DISCOVERING THE BODY

            by MARY HOWARD

             Published by:  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.,
          New York, NY.
Copyright 2000 by Mary Howard.
 
       BOOK JACKET INFORMATION

  Discovering the Body is a gripping novel filled with psychological suspense, sensitivity, and emotional complexity. With this stunning debut, Mary Howard has crafted an electrifying and hauntingly evocative novel of truth and perception, of the lies we tell others --and the lies we tell ourselves.
  Two years ago Linda Garbo left her graphic design job in Minneapolis to open a printmaking studio in a small town in Iowa with the encouragement of Luci Cole, a weaver and an old friend from art school. Arriving in Linden Grove for good, Linda agrees to stay with Luci and her boyfriend, Charlie, in their old farmhouse outside of town until the renovations to her new studio space are completed. But the following afternoon as she is driving down the long winding road toward Luci's house, Linda sees Luci's neighbor, Peter Garvey, walking out the front door--and when Linda enters the house a few minutes later, she discovers her friend's lifeless body on the kitchen floor.
  Now, two years later, Peter Garvey has been convicted of Luci's murder. Linda is married to Charlie and living in the very house where Luci died. And she is convinced someone is following her. As she begins to confront her fears --approaching the man she believes is spying on her, visiting Peter Garvey in prison--she finally faces the cause for her frequent panic attacks: she was too traumatized by her discovery of Luci's body to be a reliable witness. And if she's identified the wrong man, the killer may still be close by, ready to react if she admits she might have made a mistake. Compelled to unravel the mystery surrounding Luci's final days, Linda finds that Luci was a master at weaving her true colors into a complex tapestry, preferring involvements that required secrecy.
  A beautifully crafted tour de force of significant depth, passion, and power, Discovering the Body is a completely beguiling meditation on perception, loss, memory, and redemption whose conclusion proves to be as significantly haunting as it is satisfying.
 
  Mary Howard's short fiction has been published in The Ontario Review and The Georgia Review. Discovering the Body is her first novel. Howard was born and raised in Ames, Iowa, where she currently resides with her husband, Robert Bataille; they are the parents of two sons.

            For my sons,
           Paul and David
 
             ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Mary Richards, County Attorney, Story County, Iowa; Detective Captain Terry Bird, Ames Police Force; Public Safety Officer John Tinker, Coordinator, Story County Drug Task Force; entomologist Dr. Marlin Rice; and beekeeper Fred G.h. Freund for providing me with invaluable information as I was writing this novel. If I got a detail wrong, it's my error, not theirs.
  I have been blessed by the good will and encouragement of many friends and colleagues in the Art and Design Department at Iowa State University, whose knowledge and insights helped me see the world through the eyes of a visual artist. I particularly want to thank Barbara Bruene, Barbara Caldwell, Paula Curran, Cindy Gould, Robin Kaneshiro, April Katz, Ingrid Lilligren, Nancy Polster, and Carol Prusa. Also thanks to Rebecca Burke, Joe Geha, Jamie Horwitz, Fern
Kupfer, Deb Marquardt, and Susan Poague.
  Thanks to my agent Elyse Cheney, who is savvy, smart, and fierce on my behalf; and to my editor Claire Wachtel, an inspiring, enthusiastic reader who has taught me a lot. I appreciate them both very much. And as always, a heartfelt thanks to my husband, Bob Bataille.
 
         DISCOVERING THE BODY

  Usually Charlie and I wake up together, but not this morning. When I open my eyes, I hear the shower and smell coffee. I find him standing at the kitchen sink, dark brown hair and beard, usually wild and bushy, still wet and close to his head. Two streaks mark the back of his shirt where he hurried drying himself. Parting the yellow curtains, he says, "I couldn't sleep. I dreamed the horses were back."
  I join him to look where he's looking, toward the fence line and the weedy pasture beyond and the empty house next door. When I murmur something about how he doesn't often remember dreams, the curtain drops. "Sometimes I do," he says, turning to meet my good-morning kiss. My arms encircle him, a hand caressing the broad muscles of his back. "But I can't ever seem to tell you before they vanish. I'm jealous of yours. All that color and plot." He smiles, then grows sober again. "This was so real I woke up to the trumpeting sound horses make when they're spooked. I still think I heard something out there."
  "Freud had a theory about horses in dreams."
  "Not these horses," he says.
  "We should call the realtor--"
  "And certainly not today."
  "--see if they can't mow the lawn over there." I insert two slices of bread into the toaster. The sign's gone again, but as far as I know, the place is still for sale. I open the refrigerator. As I reach over things for the marmalade, a bottle of tomato juice falls forward and strikes the floor at my feet, the bright liquid exploding outward. For a split second a gaudy Rorschach of red lies suspended across the gray-and-white grid of ceramic tile, then resumes its flow, thick as pigment. It drips down the front of the white refrigerator, down the table legs.
  Miraculously unbroken, the container has spun out and come to rest against the wall, and I think I should pick it up. But I don't. I'm swallowing instead of breathing. Flecks of light dart across my vision as Charlie turns me gently away by the shoulders, toward the hallway.
 
"Come on, Linda," he says. "Take a deep breath."
  I cross the hall and the living room to pull open the front door, admitting a morning breeze full of dust and starch from the field across the road. This early a mist hangs above the corn, the mature plants streaked ivory in the muted light, the surface of the sky lightly scrubbed in, the color of smoke. I'm gasping for air. Dread mingles with relief and a vague third feeling I push away--the fear I've been fighting for months now, that there's someone out there, watching for me to make an appearance. This is the closest I've come to letting my panic show in front of Charlie.
  "All done," he says from the doorway, a twisted, wrung-out rag in his hand. But the rapid thickening of his features, the look of repulsion with which he untwists the cloth, and the way he turns to fasten that same look of distaste upon me all give lie to his "Everything's good as new." There have been other moments lately when I've caught a flash of his anguish like this, as if there are two Charlies, one behind the scrim of the other. My mind slows, sees past him to the floor in front of the refrigerator. "Let it go," he says. I let the finality of his tone end the matter and do the easy thing, go back to buttering the toast, cold by now. And the day goes back to starting like one that can't end soon enough.
  Charlie loves to speculate about weather, crops, and insects, but when it comes to people, he's so matter-of-fact that talking about feelings can make him anxious and secretive. The sign on the side of his van says CHARLIE CARPENTER, BEEKEEPER--THE HONEY BARN, LINDEN
GROVE, IOWA. My appreciation of what he does for a living has been fairly romantic, like the way I'm apt to gloss over the dollar value of pollination to American agriculture while remembering how he marks the backs of queens with dabs of bright paint, to keep track of them. Work stories he keeps to himself, as a rule, along with his worries. Like many Midwesterners he's proud of his self-reliance, something we have in common. Then along comes something like a dream about horses, and the fact that he remembered it long enough to tell me.
  Breakfast over, dishes in the sink, I catch him shifting his stare to the light pooled at the base
 
of the refrigerator, where the tile's still streaked with water from the cleanup. Just for a moment he studies the floor, then returns his gaze to my face. His mouth is soft. A quick kiss. "About the horses," I say. "What do you think?"
  "I haven't thought of her for a while. There's no way out today." He runs his open palm over his forehead, combs his fingers through his damp hair. "You okay?"
  I nod. But I'm not.
  Two years ago I was staying here with Luci Cole and Charlie until the kitchen plumbing was installed in the loft of the warehouse I'd bought in town, the space that's still my studio. Luci and I were old friends from art school. It was August 1, 1995. I'd been here three days, and I came home about five-fifteen that afternoon to help her start supper. It was Charlie's habit to arrive about six. It was a hot day, as this one promises to be, and I rushed into this room thinking only about my thirst.
  This morning Charlie and I will proceed to the usual things we do on a Friday in August, and not dwell too much on the circumstances of Luci's death. She had her problems, like all of us, and neither of us knew her as well as we thought we did--a fact that sometimes lies between Charlie and me. I envied Luci when she was alive, and in a strange way, after everything I learned about her when she died, I still do. Not a day passes without my thinking about her.
  For a while after Peter Garvey was convicted and sent to prison for killing Luci, I thought I might succeed in putting the awful experience behind me. But for months now, since late winter, I have frequently felt someone watching to see if I'm finally beginning to show signs of nervousness, or fear. Often, at such times, I'll turn to look over my shoulder, and there he'll be: a certain guy, tall, dark-eyed, with long hair pulled back into a rubber band at the nape of his neck. He always wears jeans and sandals. Though he appears easygoing when he moves, I become most aware of him when he stands motionless-- aloof, but with the taut musculature of intense awareness. A week or two will pass without him, and then he'll show up in the neighborhood of my studio two or three times in one day--crossing the street, checking out at Hy-Vee, waiting in line at the Shazam machine. His sudden appearance
 
