Angus and a small crew arrived early to take advantage of the morning light. The filming was almost done. All that remained was to take morning shots of the garden. And to film an introductory sequence with the program's host, Wilhelmina Cottrell. She looked even more imposing in person than on Klara's DVD—an old battle-axe with sausage legs and sharp drooping eyes.

It was the longest day of my life. I hadn't slept at all. It took ages to find the MG. Then it wouldn't start. I nearly screamed, coaxing the thing to life. I drove to Henri's house and stumbled through those dark and unfamiliar rooms. Where would he keep it? There were flowers everywhere and expensive furniture and a startling lack of books. There were no stories here.

Except one.

I found it in the refrigerator, in the shadow of flavored tea bottles and hunks of local cheese. I was tempted to destroy it—burn it page-by-page—but I didn't, for I needed it: I needed the material. I slipped it inside my blazer pocket and closed the refrigerator door. I wiped down the refrigerator handle and the front door's knob as I left.

I stopped at the Baylor's Massacre site. I tossed my shoes and blazer into the trash. By the time I got home I was delirious for lack of sleep. Somehow I inched the car back into the garage and stumbled upstairs and hid the diary inside my model Trojan Horse. Then I went to the bathroom and took several anti-inflammatories and a sleeping pill. They didn't work. I lay atop my bed and blinked at the ceiling. I watched the hours flash by on my clock. I had to ruffle the sheets at dawn to convince myself I'd slept.

The television crew. For once I was thankful for its distraction. It was a relief from the penitentiary of my own thoughts. Everyone scurried around like black-clad ants. At one point Angus noticed me. "Would you mind holding this?" he asked. He held out a book. Ms. Cottrell's Bible. How ironic. It was the one thing I'd never believed in. Ms. Cottrell smiled as I took it. I was strangely touched. So was Klara.

"I'm glad to see you're finally getting involved, Milo. It will do you a lot of good."

I wished I could say the same about her. She wore a flower-print dress that hugged her hips. Already she was worrying about Henri. "He was supposed to be here hours ago," she whispered to Angus.

"He probably forgot. Or maybe he got distracted by some wonderful perennials. You know him, always looking for something new."

The afternoon became increasingly hectic with preparations for the supper party. I'd forgotten all about it: the dinner Klara had promised for Henri's gardening clients. Marta was like a workhorse in the kitchen—beating eggs, washing lettuce, trimming steaks. I don't think I'd ever seen her so busy. I shocked her by offering to chop onions, taking a great armload of them to the small table and cleaving them to bits. My arms and shoulders ached and my eyes dripped like a fountain, but I didn't stop until every last one was done. I stood there, crying like a babe, as Marta thanked me for being so helpful.

I haven't cried since.

The first guests arrived at seven o'clock. By then I was back in my room. I was staring out the window. Every criminal makes at least one mistake, I knew, and I'd just realized mine. The scissors. I'd left them on Henri's sofa. Would anybody take fingerprints? Could they connect those prints to me? I had no idea. What if someone had seen my car parked at his house? What if I'd dropped some traceable item—a library card or bookstore receipt—during my frantic scramble around Phil's office?

There were endless ways I could be damned. But now the facts existed out there, beyond my reach, and no amount of editing could alter them. I bathed and changed clothes several times just to give my limbs something to do. For luck I pinned a submarine officer's insignia on my blazer's lapel: a gold-plated submarine flanked by dolphins, those mythical attendants to Poseidon. They were symbolic of calm smooth waters, and I closed my eyes and imagined myself floating deep beneath the ocean, the raging storms above just a murmur.

Then they grew louder. Engines rumbled up the drive. I opened my eyes and saw them: the great Buicks and Dodges of the doddering garden set. They staggered out and pushed their trembling feathery forefingers against the doorbell. They laughed and chatted as if they'd been enjoying this one long conversation all their lives. In the meanwhile I kept waiting for more ominous noises: the scrape of a detective's shoes on the stairs or Klara's hushed voice: "He's in there."

