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ON MONDAY MORNING, LARA HORGAN ASKED AN ASSIStant in the coroner’s office to run a check on Zelda Markey, the nurse employed at the Latham Manor Residence in Newport who had found Mrs. Greta Shipley’s body.

The initial report was in by late morning. It showed she had a good work record. No professional complaints ever had been filed against her. She was a lifelong resident of Rhode Island. During her twenty years of practice, she had worked at three hospitals and four nursing homes, all within the state. She had been at Latham Manor since it opened.

Except for Latham, she’d done a lot of moving around, Dr. Horgan thought. “Follow up with the personnel people at the places where she’s worked,” she instructed the assistant. “There’s something about that lady that bothers me.”

She then phoned the Newport police and asked to speak to Chief Brower. In the short time since she was appointed coroner, they had come to like and respect each other.

She asked Brower about the investigation of the Nuala Moore murder. He told her they had no specific leads but were following up on a couple of things and trying to approach the crime from all the logical angles. As they were speaking, Detective Jim Haggerty stuck his head in the chief’s office.

“Hold on, Lara,” Brower said. “Haggerty was doing a little follow-up on Nuala Moore’s stepdaughter. He has an expression on his face that tells me he’s onto something.”

“Maybe,” Haggerty said. “Maybe not.” He took out his notebook. “At 10:45 this morning, Nuala Moore’s stepdaughter, Maggie Holloway, went into the morgue at the Newport Sentinel and requested to see the obituaries of five women. Since all five were longtime Newport residents, extensive features had been written on each of them. Ms. Holloway took the computer printouts and left. I have a copy of them here.”

Brower repeated Haggerty’s report to Lara Horgan, then added, “Ms. Holloway arrived here ten days ago for the first time. It’s pretty certain she couldn’t have known any of these women except Greta Shipley. We’ll study those obits to see if we can figure out what might have made them so interesting to her. I’ll get back to you.”

“Chief, do me a favor,” Dr. Horgan asked. “Fax copies of them to me too, okay?”