on the scene a few months ago is what made me start thinking about Luci's murder all over again. Charlie thinks it's the other way around, that I'm still fearful because of what happened and so I imagine I'm being watched. He tells me to forget about my suspicions. Even in a small town like this, he'll point out, there are quite a few people I don't know but whom I see every day, just in passing. They're not all following me. This man isn't either.
  But then I'll see him again--like now, this afternoon, waiting at the intersection of Main Street and Third. He stands perfectly still. His shoulders are broad for a man so slender, his shirt bright white in the sun. I wait for the quick flash of his sunglasses as he turns and sees me, and then without pause he faces away again as the light changes to green. He doesn't cross the street. Instead he turns and walks toward me, and past--like he doesn't see me, that's what gives him away. As tall as I am, and the way I like to be noticed, I'm hard to miss. I know that. I've cultivated it, arms to my sides, head high.
  I suppose I exhibit the inverse vanity of a woman who knows she's not beautiful. Another woman might assume it was her appearance that attracted this man's attention, perhaps staring him down to challenge his rude behavior, or at least asking around to find out who he is. Judy Allard, who runs the bookshop down the street, probably knows. I've seen him go in there. But I haven't asked her. I've told no one except Charlie about this dilemma of mine. What I haven't managed to tell him is that if I'm right, and this man is observing me, I'm pretty sure I know why.
  I get my hair cut at Le's Salon, a tiny basement establishment under the Grubstake Caf`e, just around the block from my studio, where I do my printmaking and graphic-design work. I thought I might have my hair cut short today, but descending the cement stairs to Le's, I suffer doubts even about that. Charlie prefers it long. Stopping at the top of the steep, cellarlike steps, I watch the stranger's quickening stride as he continues down the street. He moves as if he's sure of his destination, but then he slows, finally pausing to consider something in the bookstore window. He hasn't looked back since we
 
passed on the sidewalk just now. It's always like this: He slows down when he sees me, averting his gaze--or hiding behind those mirrored sunglasses--then speeds up once his back is to me. Then stops down the line and waits.
  I tense, fingering the ends of my hair. Doug Le greets me with his usual: "Ah, Garbo, let's try something new today." Sylvie, his only employee, looks up from painting her nails and smiles. In a few moments I'm lathered and rinsed and in front of the mirror again, where Doug appraises my wet hair. I'm staring into the glass, when in the reflection of the room I see the longhaired guy cross behind me from the direction of the doorway, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his elbows, headed for the shelves of products, out of the mirror's range.
  Doug bows my head so my long hair hides my face. "Great hair," he murmurs. He not only collects my prints--we trade art for haircuts--but also likes to praise what he calls my unconventional beauty. He doesn't see broad shoulders, shovel-like hips, arms that could move a piano. My pale lashes and square jaw are abstract, malleable elements of design to him. Now his comb moves slowly down through the curtain of hair. With my face hidden and my eyes closed, I concentrate on his flattery while back there in the corner of the room, that guy is watching me. As Doug lifts my chin, directing me to watch in the mirror as he lifts and loops my wet hair, he proposes a short, asymmetrical cut, but
I barely listen. I flinch at the sudden sound of rushing water as plump, kohl-eyed Sylvie begins to wash the stranger's hair.
  The sink is only a few feet away, in the corner of the room. Lying back for the shampoo, his long body stretches toward me close enough to touch --knees bent at right angles, neck cradled by the lip of the sink. He seems vulnerable. I've always seen him at a distance, his glance sliding over and past me with an expertness I've learned to practice on him, too. Now, horizontal, he can't see me. Turning to Doug, who lowers his face near mine, I whisper, "Who is that guy?"
  "Russell Weber, from upstairs." Now at least he has a name. Over the blast of water,
 
I can hear the man's voice-- indistinct, but I hear the word "dreadlocks." I remember his long hair as lank and moth brown. Maybe I heard him wrong.
  "Uncross your legs, Linda," Doug says. As I square my shoulders so he can cut the first layer of hair straight across my shoulder blades, Weber and Sylvie laugh. Not many guys come into Doug Le's salon, but judging by the easy conversation about his plans for the evening, Weber must be a regular here. Sylvie's kneading the towel around his head, and just as he sits up, I turn to face him, my heart beating hard. But when she lifts the towel from his hair, it's ropy, bleached bright as brass, and no more than four inches long.
  For a moment I'm stunned, confused by the switch. This isn't the man who's been following me, the man I saw in the mirror. This man, Russell Weber, is the cook at the Grubstake upstairs. He's looking straight at me, missing a beat before he says, "I know you. Tabbouleh and cottage cheese, right?"
  Nodding, I try to return his smile even as my hands contract into fists under the long plastic cape. It takes me a moment to recover from my mistake, to realize that Weber must have come into the room when my head was down. I look at Sylvie. "There was someone else who came in, after I did." In the mirror I search past myself into the space behind me. "White shirt, jeans, long hair. I thought he was someone I knew."
  "No," says Sylvie, her inflection rising with uncertainty. She's touching up Weber's dark roots, separating clumps of hair with surgical-gloved fingers. "I don't think so." Stopping her hands, she pauses to reconsider. "I don't remember anybody." She shakes her head, satisfied.
  Doug reaches for a bright-blue bottle, announcing some five-syllable ingredient beginning with "hydro," and rubs it into my wet hair. "Someone did come in and look at the products rack. I was watching him."
  "Really?" says Sylvie.
  "He didn't buy anything," says Doug, pulling long scissors out of his holster.
  "I do sort of remember," says Sylvie. "Did you know him?" I ask.
 
  "Huh-uh," says Sylvie.
  "Never saw him before," says Doug.
  Not even Russell Weber knows who he was. Later, climbing the narrow steps to the street, I look right and left, but he's nowhere to be seen. The shortest way to my studio is through the alley around to the right and across the parking lot, the way I came. Instead I walk to the far end of the block, around the Firstar Bank at the corner, and enter the parking lot from Hayward. It's hot. I'm beginning to sweat.
  As I cross the parking lot, I tilt my head back, shake my hair. I'm glad I left it long. I like to feel it move. See that? I wonder. But if he's here, he's out of sight. Approaching the rear end of the alley I avoided before, my heart thumps. I've been so scared lately of letting fear affect my judgment. Right now I can't help heeding instincts this strong. Moving around the corner of the brick building, I see him, facing away from me. He's leaning sideways, his left shoulder against the brick wall. I want this over with.
  It's cooler in the alley. From about ten feet behind him, I watch. My stature--I'm six-two--gives me a kind of routine confidence I often take for granted. But it's posture, not size, that conveys power, so I draw myself up, unclasping my hands and relaxing my arms at my sides, instantly more in command. Staring at the backside of that guy so innocently leaning against the wall, waiting for me to appear at the other end of the alley, I feel a flutter in my throat, and the urge to laugh. I cough instead.
  He twists his body toward the sound, and I move closer. He's as tall as I am.
He's put his sunglasses in his chest pocket. His eyes are very dark brown. Even sunburned he pinkens slightly.
  "Waiting for someone?" I ask him. All he has in his hand is a cigarette. He bites his lower lip but doesn't speak. "There's a law against this, you know."
  He looks perplexed, drops the cigarette in the dust, steps on it. He continues to stare at his right foot. "Look--" he begins finally, and after weeks of refusing to make eye contact, his gaze is so direct and unflinching my body feels the shock of it. He smiles a little, as if now that we have finally crossed some mysterious
 
line, he's relieved.
  "You have to stop this," I say calmly. He looks uncomfortable as I stare silently at his deep-set eyes, broad cheekbones, squared-off chin. "You've been following me for months."
  "Why would I do that?"
  "Who are you?"
  He steps forward, so close I can smell the cigarette smoke on his clothes. "Bender," he says. "John." I stare at his hand, extended toward me as if I might actually want to shake it. The wristbones are prominent. His nails are short and clean. Finally he lowers his hand. "Look," he says gently. "Linda--"
  The sound of my name makes my throat close, and I swallow with difficulty. "You draw attention to yourself by watching me the way you do. You're not very good at it."
  "I started to speak to you one day on the street," he says slowly, "right after I moved to this neighborhood from the other side of town." He clears his throat. "I suppose I've avoided you since then for your own sake, since I knew you would associate me with a terrible experience." He looks over his shoulder at the cars moving across the opening of the alley behind him, like he's deciding something. "Of course, I never could have forgotten you, after spending all those hours watching your face. You were at the center of things. I was an observer." He turns back to stare at me for long moments before he says, "I'm a reporter. I covered the trial."
  "I don't remember you."
  "I wrote the original stories for The Linden Times." He pauses, probably hoping for a reaction. "Peter Garvey still says he wasn't working on Luci Cole's car that afternoon."
  "He's had his appeals. No one else ever believed him. Are you telling me you do?"
  "I went to see him recently. He still insists you lied."
  "Do you think I did?"
  "No."
  I can't look at Bender another moment, can't listen to his offhand tone--I went to see him recently--as if the killer were a casual, mutual friend. I know my mistake even as I turn away from him. The asphalt surface of the
 
parking lot is so hot it gives under my sandals as I hurry through the blazing sunlight to the back door of my studio. I make a mental note: The next time any detail even remotely connected to Luci's death triggers this kind of take-flight reaction, I've got to stand and ask questions, not rush off like I'm the guilty one.

