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curl, was parted neatly on the side and combed back to fall almost to her shoulders. She was wearing a long, baggy white T-shirt with shoulder pads and lettering, too faded to read, on the chest. She had large, firm breasts for such a thin woman, and it was obvious she was braless beneath the shirt. On her feet were the same white leather sandals she had worn yesterday, and presumably she was wearing shorts that were concealed by the length of the shirt. Before her was her oversize coffee mug with newspaper-caption bloopers printed on it. JERK INJURES NECK, WINS AWARD was visible to Carver as he sat on the stool across from her, on the kitchen side of the butcher-block counter.
    “Want toast?” Beth asked.
    “Maybe later. Just coffee now.”
    She sipped. Her motion of lifting and tilting the mug rotated it to read RHODE ISLAND SECRETARY EXCITES FURNITURE EXPERTS. “So tell me about last night,” she said.
    “It was wonderful, as usual.”
    “Think back a few hours before that, Fred.”
    He related his evening following Marla Cloy, then he got up and poured another cup of coffee. It was ordinary coffee this morning, not the chocolate-cinnamon gourmet stuff. He was glad.
    “How’d Marla Cloy strike you personally?” Beth asked.
    “Not at all. Didn’t lay a hand on me.”
    She stared at him. A warning to get serious.
    Carver placed his cup on the breakfast bar before getting back on his stool. “She’s not beautiful enough to storm beauty pageants, but she’s attractive.”
    “Looks don’t always play a part in it when a dangerous sexual psychopath develops a fixation on a woman. Was there anything unusual in her behavior?”
    “Not unless you find going to McDonald’s and reading a paperback novel unusual.”
    “What about her going to the bar?”
    “Well, it’s not the norm for a woman to sit alone and drink in a place like Willet’s Bullet.”
    “But it’s OK for a man to do it?”
    “I didn’t say it wasn’t OK or never happened. But most women stay home to drink alone. If they’re at a bar, they’re usually with friends. Dare I say they’re more convivial than us guys?”
    “Maybe she’s got a drinking problem.”
    “Bernie doesn’t think so.”
    “Bernie?”
    “An old guy who was nattering at me at the bar. He says she acts as if she just wants to step off the world, unwind, and be left alone for a while. Bernie’s the sort who’s had experience at that kind of thing; he’d know.”
    Beth buttered another piece of whole-wheat toast. She took a bite, chewed, and swallowed. “Want the other half of this?”
    “Sure.”
    She slid the small plate with the half-piece of buttered toast to his side of the counter. “I did some checking, talked to Jeff Mehling.” Mehling was the computer genius at Burrow. “Marla Cloy really is a freelance writer. She even sold a small piece to Burrow last year on the preservation of the manatee. I had Jeff fax me a copy. It’s nothing original; there’ve been hundreds of articles during the past few years in Florida papers about trying to save the manatee. But it’s competent. Filler for page six.”
    “Hmm. Professional jealousy showing?”
    Beth gave him a look that would have made a lesser man scurry for shelter. “Not at all,” she said. “I only wanted to establish for you that the woman’s not faking it. She really is a freelance writer of professional caliber. She’s genuine.”
    “She didn’t act particularly afraid that Brant might be following her,” Carver said.
    “What do you want her to do, wear a bulletproof vest?”
    “Maybe.”
    “Maybe she had one on. Or maybe she got her order of protection from the court.” Beth had finished her toast. Now she picked up the slice she’d pledged to Carver and took a large bite out of it. Probably she was still thinking about that professional-jealousy remark. “You do realize,” she said, “that what Marla Cloy has butted up against is typical male reaction. She says she’s being