One Cold Night

grew up and let it go. Was there something different about Adkins that had made him cling to old wounds? Did the early deaths of his father and brother somehow play into it? Did the manner of his brother’s drowning, and Peter’s suicide attempt, fit in somehow?
    A map appeared in Dave’s mind, highlighting the line where northern Texas snugged up against southern Oklahoma. Texas, where the Baileys lived, and Oklahoma, where Becky Rothka was born just four days after Lisa’s birth in Iowa. Two baby girls put up for adoption at the same time, beginning journeys in different directions. It might have been easy for Adkins to mistake Becky for Lisa; if he had been looking for an adopted-out baby born anywhere near the Texas–Oklahoma border during the first week of September, Becky would have fit the bill. Yes, that part made sense. And if Adkins had then seen the newspaper article about Dave — picturing Susan and Lisa — he would have realized Becky was the wrong girl. That, too, made sense, and yet it seemed too coincidental that Becky had been Dave’s case and Lisa was his sister-in-law... no, his stepdaughter, making him a father of sorts.
    Dave could not get square with how he fit into the picture. His presence in both scenarios — one professional, one personal — was too neat, almost predictable, to make any real sense.
    And if the groom was Peter Adkins and if he had mistaken Becky for Lisa the first time and if he was now trying to correct his mistake — why? What was the point? If he had wanted to meet his birth daughter, why hadn’t he just asked?
    The tangle in Dave’s mind reached a dead end and the strands disassembled. It did not make sense, not enough sense, and not in the right ways.
    “Don’t you hear it?” Bruno turned sharply to stare at Dave, who only now felt and heard his cell phone vibrating and ringing on his belt loop. He answered the call.
    “Ready with a pencil?” Patty greeted him.
    Dave picked up the nearest ballpoint pen from Ramos’s desk and ripped a sheet off the top of a clean pad of paper.
    “Ready.”
    “Peter Adkins and Donna Klein, Four-sixty West End Avenue, Manhattan. That’d be Eighty-third Street. Want a landline, too?”
    It was almost two o’clock, and Donna Klein answered the door in her robe. It was pale blue and unclean, Dave noticed, with a tear at the shoulder. Her short strawberry-blond hair was messy; her feet were bare.
    “I’m working,” she said bluntly, meaning, State your business and get lost.
    Dave and Bruno displayed their gold badges. She squinted at them, then reached into her robe pocket for a pair of glasses, which she put on. They were much like Susan’s reading glasses: tortoiseshell rectangles. Donna stared at the badges for ten long seconds, as if memorizing them or convincing herself they were real, then stepped aside so they could enter.
    She led them through a small foyer with a polishedblack-and-white marble floor and into a medium-sized living room painted taupe. A brown leather chair was angled across from a puckered-leather couch, which was flanked by wood-and-glass end tables with nothing on them. A box of tissues sat on a matching coffee table. On the wall directly across from the couch was a painting of a vaguely familiar yet unspecific outdoor scene. The place was antiseptic, soothing. She had to be a shrink or a professional patient.
    Venetian blinds were partially open, slanting strips of sunlight across the beige carpet. In one corner of the room an office credenza gaped to reveal a computer, messy piles of paperwork and a phone. Donna Klein sat down at the black office chair in front of the computer. A yellow happy-face screensaver darted around the screen.
    Bruno stood in front of a bookcase with neat rows of hardcovers and clusters of tiny crystal cats. He extended a forefinger and touched one of the glass figurines. Dave wished he wouldn’t, but then Donna spoke.
    “Those are my pets.” Her tone dripped with sarcasm. “My husband wouldn’t let me have a real pet — he has allergies — so he got me those.”
    Wouldn’t. Not won’t.
    A sheaf of papers slid off the small desk, scattering on the floor. Donna leaned over to pick up the papers, stacking them just as messily as before.
    “Insurance paperwork,” she said. “My assistant quit last week. What can I do for you?”
    “I take it your husband’s not home.”
    “We’re separated. Peter hasn’t lived here for almost two months.”
    Dave sat