Sometime during those years, Mark became exhausted; his patience ran out, and Janet’s incurable craziness killed his love for her.

  Then he met Lindsey Miller. Lindsey was a widow—her husband had been killed in Desert Storm—with two teenaged sons, one in college. He hadn’t been looking for female companionship, but when he saw her for the third time at the grocery store, he smiled at her and made some comment about them living parallel lives. She replied with something humorous about hamburger, and before long he had taken her out to dinner, then to the theater—they both liked “difficult” plays—and biking.

  They grew closer, and after a few months he realized he had fallen in love with her. That spurred him into disentangling himself legally from Janet.

  He hadn’t known how to contact her, but had to wait until she phoned him. When that happened, he’d told her he wanted a divorce. “You’ll never get me before a judge again,” was her immediate response, and she’d hung up and never phoned back.

  So he’d set off on a complicated effort to get the divorce without her cooperation. He did his part by filing papers with the court, and they tried to find Janet to serve them. When they gave up, he spent several months trying to find her himself. He knew she occasionally came to the house, but so irregularly that her path never crossed with the server’s. Mark finally changed lawyers and the new one told him to find out where she was getting her mail. He sent a registered letter to the house and to the Fargo YWCA Women’s Shelter and, at his lawyer’s suggestion, in care of General Delivery at the main post office. To his surprise, that last gambit worked—she had applied successfully for SSI and apparently was getting her checks that way. So a server was sent to wait for her to come in when the next Social Security check was to be delivered. When she did, he handed the copy of the Summons and Complaint to her. Mark sent her two registered letters, which she signed for, reminding her of her court date. But when the court date arrived, she didn’t show up. He ended up with a default judgment.

  Then he had to begin the tedious and difficult process of getting his marriage annulled by the Catholic Church. He’d had to write a long, detailed description of their marriage and explain why he felt it had never really been a marriage. He was convinced now that she had been mentally ill from the start of their marriage, and so unable to give proper consent to the vows they’d taken.

  But the Church turned him down. The bishop in charge of the process agreed she was now mentally ill, but there was no indication, no proof, that she was mentally ill when they married. The bishop reminded Mark that those marriage vows included a promise to stick with one another “in sickness and in health.”

  The decision left him angry and miserable. Lindsey was angry and miserable, too. Two years ago they’d gotten a justice of the peace to take them through a marriage service, in part so she and the son still living at home could be covered by his medical insurance and in part so they felt respectable among their set after moving in together. But Lindsey was uncomfortable, still convinced that they were living in sin.

  Then Janet’s frozen corpse was found in someone’s front yard. Mark surprised himself by mourning her death. But now, at last, he and Lindsey could truly marry.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” asked a smooth voice.

  He looked up to see the freckled police detective who had called him out of his office show a faint, patient smile at his woolgathering. Mark replied, “Nothing, really. Just thinking how I got where I am today. This was a surprise, having a cop wanting to talk to me.”

  “You know why I’m here?” Sergeant Malloy asked.

  “You’re from Excelsior, Minnesota, so it must be because my wife—my ex-wife—was found frozen to death there. You think, I assume, that there was something suspicious about her death.”

  “That’s right. When did you last see Janet?”

  He thought about that, a frown forming as he cast his mind further and further back. “I guess when she left home for the last time. That was more than three years ago.”

  “You haven’t seen or heard from her since?”

  “Oh, I heard from her. Phone calls, mostly. Once she wrote me a letter.” He felt a wry smile pull his mouth sideways. He said, “It rhymed but not very well, and it didn’t make much sense.”

  “When was that?”

  “A year ago? Maybe longer.”

  “Do you have that letter?”

  “No, I threw it away. Like I said, it didn’t make sense.”

  “Do you remember anything of what it said?”

  Again Mark cast his mind back. “Something about no one’s been to the moon, and something about living in the library. I can’t remember what else.”

  “When did she last phone?”

