I remembered seeing the tiny mark and thinking nothing of it. It was just as she said—a trademark, a maker’s mark, whatever they call them.

Hayashida, squinting to see the mark, nodded and looked at me, his eyebrows raised.

“Okay, so your father made it,” I said. “That doesn’t mean it’s stolen.”

“Nobody said it was.” This from Joyce, the bigger and now angrier sister. “Funny you should suggest it was stolen, isn’t it?”

Hayashida held his hand up to silence her. “Where did you get it?” he asked.

“It was a gift from my husband,” I said. “From Gabe.”

Joyce hissed, “Bullshit!” and Hayashida waved his hand in her direction again.

“These ladies, Mr. Honeysett’s daughters, say that the last time they saw this ring it was on their mother’s finger.”

“Right here,” Wendy said. “In this funeral home. It was on my mother’s hand while she lay in her coffin.”

“I don’t know what the hell they’re talking about,” I said to Hayashida. “So Honeysett made the ring. So what? Maybe he made more than one—”

“He did not!” Joyce spat at me.

“We have a picture of it,” Wendy said. She was calmer now, and she rested a hand on her sister’s arm, as though to restrain her. “My father had all of our jewellery appraised and insured. The photograph with the appraisal shows the markings on the black opal. Every opal is unique. The markings will match, for sure.”

Hayashida looked at her. “How much was the ring appraised for?”

Joyce took a deep breath, as though she wanted to reply with all the power available in her impressive chest. And she did. “Six thousand dollars.”

“Was Gabe in the habit of buying you gifts that expensive?” Hayashida asked.

I had been eyeing a particularly ugly wooden chair set against the wall, thinking that a chair so dark and elaborately carved could only have been made for a funeral home. I walked over to it and sat down. “Gabe was not in the habit of giving me gifts that expensive,” I said. “Except for my wedding ring, that’s the only jewellery he ever bought me.”

“Did he say where he bought it?”

“No.”

“Or how much he paid for it?”

“No.”

“Was it a special occasion when he gave it to you?”

“No.”

I would have answered Hayashida the same way if he had asked if the earth revolved around the sun. The truth is, I wasn’t hearing him. I was hearing the voice calling to me from the shadows beneath the bridge, the voice that I knew had belonged to Wayne Weaver Honeysett. I know what happened, the voice had said. Listen to me. I know what happened.

Hayashida was speaking to the sisters, saying he would be dropping by after the service to retrieve the appraisal photo. The sisters left, reluctantly I sensed, for I was busy counting my fingers, and Hayashida closed the door behind them. “I don’t suppose you have a sales receipt for that ring,” he said. He had settled a corner of his butt on the desk.

“No,” I said. “I never saw one.” I looked up at Hayashida. “Are those women suggesting that Gabe took the damn ring off their mother’s corpse?”

“Nothing like that at all. But somebody did.”

“Her husband. Mrs. Honeysett’s husband.”

He nodded. “Probably. Before the coffin lid was closed. That’s not unusual.”

“So maybe, when he ran into money problems, he could have sold the ring to Gabe, right?”

“Sure. That makes a lot of sense. Except.”

“Except what?”

“Did Walter Freeman ask you if Gabe had made any expensive purchases lately, or acted as though he had come into a large sum of money?”

“You know he did.”

“And what did you say?”

“I said no. You probably know that too.”

Hayashida nodded, a little sadly, I thought. “Do you remember when Gabe gave you that ring?” He withdrew his notepad from an inside jacket pocket as he spoke.

“Two, three weeks ago. Maybe a month.”

“Why didn’t you tell Walter about it?”

“Because Walter’s a jerk. And I was upset, and I wanted to hold on to everything about Gabe that mattered to me. How’s that?”

Hayashida nodded again, writing in his notepad.

I stood up. I wanted to leave as quickly as possible. “That man in there,” and I raised my arm, pointing back into the room where Wayne Honeysett’s ashes were, “he’s the guy who talked to me. I know it. He told me that he knew what happened. He meant what happened to Gabe, I know that too. And now there’s a connection between him and Gabe, isn’t there?”

Hayashida finished making his notes, snapped the pad shut, put it back in his jacket pocket, and slipped off the desk. He opened the door and gestured for me to leave. “Just between you and me,” he said as I passed, “I think Walter’s a jerk too.”

15.

Driving home from Wayne Honeysett’s funeral service, without the ring Gabe had given me, I thought about cormorants and decided to start acting like one, which had nothing to do with swimming after fish and everything to do with taking charge of my life. At home I made a pot of tea, dumped a gurgle of brandy into it for flavour, and sat at my table, making a list.

On Saturday mornings, my father always made a list of things to do. The list would include all the chores he planned to finish by Sunday night. I do not know what was on the list or whether he did everything he promised to do. I only know that, while my father was not the brightest or the most successful man I ever knew, he was the most satisfied, and satisfaction sounded very appealing right now.

Here is the list I wrote:

Gabe is dead, and he did not kill himself.

Gabe was shot with his own gun, and the paraffin test showed whatever it is that says he fired a gun.

Gabe would never give his gun to somebody else.

Honeysett was a pervert.

Honeysett knew or saw what happened (with Gabe?).

Honeysett called to me from under the bridge.

Honeysett is dead, and he did not kill himself.

Gabe gave me the ring Honeysett made for his wife.

Walter Freeman thinks Gabe was involved in something crooked.

Walter Freeman is a creep.

Gabe was investigating a drug dealer named Grizz. Why can’t

they find a guy named Grizz?

Some frantic guy was here looking for Grizz—why?

I have a part-time job and no husband.

Mel Holiday has the bluest eyes I have ever seen.

I added the last one because who wants to make a list with thirteen items? Then I used a magnet shaped like a daisy to fasten my list to the refrigerator door, where I could see it and remind myself about what I knew and what I needed to know, about where I was right and where I was wrong. I was wrong too often.

I sat reading the list over and over, and when I finished my tea and brandy I poured another drink, but this time I left out the tea. Which was when Dewey Maas called.

“Would you like to talk?” Dewey said. “I’d love to see you. Just for a few minutes. I’m not far away. Down by the lift bridge.”

“What are you doing down there?”

“I heard about the man they found here the other night. It’s not in the papers, but there are rumours that he put his head under the bridge when it came down. Can you imagine that?”

I told Dewey I would meet him, but not on or near that damned bridge. If he came to the gate behind our house, we could sit in the garden and have tea.

“THIS IS SO PRETTY.”

Dewey and I were seated at the small, round metal table in the middle of the garden. He was wearing a golf shirt, a pair of chinos, and loafers with no socks. Dewey never wore socks.

If you wanted a specimen of a middle-aged man worth considering for a life partner or a weekend fling, Dewey would make the cut. He’s tall, blond and muscular. His nose is hooked and his teeth are crooked, but his eyes crinkle when he smiles, which is often, and he has the kind of gentle disposition you get when you spend more time around dogs than around people.