“She spent three hours on Mrs.

Bennett’s couch before your plane landed,” he said.

He pulled the heavy garage door closed behind us, and the latch caught with a dull thud.

At eleven o’clock I walked across the frozen pavement of Elm Street to Mrs.

Mary Bennett’s front porch.

The yellow porch light shone bright through the wooden screen door.

She opened the inside door before I reached the top step, wrapped in a heavy gray cardigan trimmed in blue ribbon.

“Is Sadie asleep?” Mary asked, keeping her voice low in the still night air.