  “About eighteen months ago. I told her I wanted a divorce, and she told me she wasn’t going to help me do that, and then she hung up.”

  “And that’s the last time you heard from her?”

  “Except for that crazy poem, yes.”

  “When did you get the divorce?”

  “Six months after that. It took me that long to find a way to get the summons to her.”

  “So you had her address?”

  “No, no one’s living in the house. I offered it to her as part of a settlement, took my name off the deed. I was hoping she’d come back to it. But it’s condemned now, there was a flood that came halfway up the walls last spring, and she apparently hadn’t been back since then. I managed to contact her by sending her a registered letter care of General Delivery at the Fargo Post Office. I know she got it because she had to sign for it. So that’s where the server went, caught her picking up her SSI check, and got the divorce papers into her hands. But she never responded, and didn’t come to court.”

  “Had you had any contact with her since the divorce?”

  “No, I didn’t see or hear from her after that.”

  “What if I told you that I have a witness who claims to have seen you talking with her in Saint Paul about three weeks ago?”

  Now there was a lame trick. “I don’t see how that’s possible.”

  “So the witness is lying?”

  “I think you’re lying. I don’t believe there is any such witness.” Mark hoped to God that was true.

  “Where were you between January tenth and January fifteenth?”

  Was the gap that large? “I haven’t been out of Fargo since before Christmas.”

  “Can you prove that?”

  “Certainly. I haven’t missed a day of work, and my evenings and weekends were spent with my wife or my wife and friends. There’s no time gap big enough for me to get all the way to the Twin Cities, do the deed, and get back.”

  Sergeant Malloy took his time writing that down in his notebook. He asked, “Have you ever met a woman named Carolyn, or Carrie, Carlson?”

  The question surprised him. Was this man trying to lay another trap? Tell the truth, tell the truth. “No. Is she a suspect, too?”

  “You’re not a suspect, Mr. Turnquist, you’re a person of interest.”

  “I am? I suppose there’s a difference, so all right, I guess I’m glad to hear that. Who is this Ms. Carlson?”

  “She’s dead, too.”

  Sergeant Malloy was looking at him very sharply. Mark could not think how to respond to that information, so he said nothing.

  Malloy asked, “Do you know if Janet and Carrie were friends?”

  “I told you, I’ve never heard of Carrie Carlson. And I think my wife was too paranoid to have a friend.”

  Malloy just kept looking at him, until he shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  “I can’t sit here talking to you all afternoon,” Mark finally said. “If you haven’t got anything else to ask me, may I go back to work? I have a lot to do.”

  “I think that’s all for now. If I have more questions, I’ll let you know.” He stood and put his notebook away.

  “Fine. I’ll be here.”

  He watched the detective go out the door, gave him two minutes to get out of sight, then went into the men’s room and vomited copiously.

  WHEN Betsy turned on her computer up in her apartment that evening, she found an e-mail from Annie.

  Hi Betsy! This here is Annie. At the library. I talk ed to 8 weo-men who was at the shellter before Jan. 6. 2 of them rem-member Jan nette. There nmed Alis an Tameka. Alise sez, Carrie was there till Jan. 4, she thinks, and beatup by a man nomed Paul On jan. 1. Tamica sez, Carrie was there till Jan. 3, maybe, and cou ld sneek liquor in to the shelter without nobody seen her. Alise sez, she saw Carrie talkin to Janet. I will talk to you soon, Bye!

  There it was, the link between the two dead women. A resident “saw Carrie talkin to Janet.” Betsy could not help feeling a thrill of excitement at that.

  And “a man nomed Paul”?

  Maybe Alis—Alice?—wasn’t remembering correctly. Maybe the name of the man who beat Carrie up wasn’t named Paul—but Paulson. As in Dice Paulson.