  Inside my studio the phone is ringing, and I practically run the length of the long room to answer.
  "You sound out of breath."
  "Ohhh ..." The relief I feel at hearing Charlie's voice escapes like a sigh as I sink into the desk chair. "I just came in."
  "Can you pick me up about five-thirty? The van's in the shop until tomorrow."
  "What happened?"
  Charlie explains that a broken spring began banging against the underside of the wheel well on his way into town this morning. "Whomp," he says, "every time I went round a corner, or a curve." I want to interrupt and tell him, I just talked to that man who's been watching me, but my lips stick to my teeth and my heart still pounds. So I just listen, taking comfort from the timbre of Charlie's deep voice. While he complains about how much the bill will be for the new springs, I pick up a pencil and idly sketch the shape of John Bender's head, the frank gaze of those dark eyes, the strong jawline. I'm biting my lower lip with concentration.
  Finally Charlie is silent, and I look up, focusing on the sign hanging inside my plate-glass window--lime-green neon script, LINDA GARBO DESIGNS, in an oval of pink and lavender. "Charlie?" My voice trembles.
  "It's getting worse, isn't it, your anxiety." The way he says it, it's not a question. "What exactly happened this morning? You were in a bad state there for a few minutes, standing at the front door. I didn't like the way you were having trouble breathing. You didn't think you saw somebody out there, did you?"
  "Of course not." All summer Charlie has been pressuring me to seek help. He's been stopping by my studio a couple of times a week to take me out for coffee at the Grubstake
 
Caf`e, or to walk around the neighborhood with me, but the man who has turned out to be John Bender never materialized for Charlie to see. "I'm beginning to confront my fears," I say quietly.
  "I'm worried about you."
  "I know you are. But I'm not losing my mental health, Charlie. You know better than that." A bitter note has sounded in my voice, and I go on quickly, using a gentler tone. "You think about her, too. I know you do. Do you realize this morning's the first time you've told me one of your dreams?"
  "Dreams," Charlie says flatly, as if the word came out of nowhere and doesn't belong in this conversation.
  "I remember that trumpeting sound, too, from the day Luci died. I'm sure I do. The sound of horses, spooked. I'm working hard to remember everything that happened that day."
  "I didn't give that dream another thought, after I mentioned it to you," he says. "I've had other things on my mind." I wish I could see his face as silence falls here in my studio, and at his end, too, where I can imagine the cloying sweetness of slow, silent honey dripping into cylindrical ripening tanks. Finally he says, "It was a nightmare, Linda, a bad memory trying to come back. I'm not about to give it much of my conscious attention, and you shouldn't either. You only hurt yourself, going back to that time, over and over. Do you know how often, how literally, you look over your shoulder? There's a name for that."
  "Paranoia is when you look over your shoulder and there's never anybody there, Charlie." I'm staring at my sketch of John Bender's face.
  "Pick me up at five-thirty." I hear a door closing at Charlie's end, and voices. He says he has a customer.
  But I can't let him go yet. "That man was in the alley across the parking lot again today. He was watching for me. I finally did what you've been urging me to do, Charlie. I talked to him. Turns out he moved into the neighborhood about the time I started noticing him. He says he's a reporter for the local paper."
  "Well then, it will be easy enough to check him out. We'll talk about it at supper. And maybe you can manage to explain to me why it took you four or five months to walk up to this guy and ask him
 
who he is. Can I assume you got his name?"
  "Yes. Why are you so angry, Charlie? I thought you'd be pleased."
  "I'm not angry. I have to get back to work." I repeat that I'll pick him up at five-thirty. He suggests we go for pizza tonight, as we often do on Fridays, and I agree, all the while adding detail to the reporter's face. I sharpen the jawline, deepen the brow a little, while Charlie is saying, "It's a bad day to be without the van. I'm restless. Call before you come by. I might leave a little early and walk home."

  Linden Grove is a small community. It takes only forty minutes to walk from The Honey Barn on the north side to our house, which is about a mile west of town along the county road. From my studio it's not that far. I used to walk it a lot, for the exercise, but I've gotten lazy. Driving out there that afternoon, two years ago today, I was sorry I wasn't on foot so it would take longer to get there. On the seat next to me was a bag of groceries from Hy-Vee--yogurt, Shredded Wheat, three chicken breasts--and the receipt, of course, printed with the date of purchase and the time--5:05 P.m. It was sprinkling. I turned on my windshield wipers.
  I was really thirsty as I finally reached the crest of the hill at the town limits and started down the road's curving approach to the house. Descending the hill, I could see the house for a quarter of a mile, the valley before me rich with color. Staying with Luci and Charlie had turned out to be very uncomfortable for me, and despite my thirst I stopped my car on the shoulder of the gravel road to delay my arrival. Luci and
I had argued that morning, which had made me determined to move into the loft over my studio as soon as possible. So during the afternoon I had gone to see Ben Webb, the plumber, in his shop. I persuaded him to substitute some used kitchen cabinets we found in his cluttered warehouse for the ones I'd wanted, which were back-ordered. That way he would be able to install the sink the next day so I could arrange the final building inspection and move in. Luci was expecting me to stay with her for another week, at least. I was uneasy, thinking
 
of what I'd say to explain my change in plans.
  From my vantage point on the road I had a tree-framed view of the farmhouse, its wood-shingled roof pitched like a book turned onto its pages, and the neighbor's five horses immobile in the verdant shade of the hillside beyond. The very air was lit by that golden green that follows a storm, when the sun breaks through. The rain had turned the ditch along the road into a stream, a shiny wire of light.
  I was in no hurry to get there. Peter Garvey, Luci and Charlie's only close neighbor and the caretaker of the horses, was probably in the house with her. Sure enough, a few minutes later I saw him walk out the front door as I was rounding the bend at the top of the hill. A row of honeysuckle bushes blocked my view for about a hundred feet. As I continued on and could see the house again, he had slid himself under Luci's old Chevy Nova. The front of the car was elevated, and Peter'd been working on it off and on for the three days I'd been staying there--giving the place a low-rent look for which I resented him.
  When I arrived at the house, I said, "Hi, Peter," to be polite, as I walked around the car to the front door. His head and shoulders were underneath the car. He wagged his foot in response. Inside, the living room was dark because the shades were pulled against the heat, but I could see into the kitchen, and my thirst drew me forward. The light slanting through the window straight ahead made me squint. There was an odor, sort of like potatoes rotting.
  Luci lay sprawled, her T-shirt pulled up to show the pale skin above her belly, her peach-colored shorts silky-looking, her legs bowed open doll-like at a vulgar angle. There was a smear of blood under one staring eye, but the long wound across her throat gaped where an awful blood vessel protruded--hollow and already bone-colored, bloodless, like a curved piece of macaroni.
  I tilted away from the body and felt my left shoulder touch the wall, felt my stomach lift and settle, leaving a terrible pressure in my throat. My mind reeled. A roar in my ears made my eyes open wide. I had to be alert, had to look at Luci, get the bag of
 
