It had recently been given a fresh coat of white paint, and it sat behind a tidy front garden fringed in a cast-iron fence. Although the garden was covered in gray slush, there were twigs and stalks standing up through the snow, suggesting the possibility of hydrangeas under the windows later on in the year, and a border of daylilies along the walk. I gave the bell a hard twist. The smoke from some nearby chimney drifted past. The smell of wood burning made me hungry and I realized it had been a long time since breakfast. After a while I heard a cough and the shuffling of feet. The door opened and the tiniest woman I’d ever seen stood before me. She was as frail as a bird, her small head fringed in white cottony wisps. She wore a gray dress with a collar that buttoned right under her chin, and from under her skirts appeared petite patent leather shoes that could have belonged to a schoolgirl. She looked me up and down through china-blue eyes. “How do you do?” she said at last. “I’m here to see Lucy Blake,”