Mrs. Silfer was among the last to arrive. Her massive Ford rumbled to a stop in front of the garage. I watched her great bulk heave itself out of the vehicle and wobble to the door.

The bell rang three times. Ask not for whom the bell tolls. Moments later Klara opened the door. "Elizabeth!"

"Sorry I'm late," she huffed. "My son Todd was playing hide-and-seek in the clothes dryer. Kids these days!"

Klara called out: "Milo! Elizabeth Silfer is here and wants to say hello!"

I was halfway down when I overheard Klara ask Mrs. Silfer whether she'd spoken to Henri. "Not in ages," came the reply. "I thought he'd be here."

"Me too," said Klara. "I've been waiting since morning."

Guffaw. "Artists."

"I tried calling his mobile phone."

"Are you kidding me? He never answers his phone."

I did my best to smile as Mrs. Silfer noticed me. Her eyes widened, her arms surrounded me in a pillowy embrace. I held my breath.

"How are you?" Mrs. Silfer shrieked. "Isn't the garden awesome? Didn't I tell your sister how awesome Henri was?"

I shrugged, still not trusting my tongue. Thankfully Mrs. Silfer didn't seem to notice. She grabbed my arm and led me into the living room, smiling and waving to the crowd. "This is Milo Crane, Klara's younger brother, he and I went to school together," she'd emphasize before turning to me and uttering the name—which I promptly forgot—of whatever dull, unremarkable-looking person was standing there. It was no wonder Henri had been a rock-star among this set. Klara was off in the corner making small-talk. To anyone else she would have seemed the picture of the perfect hostess. But to me, who knew the signs, every glance at her slender watch or the window spoke volumes.

The dining room table had been expanded to its full length (which I'd only remembered happening once before, when Mother had displayed several of her oversized paintings for an effete New York dealer who promised to get back to her and never did). At the far end of it a group of plump, aging bachelors were heatedly discussing the aesthetic qualities of Digitariasanguinalis, or crabgrass.

"A weed by any other name," declared one of them.

"To hell with taxonomy," cried another.

"Well I for one agree it's ugly," said a third.

"Absolutely hideous, yes," agreed a fourth.

"Underrated, underrated in its usefulness!" said a fifth.

With this and several other conversations going on I nearly didn't hear the telephone. I was sitting at my usual place, wondering how I'd make it through an entire supper with these people. Klara leapt out of her seat. My heart nearly leapt up with her. I glanced to my left, where an old woman in a flower-print dress was sliding awkwardly toward me along the bench, and to my right, where another was doing the same, virtually indistinguishable from the first except that her dress was one solid color and had ruffles in disconcerting places. Mrs. Silfer stood in the doorway beaming at us, a pocket camera dangling from her puffy wrist. Marta was just coming through the kitchen door with a giant soup tureen.

Klara returned after a few minutes. She looked catatonic. "Is everything alright?" asked Mrs. Silfer. Klara's mouth began to move. But no sound emerged. I hung onto that soundlessness as if for dear life. Was it true? For a moment I had a strange sensation. That Henri really was a fictional character. That as soon as I'd left that blood-spattered room he'd dusted himself off and laughed and loped away. Mrs. Silfer guided Klara off into the living room. Everyone else fell silent. I watched Marta put down the soup and a few people cough and finger their napkins. Then Mrs. Silfer returned. She was quivering like an earthquake. She managed the following words: "I'm sorry. It's Henri. He was . . . shot. Last night. He's—oh God." She put a hand over her mouth and groaned and finally spoke the words that made it real: "He's dead."

The room exploded with questions and shocked ejaculations, only dying in time to hear, in a faltering tone, Mrs. Silfer's next six words—the six words which were, in truth, the most bittersweet I'd heard in all my life.

"They think it was Phil Girardi."