groceries out of my hands, crouch and touch her. The flesh was warm, but her tongue was fallen back into her open mouth. Blood has a familiar smell. My throat constricted so suddenly that I gasped, and I heard that roar again. The table legs and the pine floor were spattered with blood, and the knife lay over an odd, circular smear, blade still shiny. I reached, but then I stopped myself and left the knife where it was.
  Listening intently, straining to hear, I found myself on my feet, the phone in my hand, my fingers finding 911, my mind fastening on the best words to start with--I just found my friend, Luci Cole--in a voice barely loud enough for the dispatcher to hear. As I answered her questions, I moved across the living room toward the front door until I came to the end of the phone cord's tether. Through the coarse canvas of the screen, Luci's faded Chevy came into view. The voice on the phone told me to stay inside until help arrived.
  I went all the way to the front door, fingers fumbling to lock it, and looked out at the car. Peter's disembodied boots were on the far side, out of sight. Without thinking, I unhooked the door and stepped out into the open. "Peter?" I said, testing my voice, circling the car slowly. My left hand rested flat on the warmth of the car's hood. "Peter?" One more step and he'd be lying there.
  He was gone, of course. I stood in the baking heat and surveyed the empty road, the stand of weeds along the fence separating Peter's property from Charlie's, the rise of green pasture beyond. The distant oak trees with touches of red among the leaves. I remembered the spots on the leg of his jeans.
  Now, two years later, I still experience the same drop in body temperature I felt then when I contemplate the terrible fact of what that man did to her. Heart pounding, I felt fully alert, wildly memorizing particulars for all that I'd be called upon to do in the coming weeks: answer questions, testify against Peter Garvey. I can still see the precise array of rust spots across the car's hood, smell the heat rising from the gravel drive, hear the gasp that escaped me as something drew my attention to the house next door. All five horses in the pasture raised their heads in
 
the shade. Two reared back, and all of them began to run in a loose circle. The taste in my mouth was sharp.
  My life was divided forever by what I had seen and by what I was sure it meant--calm before, and now this curse of memory. Today the abundance of detail that assaulted me that afternoon as I approached the house and as I found her in the kitchen has been replaced by the list of observations I related to the police and recited perfectly every time I answered the lawyers' questions, every time I went over the events in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep. Waiting outside the house, I wanted to run. But I had to stand my ground, guard her body until help arrived. For courage, I suppose, I bent forward to strike the roof of the car with my fists, many times, each time shouting Charlie, Charlie, the bold kettledrum booms punctuating both syllables of his name. why didn't you see what she was doing? I yelled, staring at the road where it broke the horizon. Right under your nose, Charlie. When he appeared at last, jogging toward me in the heat--so innocent of what had happened--my heart lifted.
  Now, since hanging up the phone with Charlie, that same urgency to see him has quickened my pulse. To stay calm, I have kept my pencil moving these past few minutes over the lines of John Bender's face. But my fingers tremble, and the lines waver, as I find in the shadows at the corners of his eyes and the curve of his brow bone the face I remember better and better as I reconstruct it on the page. Pay attention.
I wonder why I never once remembered pounding the car and shouting Charlie's name like that--with a boldness strong enough to drive back fear--until now.

  The waitress places our pizza on the table just as Charlie glances up at her and says, "Why don't you make me a print?" He ignores her confusion as he pours me a second glass of beer from the pitcher between us. I struggle to keep my attention on Charlie even as the red line of Route 2 pushes east across the map in my mind toward the Mississippi, toward the Iowa State Penitentiary. Since my discovery this afternoon that John Bender has talked with the killer
 
recently, I know I have to face Garvey myself. Charlie clears his throat. I hope that doesn't mean he's noticed my lapse of attention. "Why don't you do an etching for me?" he says. His thirty-sixth birthday is three weeks away. "It wouldn't cost you much."
  "I'm not looking to get off cheap, Charlie." I silence my irritation with a mouthful of garlicky, double-cheese pizza. I often tease him about being tight with money. My prints hang in galleries in West Des Moines and on Canyon Road's Gypsy Alley in Santa
Fe. Though most of my income comes from logos and illustrations for area business ads, printmaking is my real love, and I'm sensitive if I think it's being undervalued. "A copper plate is up to thirty-six dollars."
  "That's not what I meant." He's reaching for a triangle of pizza. "The gift would be your time. Tell me that Italian word for the etching process again?" He answers his own question, "In-tall'-yo," gesturing upward with his free left hand while prolonging the syllables, making them sound sexual, as if they were words for love. All I hear is tagliare.
To cut. "And your talent," he insists. "Your gift would be the gift. The value of your work is not an issue. Am I off the hook?" I must look puzzled, because he covers my hand with his and adds, "About the value of the print you're planning to surprise me with?"
  "I want to give you something you want, that's all."
  "I have what I really want." He opens his mouth around another bite, his lower lip burnished by the olive oil. He crushes a paper napkin in his hand. He wipes his mouth. All with his right hand. I'm stroking his left arm with my fingertips. From the minute I picked him up at work earlier and told him the reporter's name--and promised I'd check Bender out, to satisfy myself he's who he says he is--Charlie's been acting as though we have reason to celebrate. "I have to visit three farmers tomorrow. If you don't have appointments, maybe you could come with me. We could--"
  "Oh, I can't, Charlie, I'm sorry."
I withdraw my hand. "I have a meeting planned for the afternoon."
  "That's okay," he says. "We'll do it
 
another time." His face moves closer to mine, and I feel a twinge of guilt for my lie of omission. Charlie's deeply tanned cheeks and nose are polished with red from too much sun. So are the backs of his hands. Even his short, dark beard has bleached, red highlights. He studied entomology at Iowa State, and he makes his living by contracting with growers all over the area to install hives at the edges of fields and orchards before the plants flower. After pollination, when Charlie reclaims the hives, he extracts and packages the honey at The Honey Barn, an "add-on" benefit of his work, he calls it. So he's outside a lot and seems to know everyone in this part of the state. This is the first time he's invited me to go along on his Saturday rounds. My lips part. I should just cancel my plans to visit the prison and go with him.
  "Umm," says Charlie, as if something has occurred to him. "How about a drawing of the house?" Confusion must show on my face. "For my print," he reminds me.
  "Oh." The house. "I'll think about it."
I sip my beer, hoping its dark, nutty taste will relax me. He couldn't know that every time I relive my surveillance of the house from the road that awful afternoon, I picture the view that would make the best composition. "You seem to have managed to disconnect Luci's death from the place where it happened. I'm not sure living there has been such a good idea for me."
  "The first six months we were married, you seemed so relaxed and happy there, I forget it was still a new place to you when you found Luci." He straightens his shoulders. "That house has always been a part of my life. I guess you're right. I have disassociated Luci's murder from the place it happened. After all, I didn't--"
  See her lying there is what he can't say, and in a flash I see the vivid splash of red across the floor this morning and remember Charlie's avoidance of any immediate discussion about the way it upset me. He draws his open hand down over his features, keeping his mouth covered for a moment to hide what he must be feeling. The house was his grandparents', where he visited each summer when he was a boy. About ten years ago, long after they had died and the house had passed out of the family, he returned to the area and bought it back. He
 
moved it onto a new foundation, rewired it. It's his work-in-progress. Our decision to live there when we got married last September was one we made together, of course. I decided that since I couldn't escape walking around for the rest of my life inside the same nerves and skin that had endured everything associated with Luci's death, I could certainly try to live in the place where she died. "You thought I spilled that juice on purpose, didn't you?"
  "Accidents can arise from unconscious motives." He looks across the restaurant. "It's almost as if you've come to feel responsible for what happened. You seem to want to put yourself through it all again. And to take me along with you. For both our sakes, I have to resist."
  "Outside the house that day, after I'd found her," I say quickly, "while I was waiting for help to come, I yelled your name over and over, half blamed you for not being there to defend her. Pounded on the car--"
  "You were frantic because you didn't want to be there alone. As soon as I got there, you were never alone with it again. You're still not alone. I'm here."
  "But if I could suddenly recall yelling your name, Charlie, I might remember some other detail I didn't report at the time, because finding her was so traumatic."
  He stares at me, fists side by side on the table, his patience palpable. As we gaze at each other, his eyes narrow with what he's thinking. "What happened to Luci was not your fault."
  "The county attorney told me during the trial that often an eyewitness in a murder case feels guilty."
  "You can't go back there and change things, Linda. You can't make things turn out differently, no matter how many new details you remember." At once his expression darkens. He draws his lips between his teeth and, for just a moment, squeezes his eyes shut. I think this is what anguish looks like. He tips his glass and stares into it.
  "I wasn't a good witness, Charlie." "Maybe next year on August first we'll be able to go the entire day without talking about Luci. That will be a better day than this one." He drains his glass.
  Leaning away, shoulders meeting the back of the chair, I'm literally biting my tongue to keep
 