  Eleven

  ON Monday morning, Godwin rode shotgun in Rafael’s new Lexus, admiring everything from the car’s performance to its red, black, and silver steering wheel. They came east on Highway 7, turned south on Highway 169, and exited at Valley View, and after a few minutes on a winding residential street, found themselves at Braemar Boulevard. They turned right, and the dome appeared around a gentle curve.

  It was not as big as the Minneapolis Metrodome, of course, but it was substantial, over a hundred yards long. A modest, cement block, one-story building was attached to the front end, facing a middle-size parking lot. About a dozen cars were already parked there.

  After finding a spot for the Lexus, they went around to the trunk and brought out their golf bags.

  Godwin chuckled. “It feels weird to be carrying these bags over a winter coat,” he said.

  “I am so glad we do not wish to play snow golf,” replied Rafael.

  Godwin did not want to say that he had actually thought about such a possibility, playing on a snow-covered course with bright orange balls. But he would have had to buy a looser-fitting winter coat and heavier, warmer boots, and his vanity would not allow either.

  They went up three steps into the building and found themselves in a seedily furnished room with a counter at the far end and vending machines along one wall. There were two round wooden tables and chairs in front of the machines.

  They each paid for a wire bucket generously filled with golf balls and went through the double doors into the dome. It was a little run-down in there, too, and the air smelled dusty. The aisle they were standing in was not carpeted, but out past the long row of stations were what seemed like acres of smooth, green indoor-outdoor carpet under an off-white quilted dome stretched high overhead. Near the far end of this space were three raised greens, complete with flags, and behind them, against the far wall, were giant targets painted on canvas. Hundreds of golf balls were scattered on the floor, and as Godwin stood looking, a player a couple of stations down hit a beautiful drive that bounced off one of the faraway targets.

  The stations were marked by knee-high barriers that looked something like small versions of the ball return in bowling alleys. Rafael chose one near the center of the row, and Godwin took the next one to the left. Rafael selected his eight iron, and Godwin his favorite hybrid.

  Rafael’s first shot landed on the center green, knocking two balls already there off the far side.

  Godwin’s first shot went straight but not very near the front edge of the same green.

  “Your aim is very good,” said Rafael.

  “Yes, but my distance sucks. I hit that ball as hard as I could.”

  “That can be fixed, gorrion. It is not strength alone that gives you distance. Let me show you how to arrange your shoulders before you swing.”

  After a pleasant hour of golfing, the two men took a break. Godwin sat on an uncomfortable chair at a battered wooden table by the vending machines, turned his cell phone on, and found three messages waiting for his attention. One was from Betsy, and it was very brief. Godwin played it on speaker: “Goddy, on your way home from golfing, could you stop by the Sun-Sailor’s office and pick up an envelope they’re holding for me? Thanks.”

  “Oh, rats,” said Godwin.

  “What, ‘oh rats’?” asked Rafael. “Is it so far out of our way? What is the Sun-Sailor?”

  “No, it’s not that. They publish a number of local weekly newspapers, including Excelsior’s own. Now I’ll be just dying to know what it’s about and it will spoil my practice.”

  It did, too. Until the very last ball. He was so relieved to be finished that he totally focused on getting the thing off the tee, and it went sailing to the far end and bounced off the exact center of the bull’s-eye he was aiming at.

  He smiled all the way back to Excelsior.

  THE six-by-nine brown envelope Godwin handed to Betsy the next morning had been torn open.

  “Did you peek?” asked Betsy sternly.

  “Of course I did! What did you expect?”

  Betsy shook her head, defeated by his impudence. “What do you think about what’s in it?”

  “I’d say they both look down but not beaten.”

  Betsy pulled out two three-by-five full-color computer printouts of head-and-shoulder jailhouse mug shots. They were both eloquent examples of womanhood gone sour. The tousled hair was gray or growing out gray, the eyes red-rimmed, the faces dirty and in one case bruised.

