely there will be a stench. She said, “It’s been more than a year, Lieutenant.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe yes, maybe no. Your husband was embalmed, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes. Yes, he was.”

  “Then there’s a good chance. It depends on how good a job they did on him, the soil temperature, and how tight the box is. It depends on a lot of things, really, but there’s a good chance. Then there are some tests they can always run—like for arsenic or lead. You can look at a body a hundred years later and still find those things.”