from saying it again: I wasn't a good witness. As the conversation stalls, I begin reliving the afternoon earlier in the month when I tried, but failed, to face Peter Garvey. I drove all the way to Fort Madison, then up the hill to the penitentiary. I must have sat in the parking lot for ten minutes, staring at the immense limestone building with its windowless facade and square towers, intimidated by the very architecture of the prison. Finally I walked past the NO CAMERAS ALLOWED sign and through the front door. The uniformed guard behind the counter by the walk-through security equipment, the kind airports use, handed me a Request for Visiting Permit, but I didn't get very far in filling it out. Before I'd even written Peter Garvey's name on the "Inmate" line, I focused on the item below: "Business." What was my business with the man I had helped put in this place for life?
  I drove to a Quick Trip at the edge of town to use the bathroom, then made it home in three hours, justifying my flight as I sped along. What would have been the point? Peter isn't going to change his story, and I am certainly not prepared to tell him I might change mine. He's the last person I would tell, not the first.
  Charlie picks up his paper napkin and wipes his fingers with a twisting motion, signaling he's done with his meal. Under cover of his short beard, his jaw moves with tension. He looks away. "Tomorrow morning you can inquire about John Bender. Then maybe we can get back to living our lives in the present, regain our peace of mind."
  Even as I let Charlie take my silence as agreement, I can't help but wonder what sort of conversation Peter Garvey and I will have tomorrow. My testimony wasn't the only evidence that convicted Peter of Luci's murder, of course. His fingerprints were all over the kitchen, including a thumbprint on the knife. Peter never did deny he was in Luci's yard that afternoon. He simply said he drank so much before the police found him passed out in the house next door that he couldn't recall anything past his argument with Luci that morning. What would happen if I pushed him to remember, as if I were on his side? The bite of pizza crust on my tongue has formed a doughy ball, and I'm not sure I can get it down without choking. The last inch of beer in my
 
glass saves me.
  Mona's is a small place. Most of their business is delivery, accomplished with a minivan graced with a line drawing of Mona Lisa and a scrawled MONA'S ITALIAN, my first design job when I moved here. Kids from the local community college come here a lot, but summer school ends about now, and the place is quiet tonight, only one other couple. Even the usual music has been turned down low. A ceiling fan turns lazily over our table, stirring the aromas of basil and garlic.
  The other couple leaves Mona's just ahead of us. Outside, the parking lot is empty except for my red VW. It's a shock to leave the air-conditioning. At seven-thirty the temperature is still above eighty, and the humidity is high. We stand for a moment. Charlie squeezes my hand and then lets go and puts his arm around my shoulder. Maybe it's the couple of beers, or the way he's rubbing the cool skin of my upper arm with his fingers, or his unwavering skepticism about my fears, but the anxiety of the day slides a little, and I feel my head tilt back. Across the street is Kinko's with its blue-and-coral neon sign, and next to it a wide-windowed Laundromat. A flock of crows, lifting off from trees behind the buildings, caws and flaps across a luminous sky. I watch until the last speck has vanished. Layers of small, fleecy clouds, with flags of blue behind them, are shot through with streaks of silver. "A mackerel sky," says Charlie.
  I study his profile. His was by far the greatest loss when Luci was murdered, and as I follow his gaze back up to the sky, it occurs to me that I'm struggling to remember a time he's still trying hard to forget. I can be at the prison by two o'clock tomorrow and be home by six. Maybe that will put an end to my doubts, and Charlie will forgive me for not telling him about the trip ahead of time. "Mackerel sky?" I ask him. I'm looking for the shape of a fish in the clouds.
  "See the striped belly?" He's waving his hand broadly, side to side.
  High-school kids in a passing car wave back, and Charlie laughs at their mistake and lowers his arm around my shoulders again. Before I get into the driver's seat, I stand for a moment beside the car, closing my eyes to concentrate on the caress
 
of a slight breeze. If only Charlie could ease my fears the way he wishes to. When I open my eyes and focus my gaze above the line of storefronts across the street, it's there-- his giant fish, scales shimmering with silver across the summer sky.
  "I didn't get what you meant at first," I say, sliding behind the wheel and starting the car, "but now I see." A glance at his face tells me he's relieved he's brought me around to his way of thinking. For the sake of his peace of mind, I let him misunderstand.

  Saturday morning about ten I drop Charlie off at Shuey's Garage to pick up his van, then drive downtown to the police station, an old brick building a block off Main Street, across from the post office. On either side of the wide entrance, a pillar supports a frosted-glass globe bearing the word POLICE. Inside, I discover Detective Kenneth Hansen has moved into a front, corner office. The door is open, and I take one step into the room. From down the hall I can hear indistinct voices and the sound of a phone answered mid-ring.
  Actually I'm relieved he's not here. Old feelings of dread and longing for protection have returned, primed by the smells of pine oil and cigarette smoke. Though this office is bigger than his old one, the wall to my right is lined with the same padlocked, varnished cabinets. The tops of the cupboards are littered with confiscated drug paraphernalia. To me they always looked like a tangled lineup of Aladdin's lamps and Turkish water pipes. Detective Hansen interviewed me the day Luci was killed, and a few days later he had me return to read the typed statement. He instructed me to initial any changes I wanted to make before I signed the statement. Certain parts of the interview are cut into my memory forever:
  DETECTIVE HANSEN: So you saw Peter Garvey walk out the front door of the house, and you continued driving. Did you wave at each other?
  LINDA GARBO: No.
  HANSEN: Would he have been able to recognize you at that distance?
  GARBO: Well, I recognized him.
  HANSEN: But it could have been someone else at that distance?
 
  GARBO: It was Peter. When I got to the yard, he was lying under Luci's car, working on it. He was on his back. Only his feet and legs were showing. I said, "Hi, Peter," and went into the house.
  HANSEN: He didn't speak to you?
  GARBO: I tapped the sole of his shoe with my foot as I said hello to him. And he wobbled his foot, you know, from side to side and then slid out from under the car, and yes, he spoke to me, but I don't remember what he said. He had a dirty red bandanna tied around his forehead, and he had streaks of dirt under his eyes, I suppose from wiping sweat away with greasy hands.
  HANSEN: Anything else?
  GARBO: Before he stood up, I noticed dark drops of something staining the legs of his jeans. At the time I thought it was oil.

  I feel cold, standing here, as the panic I've been fighting for months begins its inevitable rise. But this time, maybe because I'm in the police station, the dilemma I have tried to repress for so long asserts itself with full force, and I feel myself grow very still. Did I actually see Peter's face outside the house that day?
  I was questioned by Ken Hansen a few hours after discovering Luci's body. The statement I signed, a transcription of that interview, became the truth for me. Standing here now, sick to my stomach all over again from shock at what the stains on the legs of those jeans really were, I remember how I hesitated, pen in hand. As I read my own words, I couldn't be sure if it had been that day Peter slid out from under the car and talked to me--his face streaked with grime-- or the day before. It would have been ridiculous to think anyone but Peter Garvey would have been lying under Luci's car. Of course it was Peter. I had recognized him from the top of the hill. And he had been there both days before the murder, in the late afternoon, when the house casts its shadow over the front drive where the car was parked.
  But reading my typed words, I realized it had been soon after Hansen asked But it could have been someone else at that distance? That I'd added that I'd seen Peter face to face when I got to the house. I knew what was at stake as I read the statement over, only a couple of
 
days after I had made it. Despite my confusion, I didn't make any changes. I signed it the way it was: ... he had streaks of dirt under his eyes.
  Throughout the trial--with all the other evidence that backed me up--I never once doubted that my memory at the time of the interview had been the most accurate, and that I'd been right to stay with it. What I couldn't anticipate was the attention of a certain newspaper reporter who didn't miss a day of the trial--a man I wouldn't be able to keep my eyes off when he would move into my neighborhood months later.
  At some level I must have recognized Bender.
  Now a small sound behind me makes me turn around to find myself face to face with Detective Hansen for the first time since Peter's trial. Though I'm sure I look startled, he maintains the calm expression I remember, his eyes a steady gray behind wire-rimmed glasses, his dark hair military-short. His lips are chapped. Even his thick-bodied stance-- hands on his belt, as if he has been standing there for a while--is familiar. He's wearing a gray shirt and a tie printed with bright yellow Woodstocks, the Peanuts cartoon bird, tumbling down it. When he gestures me farther into the room, I sit in the varnished oak armchair facing the desk. "What brings you by? I see Charlie around once in a while. But I haven't seen you since I don't know when."
  "I just stopped in to say hello," I answer, realizing at once how phony that sounds. "And to ask you something. You have time?"
  "You're saving me from paperwork." He inserts a finger under the collar of his shirt, tugging at it the way I remember. "What can I do for you?"
  "I ran into John Bender. He says he's talked to Peter Garvey recently."
  Hansen moves back and forth slightly in his swivel desk chair, his glasses reflecting coins of light. I remember how controlled his reactions always were, how well suited he always seemed to his task of questioning me without reacting to anything I said. His demeanor then was so wooden, so apparently passive, and now in a moment I'm seeing the more natural animation of the earlier part of this conversation vanish. After that one quick swivel, back, then forth, he's sitting perfectly still.
 