  They were Carolyn Carlson and Janet Turnquist down at the jail, each identified by white letters stuck on a black holder at the bottom of the photo. Since each photo was a copy of a copy, the letters were hard to read, but Janet appeared to have fallen into custody last summer, in June or July; Carrie more recently, in early December.

  Janet’s eyes were wide and her mouth a grimace of badly contained terror. Carrie, whose cheek was bruised, looked sleepy and sullen, her mouth turned down at the corners.

  “It seems sad that these were the photographs accompanying the newspaper story about their being found dead,” noted Godwin. “I mean, if you were out to lunch and saw either of them at a table, would you ask if you could join them?”

  “Shall we look up your mug shot, Goddy?” asked Betsy gently.

  “Tou-ché,” said Godwin, and he went to continue his earlier task of pulling summertime cross-stitch patterns.

  Still, it was a stern reminder to keep an attractive photograph of oneself around just in case it was requested for an appearance in the press.

  That evening, Betsy ran the photos through a scanner and printed four copies of each of them. She put one pair in a pocket of her purse, resolving to get them laminated. She picked up another set of the photographs and studied them. She was struck again by how unprepossessing the women were, how pathetic they looked. Who could possibly consider one or both of them a threat that needed to be eliminated?

  She was determined to find out.

  THE next day Emily Hame came in to pick up a counted cross-stitch pattern she’d asked Betsy to set aside for her, of a single, fully open parrot tulip in very deep red, lightly touched with yellow around the tips of its ragged petals. A Nel Whatmore design, it was a fourteen-inch square meant to be framed, but Emily wanted to make a small pillow of it to front the stack of pillows on her bed. Betsy had kitted it up for her, using black Aida fabric and Anchor flosses.

  “How are you coming along with the case?” asked Emily, sotto voce, glancing around for eavesdroppers.

  “I’m afraid not very well. I’m not a police investigator, nor do I have access to their records, and this seems to be the kind of case best solved by police methods. I hate to sound so discouraging, but I don’t want to give you false hope.”

  “I understand,” said Emily, but she did sound as if her hopes were shaken.

  Betsy asked, “Have you heard anything from Mike about how he’s doing?”

  “No. He doesn’t seem to have much hope, either. He actually called me in to his office to look at the stuff Aunt Janet was carrying around in those dreadful plastic shopping bags, to see if I recognized anything. I think he was wondering if she stole some of it from me.”

  “Stole some of it? Like what?”

  “A can of baked beans, one of those little, one-serving ones, with the lid you pull off instead of using a can opener. A plastic spoon.”

  Betsy nodded. “What else was there to look at?”

  Emily thought. “There was half a box of Handi Wipes, a clean change of underwear. An old pair of socks. And there was some needlework. She liked trying new things, and there was an old book, one of those large-format ones, the size of a sheet of typing paper. It had a cute title: ‘Take the Hard Out of Hardanger.’”

  “Did she do Hardanger?” Betsy was thinking of the Hardanger bookmark Mike had showed her. But it had come from Carrie’s things, not Janet’s.

  “Not that I know of. There wasn’t any Hardanger embroidery work in her stuff.”

  “And she hadn’t stolen anything from you?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “What else was in the bag?”

  “Bags, there were three bags. Her knitting, of course. A scarf, barely started, using dark green wool that looked like it had been raveled from something else, and a pair of plastic knitting needles, size eight. There was a plastic box, hard plastic, with a cracked lid. In it was part of a skein of overdyed floss and two or three other partial skeins of DMC floss, two needles stuck in a scrap of felt, a pair of stork scissors, and also a Clover thread cutter. There were some little white buttons, two balls of different sizes of pearl cotton thread, and a spool of white sewing thread. That’s all that was in the box.” She paused to think, tapping a forefinger on the tip of her nose. “There was a white cotton T-shirt, a bar of soap wrapped in a raggedy pink washcloth, and a Social Security card . . . This is like that children’s party game where you look at a group of odd things on a table and then look away and try to remember everything that you saw. I was always really good at that.”