"She," I said. "She's a she, not an it."

"You must have a vet, don't you?" Johnson said. "We'll need the name and address. The dog can go there tomorrow."

All I could do was nod. I was sobbing uncontrollably.

One of the doctors took me to Trixy, showed her to me. I bent over her and touched the top of her furry head, and my tears fell down on my hands.

Trixy. My little Trixola.

I was still weeping when David guided me out into the corridor. He led me down to the waiting room, but I could barely walk; waves of shock and heartbreak were washing over me.

As we went into the waiting room, my mother stood up and so did Sarah. They both hurried over.

"Oh, Mom, oh, Momma," I wept. "It is them. They're dead. Whatever am I going to do without them?"

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

" Park and One Hundred Nineteenth Street is a very bad area, Mrs. Keswick; there's drug dealing on the street, prostitution. So, what do you think your husband was doing up there on Sunday afternoon?" Detective Johnson asked.

I stared at him, clenching my hands in my lap, endeavoring to control their constant trembling. "I know what he was doing up there," I said quietly. "He was on his way home with our children. He was coming from Connecticut."

"Where in Connecticut?" DeMarco inquired, shifting slightly in his chair, leaning back in it. There was a sympathetic look in his eyes.

" Sharon," I said. "We have a house there."

Detective Johnson frowned. "And did he usually drive through the heart of Harlem?"

I nodded. "Yes. Andrew always takes-" I stopped, steadied myself, and went on, "Andrew always took Route 684, which leads into the Saw Mill River Parkway and then the Henry Hudson Parkway. That's an absolutely straight line from Sharon to Manhattan. And by going through Harlem he came out at the top of Park Avenue."

"Where did he get off the Henry Hudson?" Johnson asked.

"At the One Hundred Twenty-fifth Street exit, in order to zip right over to the East Side. He never varied this route, and we would go all the way across One Hundred Twenty-fifth, past Twelfth Avenue and Amsterdam, until we came to Park."

DeMarco said, "Did he go under the elevated section of the Metro North railway tracks at One Hundred Twenty-fourth, passing North General Hospital and the Edward M. Horan School around One Hundred Twentieth?"

"That's right. Then my husband would drive all the way down Park Avenue, turning right on Seventy-second Street. He believed it was the quickest way to get home. And it is."

"It's a well-traveled route. A lot of New Yorkers use it to hit the East Side quickly, but that area around One Hundred Nineteenth Street has become very dangerous lately," DeMarco said. "Huge quantities of crack cocaine are sold up there, underneath those stone arches of Metro North, just near the traffic light where your husband's… car was found."

"He wasn't on drugs," I exclaimed angrily. "Furthermore, he had our children with him. He wasn't doing anything wrong. He was simply driving home." My mouth began to tremble, and I covered it with my hand. I felt the tears sting the back of my eyes.

"We know he wasn't doing anything wrong, Mrs. Keswick," Detective Johnson said in a kindly voice, and I glanced at him in surprise. His partner had seemed to be the nicer of the two.

"Why were my husband and children shot?" I asked again, repeating the question I had been asking nonstop for two days.

DeMarco cleared his throat. "Your husband either stopped for the red light there, or he was forcibly stopped by one or more perpetrators. He was either getting out of the car, to see what was going on, or the door of the car was wrenched open. Then the shootings occurred, around four-thirty, five o'clock, according to the medical examiners. And we're not sure why he and the children were shot, Mrs. Keswick."

I stared at him. I could not speak.

Johnson said, "We think it might have been a carjacking gone wrong, in other words, an attempted carjacking."

"Carjacking?" I repeated. "What's that?"

"It's a crime that's occurring more and more frequently these days," Johnson explained. "It usually happens when a car is waiting at a red light or is parked in a rest area. The car is attacked, usually by several perpetrators. The occupants are made to get out, and the car is driven away. What might have happened, in your husband's case, is that the perpetrators were startled by something or someone, or taken by surprise, and so they fled without the car. It's possible they left the scene of the crime in panic or fear, or both, because one of them or more got trigger-happy. There might have been witnesses, and we're hoping someone will come forward."

DeMarco said, "We know from Mr. Nelson that your husband always wore a gold Rolex and carried a wallet. These items were missing, as we informed Mr. Nelson yesterday. But was there anything else in the car? Luggage?"

"Our shearling coats, Andrew's and mine. A few small items, clothing and a pair of riding boots, things like that, which he packed in a suitcase. Nothing very valuable, as far as I know," I said.

"Those things were not found in the car. It was empty," DeMarco reminded me, and continued, "The car will be released tomorrow, so you should have it back in another day. It was dusted for fingerprints on Sunday, and these have been sent to the FBI to be checked."

I did not respond. I did not want the car. I never wanted to see it again.

Johnson rose. "I'll be back in a minute," he said to DeMarco and went to the door. As he opened it and walked out, the din of the Twenty-fifth Precinct penetrated the quiet office.

Detective DeMarco said, "I've got to ask you a few other questions, Mrs. Keswick."

"Yes."

"Ruling out a possible carjacking, an attempted carjacking, that is, can you think of any reason why someone might want to shoot your husband? Why someone might wish to do him harm?"

I shook my head.

"Did he have any enemies?"

"No, of course he didn't," I said.

"Did he have any bad business dealings with anyone?"

"No."

DeMarco cleared his throat. "Any girlfriends, Mrs. Keswick?"

"What?"

"Could your husband have had a relationship with another woman? I realize that you might not have known about it, but was it a possibility?"

"No, it wasn't, Detective DeMarco. No, he didn't have any girlfriends. We were very happily married," I said in a cold little voice, and once again it was all I could do not to burst into tears. I resented the fact that I'd had to come to the precinct to be questioned rather than making a statement to them at home. But last night David had told me that I must go, that it was simply police procedure.

A moment or two later Detective DeMarco escorted me out into the corridor, where Sarah was sitting on a bench waiting for me. After I'd said good-bye to DeMarco, who told me he'd be in touch if there were any developments, Sarah took my arm and hurried me out of the precinct.

Once inside the car waiting for us outside, she told the driver to take us back to Park Avenue and Seventy-fourth Street, where my mother lived. I had been staying with her and David since Sunday night; my mother had not wanted me to be alone. In any case, her apartment, which David had moved into after their marriage, had been my home until I married Andrew. I had grown up there.

I leaned back against the car seat, feeling weak and drained. Since the shooting I had been trying to hold myself together as best I could, but most of the time I felt as though I was flying apart. I could not let that happen-not until after the funeral, anyway.

Sarah held my hand and glanced at me worriedly from time to time, but we were silent as the car sped down Park.

Finally, I looked at her and said, "The police think it might have been an attempted carjacking."