  "Did it ever occur to you I might have killed Luci? Did you ever doubt any part of my statement?"
  His laugh is a short, dismissive exhale. "For a time there was a theory you and Charlie were in it together. No one around here knew anything about you, you know." I refuse to blink, and he shrugs. "You had a grocery-store receipt in your car, as I recall, with the time of purchase printed on it. We checked Charlie's alibi, too, talked to his secretary. And we found three or four people who had driven by during the time period in question. One of them saw a man walking out of the backside of the woods behind your house--"average height, with dark hair, or he could have been wearing a cap." But there were a couple of kids fishing that afternoon, and they didn't see anyone." He pauses. "Personally, I never doubted you." He frowns at the wall behind me. "I don't know that it was smart of John to mention Garvey to you at this point."
  Smart?
  "It was one of Hilda Clark's strongest cases," he goes on, "not that it was an easy one to prosecute. Garvey wasn't the fool he made himself out to be. He killed her, all right. Bender's upset you for no reason."
  "I think he has a reason. I think you know what it is."
  Hansen stands abruptly and leans forward, his broad hands gripping the edge of the desk. "He does still talk about the case. You have to remember that Bender is a reporter. I swear the guy's looking for a story even in his sleep. Or if he has a story he's not satisfied with, he's looking for a new angle. The more he thinks about your friend's murder, the more he's convinced that the whole story never came out. That doesn't mean he doubts Garvey did it." Hansen straightens up. "He just isn't convinced we ever understood why."
  I stand, too, but if Hansen's trying to dismiss me, it isn't going to work. "If he were following me, observing me, would he be breaking any law?"
  "Trust me, Linda, Bender's a nice guy. He's known Pete Garvey his whole life, is all--not well, but they're about the same age and went to high school here at the same time. Bender's fascinated by what he calls
 
Garvey's lack of moral center.
John's the kind of guy who wants to know what went wrong. I'd trust him with my life."
  "When you questioned Garvey the next day, after he had sobered up, what was that like?"
  Hansen gives me one of his noncommittal stares. "He was very emotional, even sentimental about her death. But when I told him you had placed him at the scene, he barely reacted. He didn't seem worried until we arrested him, after a preliminary match of his prints with those on the knife. After that he thought everyone was against him. You, me. He suffered delirium tremens and got pretty sick, even more paranoid. If you recall, we put him in the hospital for a few days." Hansen's mouth curves down. He looks at me intently without changing his expression. The detective is shorter than I am, and he rocks himself up on his toes for a split second. I'm sure he doesn't realize he's doing it. "Being part of a murder investigation," he says, "being the one who found Luci Cole, well, of course, it's bound to have affected you. The more shocking things I've seen in this job come back to me from time to time as fresh as when they first happened. It's nothing to be ashamed of, unless there's something you're not telling me. If you want me to say something to John, I will."
  "No, please don't." Realizing that they are friends, and that he probably will repeat this entire conversation to Bender anyway, I feel my face heat up. "I'm not asking you to do that for me. I don't want you to. Thanks for listening."
  It's a wonder I don't tell him to have a nice day.

  My studio is near the center of town. After I bought the building, I renovated the loft over the back twenty feet of the space--an area that had previously been the office when this was a factory producing screen-printed sweatshirts --remodeling the bathroom and turning the rest of the space into one large bedroomstsitting room, with a small kitchen along the side wall.
  All the businesses on the four sides of this block back onto a large central parking lot. Directly across from my studio are the green clapboard back of the Grubstake Caf`e and the candy-apple red of The Little Read Book Shop, which Judy Allard runs. The rear wall
 
of The Little Read is mostly taken up by a huge grid of windows. Through the glass you can see stacks of cardboard cartons. That space would have made a great studio. I keep telling Judy she should take out the inside wall that blocks all that light, but she just looks at me funny. To her, ripping out a wall is a bigger deal than it would be to me.
  As I pull into the parking lot, Tess Allard, Judy's fifteen-year-old daughter, is coming out the back door of The Little Read. She's slender, with long, sand-colored hair, and she's wearing a tight yellow tank dress that shows off her legs. She's watching her feet, and I barely hit the horn to make her look up. Startled, she lifts her hand to wave but doesn't come any closer. "Hey, Tessie, you in a mood, or what?"
  Her answer is an exaggerated frown followed by a shrug and a weak smile to remind me the dirty look wasn't for me. "Later," she sings out, stepping back inside the store.
  I'm here to pick up my camera so I can take a picture of our house from the road on my way home tonight. I figure I'll take three or four shots over the weekend--at different hours, in different light--so next week I can do a sketch for Charlie's print, maybe even get the image onto the plate.
  Inside my studio, a skylight illuminates the main work area. A wide counter all along one side of the narrow, fifty-foot-long room holds a shallow sink and running water and an acid bath. The litho and etching presses separate the main work area from the front desk, where I talk with clients. Up front I pull the sketch of John Bender off the wall by the phone and put it in the bottom file drawer where I keep my camera.
  On the way out I stop at the back window that faces the parking lot and twist the camera lens as I scan the vivid lot full of red, blue, and white vehicles. Tess has come outside again and is standing behind the Grubstake, facing away from me. Her long legs are thin up to the hem of her short yellow dress. I find myself observing her patiently through the viewfinder, waiting for her to turn around.
  Glancing over her shoulder, she has a sweet, relaxed profile. When she turns
 
fully, her gaze moves from one side of the parking lot to the other as if she's looking both ways before crossing a street. Then something, perhaps some sound behind her, catches her attention, and her features sharpen. Something has pleased her. Peering past the camera, I see it's Russell Weber.
  Curious, I adjust the lens again and snap a shot of the two of them as Tess takes one more sweeping glance across the lot. As the shutter whispers, Weber reaches high, throwing his head back in a stretch--that awful hair tied into a blue bandanna. Then he cups his hand around his cigarette as he lights it and exhales smoke. If I hadn't learned his name yesterday, it's unlikely I'd be noticing him now. He's probably taken breaks like this ever since he started working over there. I press the shutter two, three more times as Tess listens to him intently, a smile never quite forming on her lips. Whenever she glances up at Weber, he looks away, and her expression turns grave again. Moving the camera slightly to the right to find the edge of the building for the compositional boundary I'm trained to look for, I snap one last picture--of John Bender, standing in the very alley where I faced him yesterday. He's staring at Weber.
  Even when I open my door to step outside, letting it slap shut behind me, Bender doesn't glance my way at all.

  My camera heavy around my neck, I cross the parking lot before Weber can finish his cigarette. I remind him about yesterday, down in Le's Salon. "Yes, I know who you are," he says. "You married Charlie." His manner is hesitant, even wary, as he studies my reaction. When I ask him how he knows my husband, he says, "I stopped by to see him the other day. He wasn't very friendly. He owed me money. I don't think he counted on my ever turning up to collect it."
  "He owed you money?" I lift the camera a fraction of an inch to relieve the weight against the cord on the back of my neck. Angela, the owner of the Grubstake, opens the door and orders Weber to get back inside, there are customers. He drops his cigarette, steps on it, and raises his eyes to meet mine. "I noticed you talking to Tess."
 
  His lips part for an uncertain moment before he says, "She's a nice kid."
  "I know that."
  "She comes in a lot, has since she was a little girl, apparently. To see Angela."
  "I suppose you know John Bender, too." Weber shakes his head.
  "Tall guy. Ponytail. Hangs around here sometimes like he has nothing better to do."
  "Sounds like me," says Weber. He smiles. One of his front teeth is darker than the others. "Don't know the guy."
  Weber hears his name again. He turns his head, and he's inside the restaurant before I can ask my next question. I look at my watch. I'd better get going if I'm going to make it to the prison by two.

