The destination was abbreviated with two letters followed by a number.

Nora had assumed the note referred to a hotel booking.

Frances suggested it might describe a bus route.

Neither of us claimed to know.

When the meeting ended, Nora refused an offer to sell the appointment book to a private collector.

She wanted the original to remain with her family until investigators advised how it should be preserved.

I respected that choice and asked permission to photograph only the pages relevant to the house.

Nora agreed after I promised not to post them online.

Outside, she told me one final thing.

Her mother had once said that Margaret did not fear the young woman in the laundry room.

Margaret feared the respectable men who kept asking whether the young woman was still there.

ADDITIONAL CHAPTER FOUR: THE CONTRACTOR WHO LEFT

Luis tracked down a retired carpenter named Edwin Marsh who had worked on Margaret’s house during the years before her death.

Edwin agreed to meet us at a lumberyard where he still bought supplies for small projects.

He had rough hands, a hearing aid, and little patience for anyone who interrupted his answers.

When Luis showed him the patched sill, Edwin recognized the trim profile immediately.

He remembered replacing the lower board after a storm but insisted he had not concealed any film.

His invoice showed that the repair had been paid in cash, which was unusual but not illegal.

He asked whether we had discovered a narrow hollow beneath the board.

I told him that the police had photographed the area and that I would not discuss anything collected as evidence.

Edwin nodded as though that was the answer he expected.

He had noticed the hollow when removing rotten wood, but Margaret had asked him not to alter the framing.

At the time, he believed she wanted to preserve an old feature.

He also remembered a visitor arriving while he worked, a man wearing a dark coat and carrying a folder.

The visitor asked Edwin how long the repair would take and whether the window could be opened from outside.

Margaret answered before Edwin could speak and sent the man away.

Edwin had never learned his name.

He remembered something else that made Luis stop writing.

Margaret had hired a second worker to repair the basement doorway, but Edwin never saw the man return after the first day.

The work was left unfinished, and Margaret refused to let anyone else complete it.