Betsy turned to Adam. “Where is that other woman who was with you in the booth in Excelsior?”

“ Nancy ’s gone home, she could only volunteer this morning. Why?”

“I was thinking, if she’s still in Excelsior, we could ask her to follow the route the antique cars took, and see if she can find Bill along the way. But I guess not.”

“Still,” said Adam, “the next step is to go looking along the route. I’m in charge, I’ll go.” He reached for a map of the route and left the booth.

Ceil called after him, “Let us know right away when you find him!” She turned to Charlotte. “Can you drive the trailer out to pick him up, or are we going to have to find you a driver?”

Charlotte said, “I don’t like to, but I can drive it. What I don’t understand is why he didn’t call me when he broke down, to tell me what was happening, and where he was. I hope he made it most of the way, then Adam won’t have so far to drive.”

Charlotte seemed more annoyed than angry at this development, but when she came back to sit with her needlework, she didn’t pull the needle out to begin. Betsy was moved to ask, “Are you all right?”

“Yes, of course,” said Charlotte. After a bit she said, “Only I can’t understand why he didn’t call.”

“Perhaps the battery in his phone has run down,” suggested Betsy.

“Yes, that could be the problem. He’s forgotten in the past to shut it off after he’s used it.” She did pick up her needle then, and put a few stitches in the honeybee’s wing then said, as if continuing a conversation she’d been having internally, “Well, it just isn’t fair!”

“What isn’t fair?”

“What?” said Charlotte, staring at Betsy.

“You said it just isn’t fair,” said Betsy. “What isn’t fair?”

“Oh-nothing. I mean, I didn’t mean to say it out loud. I’m just a little upset, that’s all. I mean, it isn’t like Bill to just sit in his broken-down car, when he has a perfectly good cell phone. And even if you’re right, and the battery’s gone dead, there’s always a gas station or even a house he can go to and use their phone. He promised to be better about this sort of thing, not to leave me sitting and worrying. That’s why we got the phones, after all.”

“Husbands can be the limit, can’t they?”

“Beyond the limit.” Then Charlotte smoothed the frown from her forehead with what seemed deliberation and said, “But I don’t believe he’s neglecting me on purpose. I’m sure as anything that he’s underneath the hood trying to fix the engine, and has gotten so involved he’s forgotten all about the time and that I’m sitting here, tired and dusty and wanting to go home.”

Betsy, remembering how he didn’t even come out from under to say goodbye back in Excelsior, said, “Whereas we stitchers never get so involved with our needlework that we forget to fix dinner or pick the kids up after soccer or take the cat to the vet.”

The frown that had reclenched Charlotte ’s face relaxed again, and her eyes twinkled. “Well… yes,” she admitted. “And Bill has been a lot better lately. When he announced his retirement two years ago, I thought we could travel or take up a hobby we’d both be interested in or at least spend more time together. But he didn’t quite give up control at the office, and when he wasn’t there, he was working on his car collection. We had a couple of serious fights, and at last I went to a therapist-alone, because Bill wouldn’t go, of course-but Dr. Halpern helped me start some serious conversations with Bill, and things have been better lately.”

“How many cars does Bill have?” asked Betsy.

“Six, all Maxwells but one. I thought it would be fun, riding down the road in these old cars, going to meets and all. And it is. But there are the hours Bill spends in the shed restoring them, and the hours on the Internet talking with other car nuts, and the days he spends traveling all over the country buying parts.”

“He should take you along-I thought you said you wanted to travel.”

“But he finds these parts in some very out-of-the-way places, never Barbados or San Francisco or London. And since I don’t know what the parts are for, I can’t help him shop for them, so I have to go off by myself to whatever museum there is or shop for antique clothing. Sometimes I just go to a movie, which I could do just as well at home.” Her voice had become so querulous that she became aware of it, so she shut up and with a sigh tucked her needle into the margin of the fabric. “Oh, I admit it’s not all his fault. The therapist advised me to change my own ways a bit, too. And when I did, Bill saw I was serious. He said if I was willing to change, then he started to think maybe he could change a little, too. We’ve been reconnecting-that’s my therapist’s term, reconnecting-and things have gotten much better. It will take a while to undo old habits, as we’ve seen today, but Rome wasn’t torn down in a day either, I suppose.”

“No,” agreed Betsy with a smile.

People came up with questions or to pick up a brochure, but in few enough numbers that Ceil could handle most of them. People were far more interested in talking with the owners of the cars than the people sitting in the booth. They went from car to car with their questions, taking lots of photographs. Now and again there was the sound of an old-fashioned horn going Ah- ooooo-ga!-always accompanied by titters and giggles and a little rush of people heading for the source of the sound, a beautiful 1911 Marmon.

It was nearly an hour later that Ceil’s cell phone began to play “Fu¨r Elise” and she pulled it from a pocket. “ St. Paul,” she said into it. “Yes?” She glanced at Charlotte. “Oh. Oh, my,” she said and quickly turned her back, going as far away as she could without leaving the booth.

Charlotte and Betsy looked at one another, Betsy with concern, Charlotte with the beginnings of fright. Betsy put a hand on Charlotte ’s.

“I’m sure it’s nothing too serious,” said Mildred. “He probably ran off the road, broke an axle or something.” That she offered this disaster as “nothing too serious” showed how terribly bad she was thinking it might be, too.

Charlotte began putting her stitchery away, making a fuss about it, keeping herself busy while they waited.

“Char?” said Ceil a few minutes later, and Charlotte turned in her chair. Ceil was looking helpless, as if she couldn’t think where to begin.

“What is it, tell me what’s wrong!” demanded Charlotte.

“It’s Bill. Oh, sweetie, I’m so very sorry-” She sobbed twice, but then took hold of herself and said rapidly, “He’s dead, Charlotte. When Adam got there, the fire department was already there, the car was on fire, and Bill was underneath it. That’s all they know right now.”

Charlotte stared speechless at Ceil. She turned wide, horrified eyes on Betsy, then on Mildred. “No,” she said very quietly, and fainted.

6

Adam Smith waited in sick silence as the methodical examination of the scene went on. If someone asked him to list the places on earth he wanted to be, this would be at the bottom or near it. But he couldn’t leave. He’d been asked by a police officer to stay. The man had been polite, putting it in the form of a request, but Adam felt it would be put in stronger terms if he refused.

Besides, if he did leave, he’d have to go back to St. Paul, where Charlotte Birmingham waited. And on that list of places to be, going to talk to Charlotte was probably tied for whatever near-bottom place staying here occupied.

Sooner or later they’d let him go, but he had no idea what he could possibly say to Charlotte about what he’d found while driving up County Highway 5.

It was a charming enough section of Minnetonka, a gently hilly area with small, neat cottages on broad lots lining the two-lane road. Just here, there was a white gravel lay-by across the road from a big church, just up from a cemetery. A horribly appropriate location, because here in the lay-by he had found firemen and their truck, and an ambulance, and several squad cars.