  Prison has changed Peter Garvey's appearance. Gone is the puffiness under the eyes, which are clear and green. Gone is the sag below the jaw, though he's gained weight. His blond hair is darker. And he's wearing oval, wire-rimmed glasses. That's something new.
  When I pick up the phone on my side of the glass embedded with tiny hexagons of wire, he keeps his hands below the counter, in no hurry to hear what I have on my mind. I lick the dry corners of my mouth and recognize what's changed most about him. From the first moment I met him, in Luci's kitchen, he avoided looking me in the eye, as if he knew we were going to be adversaries. Now he considers me calmly. And picks up the phone.
  "Bender's been to see you." I mean it as a question.
  "For a reporter, he's slow to take a challenge." Peter's speech is deliberate. He has all the time in the world. "Still, if he got you here ..."
  I shake my head. "This visit was my idea, to see if my hunches about you are on the mark."
  "Well, I hope it's working." The irony is all in his tone. There's no hint of a sneer around his mouth, not so much as a flare of the nostrils.
  "The fact that you told Bender--"
  "I thought you weren't here because of him." I hold my gaze steady, as impassive as
 
Peter's. "Would you like to call me a liar, the way you did in court?" My face moves closer to the glass.
  "You and I are the only ones who know the truth," he says evenly. "What's the point of pretending with each other?"
  "Exactly." I start to breathe again. He leans back. "You're very good." His eyes tighten with the word "good." "We seem to have you scared."
  I refuse to falter. "You wrote to Bender." He nods. His eyes move to the side for a moment, his head staying still. I wonder if anyone is listening in on these phones. "You almost had me convinced of the dirt on my hands, the greasy smell of my own sweat. The blood on my jeans was a good trick, in full color yet." He looks past me. "You're an artist, all right."
  "You want John Bender to prove I made it up."
  "Whoever killed Luci is still out there. I think you know who it is."
  "Bender's interested in your motives, not mine."
  "He didn't waste any time talking to you about me."
  "That was an accident." Before Peter can react, I ask him about the argument he had with Luci the morning of the day she died. As if on cue, he recites word for word what he said in court, that she didn't want him in the house anymore. Everything was over between them. "She'd felt guilty before, sent me away. Then she'd get over it. It's not a reason to kill a woman, because she turns you down. Every man in the world would kill, sooner or later." He smiles a grim smile.
  "You grabbed her so hard you left ten clear prints on her skin."
  He tightens the fist holding the phone, veins standing out on the back of his hand. "I took a hold of her, sure. But not to hurt her. She still wanted me to finish her car. Before the day was over."
  "So you worked on the car to get back in her good graces."
  "No one with any balls would have done that. Ask Bender." For a moment he has forgotten himself, anger rising in his voice, and he even holds up his left fist, the one without the phone, as if to show me how memory is affecting him. "I told her
 
she should have gotten the car running before she kissed me off. She wanted to sell it. I told her that was her problem."
  Peter testified in court that he had not returned to Luci's after their argument late in the morning, but he also insisted he had blacked out, so he remembered nothing of that afternoon. That contradiction between certainty he had not killed her and forgetfulness of the time period of her death bewildered him, causing him to doubt himself visibly, right on the witness stand. As if he knows he's led me back to that moment, he says, "There's not a lot to remember about drinking in front of the TV on a hot afternoon in August." He pauses. "I'd had blackouts before. But I know I could never have seen Luci the way you found her and then forgotten, no matter how much I drank that afternoon. I would never have hurt her. I've strained to remember if I saw anyone around her house. Things about that day come back sometimes." He pauses to swallow again, with an effort that causes his chin to bob forward. After a long silence, he rouses himself from thought. "I went back to see her," he says softly, "after we argued. Maybe an hour later. About noon."
His lips nearly touch the phone. "We talked through the screen door."
  I hold my breath. This is something new, not part of his trial testimony. I suppose
I've asked to be lied to, coming here like this. But if he's invented a story, I have to hear all of it. "What did you talk about?"
  "She wouldn't unlock the door." Peter narrows his eyes, concentrating. "The crows were flying over, making that hoarse cawing racket, roosting in the trees, behind the house. She hated them."
  It occurs to me how much Peter Garvey's manner has changed as we've been talking.
He's lost the cool, confrontational authority with which he greeted me. But maybe he hasn't lost command of this conversation at all. He's prepared this story carefully. "She complained about the crows?"
  "She wouldn't come outside. Her hair was wet. She had washed her hair. I had taken a shower, too, before I went back over there, and shaved, put on shorts and a clean shirt. It was very hot and humid. She was holding a book, a finger stuck into it to save her place, a pen in her other hand, hugging the book to her chest. She said she was writing to you, and she tapped on the book with her
 
pen. She was quiet. She told me she was sorry she had hurt me. Then she turned and walked away, leaving me standing there. That time was different. I knew she meant it. I never saw her again."
  "So it was the kind of book you write in? A notebook?"
  "I asked her why she would be writing to you, when you were staying right there in the house. She didn't answer. She talked about you all the time."
  "What did it look like, this book? Small as my hand? What color?"
  "Some dull color. If she hadn't talked you into moving to town, she wouldn't have thrown me over like that. We understood each other." His expression has softened, but as he focuses fully on my face, his features sharpen again. "Then all of a sudden it was you she wanted to be with. She said writing in that book was like writing to you."
  We stare at each other.
  "She wouldn't unlock the door or come outside. She didn't like to be around me when I'd been drinking."
  "I thought she wouldn't come out because of the crows." Even as I hear my cynical tone, I know it will end the conversation. He knows I don't believe him.
  He frowns, but catches himself and says, "She had a diary," too determined to be convincing.
  "Of course she did."
  His expression stiffens again, and I see how he hates me for all I have done to him. With a slow lowering of my hand, I hang up the phone and turn away.

  I arrive home from seeing Peter Garvey just in time to make supper. Charlie doesn't seem to notice he's doing most of the talking while we eat. It's his turn to clean up the kitchen. As the dishwasher begins to churn, I curl up on the living room couch with the evening paper and open to the editorial page, which gives me a place to look as Charlie settles into his recliner across the room.
  Every once in a while something of Luci's will appear in the house--a single earring caught at the back of a drawer, a knot of pantyhose on the floor behind the dryer in the basement, a grocery list in her handwriting curled at the bottom of the potato bin. Just last week I moved a jug of
 
drain cleaner aside under the bathroom sink and found a Q-tip stained with green eye shadow. It's as if her lost things are rising to the surface one by one to remind me that she was here first. Maybe the next lost thing will be a diary.
  I'm still puzzling over the way Peter tempted me to believe that Luci's diary might exist: Then all of a sudden it was you she wanted to be with. She said writing in that book was like writing to you.
  Luci and I were not always close. When I first met her, we rented rooms down the hall from each other near campus one summer in Kansas
City, where we were both studying art. Because she was small and pretty, I immediately attributed to her a natural advantage over me in all things.
But she never talked much about herself, and the friendship didn't really develop until a certain
Saturday morning in late July. I was sitting on my bed reading, a cup of coffee in my hand, when I became aware of muffled crying on the other side of the wall. I lowered my book. No one else was there that weekend besides Luci and me. She was talking softly. I realized she was on the phone in the hall.
  I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stared at the open door. She was explaining to someone --she told me later it was a social worker--that she was pregnant. When she sobbed so hard she couldn't go on, I set my coffee cup silently on the drafting table by my bed and waited. The voice on the phone must have calmed her, because when Luci finally continued, her own voice was distinct, almost angry. She'd already given up a baby for adoption. She didn't want an abortion this time either. She was about to make a trip home to tell her mother. We had talked every day as we fixed meals together, walked to class --but all of this was shocking to me. Who? I was wondering. I didn't have a clue.
  When she finally hung up and I stepped through the doorway, she was expecting me. "I didn't know any other way to tell you," she said. Sobbing, she pulled her nightgown over her head in one quick motion and asked me to come with her into the bathroom, where she turned the water on full blast to fill the tub and lowered herself, lying back until the ends of her hair were wet. She told me how ashamed she was going to feel when she told her mother. I watched her slide her soapy hands over her
 
