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collective mind to swarm in his direction before his knock was answered. One of them made a darting, circling pass at him, like an armed reconnaissance plane.
    Before the bee had a chance to return with friends, the door swung open and Carver saw that Millicent Bing was indeed the sharp-faced woman in the research center brochure. She was thin, and slightly stoop-shouldered despite the disguising oversized shoulder pads beneath her silky gray blouse. She had narrowed and suspicious blue eyes and a marvelous pale complexion. Her sharp, elongated nose and receding chin gave her the look of a pretty but nervous ferret.
    “Mr. Carver?” Her voice sounded even more tentative in person than on the phone.
    He smiled at her and confirmed who he was, then thanked her again for letting him take up her valuable time. That seemed to make her feel guilty, and she hastily invited him inside.
    “I notice you’ve got a bee problem on the porch,” Carver told her.
    “They’re like sentries,” she said. “They discourage unwelcome visitors.”
    She could sure put a guest at ease.
    It was almost cold in the living room. The severe modern furniture and chrome-framed, surreal-looking color photographs of sea life didn’t add one degree of warmth.
    Millicent invited Carver to sit down, and he shifted his weight over his cane then lowered himself into a white vinyl chair with bleached wood arms. It was hard as cold concrete, but it enabled him to extend his bad leg out in front of him comfortably. He could get up out of the chair easily, too, which was always a consideration for a man with a cane.
    Millicent perched on the edge of the low vinyl sofa as if poised for the start of a race. She would have tripped and fallen at the sound of the starter’s gun, though, because her beige skirt was wound like a shroud around her legs. Carver asked her a few perfunctory questions about Henry to put her at ease, then said, “Henry seems to think something might have been going on over at the Walter Rainer estate. I noticed there was a clear view of the grounds from the research center, and I wondered if you or your husband ever observed anything there worth mentioning.”
    She looked flustered for a moment, then puzzled. “What on earth do you mean by ‘something might have been going on’?”
    “Well, Henry wasn’t specific, so I thought I’d ask you and your husband.”
    “Dr. Sam’s in Mexico,” she said, “buying specimens that can only be found along the coast in that area.”
    “Katia Marsh told me that’s where he is,” Carver said, wondering if she called her husband “Dr. Sam” in bed. “About the Rainer estate—”
    “Neither my husband nor I are nosy people, Mr. Carver,” she interrupted. She raised her pointed but almost nonexistent chin in a futile effort to look haughty. “Nor would we like anyone nosing into our business.”
    “I’m not asking you to be nosy,” he assured her. “Or to gossip. Henry’s been run down and almost killed, and the car sped away. A crime’s been committed.”
    She looked astounded. “And you assume it has something to do with Walter Rainer?”
    “I don’t assume anything, Mrs. Bing, I’m only asking.”
    “Well, the answer’s no, I’ve never observed anything unusual there, and my husband’s never mentioned to me that he has, either.”
    “Are you also a research scientist?”
    She seemed amused by the question. “Not I, Mr. Carver. I played the faithful faculty wife for years, until Dr. Sam got the funding to start the research center and aquarium.” She sounded oddly bitter. Must have realized it, and smiled. She had an overbite but an unexpectedly nice smile. “It’s Dr. Sam who’s the biologist, and that’s fine with me. Early in my academic endeavors, I found that science bored me.” She stood up and smoothed her skirt over her thighs. Carver was boring her, too, the gesture suggested; why didn’t he leave?
    He couldn’t think of a good reason not to, and