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though.”
    Vincelli’s raised eyebrow suggested he hadn’t heard of this.
    â€œA shadow on a mammogram; it turned out to be nothing.”
    â€œShe must have been relieved,” Novak said.
    â€œDo you suspect some trouble led to her death?” Should she mention her suspicions about Sam? They were based on nothing more than her impressions from a brief meeting. The detectives would have interrogated him and Isabelle and, if anything, seen more than she had.
    â€œHave you known Callie long?” Vincelli asked.
    â€œForty-two years.” With his prompting, she explained that Callie had moved onto her street the summer they were both ten. They became instant friends. Callie attended a Catholic elementary school, but switched to Paula’s Protestant high school mainly because it was co-educational. Both attended Concordia University. Paula majored in anthropology, Callie in fine arts.
    Novak scribbled notes. In addition to prompting, Vincelli’s role was to glare and, presumably, look for nuance in her words and expressions. With his encouragement, she went into details. It felt good to spill everything to an eager listener, even this stranger from the police.
    â€œCallie dropped out of university before her final year,” she said. “That is, she moved to Calgary before school started that fall, so she didn’t finish.”
    Vincelli unbuttoned his collar. The pink shirt suited his olive complexion. He hadn’t touched his water or the grapes. Despite his writing task, Novak had devoured two sprigs.
    Vincelli leafed back through the notebook in which he hadn’t written a word. “Callie moved to Calgary in 1973 with her boyfriend.”
    â€œNot exactly,” Paula said. For her twenty-first birthday Callie’s parents gave her a car: a rusted old Chevy that inspired the girls to drive to Vancouver with their then boyfriends. The road trip west was fun. Arriving was not so hot. In Vancouver, they splurged on hotel rooms, rather than stay in a hostel. One night, while Callie nursed cramps, their boyfriends went out to a bar. They picked up some girls and didn’t get back until morning.
    Novak chuckled, while continuing to write.
    â€œCallie and I were furious,” she said. “The guys kept asking us, ‘What’s your hang-up?’ This was the sixties, well, early seventies, free love and all.”
    Novak looked up. “Being a cop, I missed all that fun.”
    Her contemporaries at that time would have called him a pig. She had probably used the term herself. During the past thirty years, her world-view had merged with Novak’s.
    Having finished the pitcher of lemonade, she filled her glass with water. “While the guys were sleeping it off, Callie and I packed our bags and left them with no transportation and an unpaid hotel bill. We even took the cash from their wallets. It was a rotten thing to do.”
    â€œIt sounds to me like they deserved it,” Vincelli said. Did he ever smile?
    Later, they learned the boys spent the rest of the summer cleaning hotel rooms and hitchhiking home. In Wawa they waited five hours in driving rain for a ride. Callie’s boyfriend caught pneumonia.
    Vincelli’s lip twitched.
    â€œYou’re right,” she said. “They deserved it.”
    In Hope, BC , she and Callie treated themselves to a night out at a bar, where a folk rock band performed to their audience of two. After the set, the members joined them at their table.
    â€œI swear,” she said, “there were literally sparks between Callie and Owen, the group’s front man. The guys invited us to follow them to their gigs in northern BC and Alberta. We said, ‘Why not?’ School didn’t start for two weeks. They taught us harmonies; we played tambourines. What’s the matter?” she asked Novak.
    He cocked his head at her. “I’m trying to visualize you dancing on stage.”
    She smoothed