slender body, her belly so softly curved, her navel a dimple full of water. "Anyone who ever sees me naked will know, will see that my aureoles are brown," she said, pressing the palms of her hands against her small breasts as tears started again. The first time she was pregnant, she explained, her nipples had darkened. "A stain." She moved her hands to show me. I'd never heard the birdlike word "aureole" before, or imagined the slippery feel of her nipples budding against the palms of her hands as I crouched down to reassure her. Not a stain, Luci. The steam from the tub made the room too warm.
  I insisted that hating her body was hating herself, but she began sobbing noisily as she reached for a towel and headed for her room. I sat beside her on the bed and my arms were around her, fingers tracing the delicate spine beneath the smooth, damp skin. In a while the after-quakes of her crying stopped, and she relaxed quietly against me. And then she arched her back and took hold of my hand, moving it around to the front of her body. Her face was very close to mine, and I felt the heel of my hand press to resist. Abruptly she pushed my hand away, as if touching her had been my idea. "No," she said. No. She lay down, hugging herself. Her sudden change of mood made me unsure what had just happened. The front of my T-shirt was still damp from her hair, my hands still moist from her skin. I tried to think of what to say, but she was pretending to sleep.
  We never talked about that morning again, but through her bus trip home to a small town in central Missouri, and through the miscarriage she suffered on the way back to school, I was the one she called twice a day, the one she told those few facts. A flulike illness kept her in bed for days after she returned. Gradually she recovered, and we went back to sharing an occasional supper, walks to class, conversations about our work. I asked her a couple of times if she needed to talk about that trip, but she said no. I don't remember her dating at all during that school year, and she seemed almost prudish in the way she talked about her body. It occurs to me now that seeing the color of her nipples as shameful marks, stigmata, revealed some kind of hysteria. But at the time I was as glad as she was to drop the whole subject. To speak of it at all would have
 
meant wondering what she had wanted from me that morning, when she had become angry with me for pulling away. Now, looking back, I think she was inviting me to cross a line she was sure I wouldn't cross--to see if I would reject her altogether. I was her only friend. Once I woke up in a sweat from an unwelcome dream of stroking her there, where she was the color of an oak leaf in the fall, my tongue feeling the flesh gather and rise. A warm, golden brown muted to pinkish brown. Not a stain at all. She had planted a possibility in my mind that I didn't want.
  I've never been sure I remembered it right. That was ten years ago, when Luci and I were both in our mid-twenties. During the years after school we didn't see each other, but she called me six or seven times a year. I was in Minneapolis, and she was teaching art at the community college here in Linden Grove. She made a point of mentioning, whenever we talked, that she had no man in her life and that she still made time for her own art, as if the two pieces of information were connected. I was working for a graphic-design firm and living with Brad Tripplehorn--a tall, athletic dental surgeon I expected to spend the rest of my life with. He dared me to face all kinds of adventures: whitewater rafting, technical climbing, spelunking.
Brad insisted that if we lost the will to struggle against the calmness in our natures, we'd be doomed to dull, conventional lives. It was skydiving that finally did us in. Defying the fear of falling was supposed to save me from being ordinary. Next, I imagined, would come the Iditarod sled-dog marathon across Alaska-- or whatever it took to find my limits out there somewhere, pitted against nature. I had begun to wonder about limits that were in here.
  Standing in the open hatch of that plane with his hands on my shoulders, I finally realized I loved being unsafe, but I hated having to meet his requirements. Six months later he told me we needed some time apart. He needed a woman who could take risks with him. My first reaction was to be sorry I hadn't jumped.
  I was lonely, of course, during the breakup, and one day I called Luci, just to talk. During that conversation our friendship seemed close all of a sudden, after years of having an edge of politeness to it. She was the first to suggest that I might move
 
to Linden Grove. I made a number of weekend visits, staying with her and Charlie, before I decided I could be happy in such a small town. When I found an old warehouse for sale, the idea of living here more cheaply than I could in a city began to interest me. I could do just enough commercial work to make a living, and have time for fine-art printmaking, too. I had to make some changes in the building in order to live in it. When the work was nearly completed, I made the move. The plan was to stay with Luci and Charlie just until the city inspector signed the final permit.
  For the first few hours I spent with her in this house she seemed happier and more self-possessed than I'd ever seen her. The kitchen was painted lime green then, and the first night we stayed up late talking at the kitchen table. She'd been thinking about finding a small gallery space in town--white walls, track lighting, low rent-- supporting it by offering art lessons. She wanted to find kindred spirits in the area, other artists, because Charlie didn't think she was making friends.
  The next morning, though I was anxious to get to my building and work on setting up the studio, she asked me to stick around after Charlie left. She was still in the T-shirt and underpants she slept in, her dark brown hair tangled in kinky spirals. Her heavy-lidded eyes were bruised with eye shadow, her mouth generous, with a slight overbite. When she teased, she'd try to smile with her lips closed, but she usually didn't succeed. Laughter came easily to Luci. "A person could dry up and vanish in a place like this," she said, but then she grew serious. She leaned forward to tuck my hair behind my ear. "I just hope this will be a good move for you. At first I thought this would be the best kind of place to do my work, laid-back, safe, no traffic jams. But if a mime suddenly appeared on
Main Street--" Her head wobbled, mimelike. "Perched on a trash barrel, say, appealing to passersby to come close--" Her arms reached, fingers imploring. "Remember?"
  "A mime, Luci?"
  "Remember that photo of a mime, perched with his knees up like a frog, on an open-mesh barrel on the street in New York? In SoHo, I think it was. People stopping to stare? Well, in this town, people would keep on going, like they didn't
 
notice anything, pretending no one was there. As if the novelty of seeing someone so out of place were reason not to look. I feel silent and invisible, you know?"
  Although she seemed happy with Charlie, she apparently felt like an outsider in Linden Grove, but I sensed it wasn't time to pursue the idea. Maybe the next day. Or the day after that. She was nodding her head, the hoops in her ears bumping against her jaw.
  I reached out to trace the gold circles. "You sleep in these?"
  She touched her earrings with both hands to remind herself which ones she had on, her fingers touching mine. "Of course not, but I don't want to look completely let go when Charlie leaves the house, do I?"
  Her body stiffened as she said his name. "All I want is to please him," she said. We studied each other for long moments. Her skin was clear and lightly freckled, without makeup, except for the pale eye shadow. She was the sort of woman you'd notice and remember as striking-- and smaller than she really was at five-four and barely a hundred pounds. "There's not much excitement here. People don't argue and fight. Everyone's so nice. Like you." She accused me with a laugh. "You'll be right at home in no time. You'll see. Everyone's so polite."
  "How terrible." I watched her consider the bitten nails of her right hand. "You don't seem to be suffering too much. You seem content. And Charlie--"
  "Oh, Char-lie," she said, her voice catching. She got out of her chair and yanked open the refrigerator, studying its contents, her back to me. She brought an orange to the table, where she proceeded to peel it with her short fingernails. I was surprised to see tears pool along a bright line inside her lower lids, then spill over. "He's the sort of man you can't find fault with," she said softly. "That's the trouble. He's so good." Somehow I knew what was coming. "And I'm not. You should know that better than anybody."
  "Okay," I said when I could see she wanted me to press. "What is it you're trying to say?" She wiped her eyes with her fingers.
  All at once the door opened, and in walked a tall, muscular man, oak blond. He smiled like a kid, though he looked thirty-five
 
around the eyes and jawline. An oily smear curved over his right temple and under the eye, apparently where he'd touched his face with his fingers, which were soiled a glossy black. Luci recovered herself, sniffing her tears. As she introduced me to him, it became clear Peter Garvey was more at home than I was. He'd headed right for the sink to wash his hands with some kind of tar-smelling cleaner in a can by the faucet. Then he proceeded to get a glass out of the cupboard, find a lemon in a plastic bag in the refrigerator, and cut a slice for his iced tea, using a knife he pulled from a wooden holder on the counter by the sink. Before he sat down, he got himself an orange, too, peeling the fruit in one continuous ribbon. He gave the long curl of orange rind to Luci.
  The three of us sat there for an hour, the two of them doing most of the talking. A spot of color bloomed on each of Luci's cheeks, and as she gestured and laughed, her pointy nipples poked against her thin T-shirt. I was appalled by her careless behavior, and embarrassed that she seemed so comfortable sitting there half dressed. Her refusal to look at me made me feel even more conspicuous. His fingernails were dirty, and he scratched his chest a lot. Every time he took a swig of iced tea, he'd celebrate with a robust "Ahhh." I hated the scent of oranges in the room.
  As soon as he was out the door, I said, "I shouldn't be staying here. I'm obviously cramping your style." I stood up and turned my back on her. "What about Charlie? He'd be devastated if he knew. Charlie loves you." I paused. "He doesn't know, does he?"
  Her face crumpled. "I'm in such trouble. I'm not sure I can get out of this." She looked up at me, wet under the eyes. "But you're wrong if you think you shouldn't be here. I wanted you here. I knew telling you would make it real. I need to feel ashamed."
  I stared at her as if I'd never seen her before.
  Now I look over at Charlie as he drops the newspaper onto the floor beside his chair and closes his eyes. He works too hard. It's a good thing tomorrow is Sunday. We both need a day of rest.
  My gaze settles on the bookcase across the
 
room. During the murder investigation it came out that I was the only one who knew about Luci and Peter. If not for my arrival on the scene, her affair with Peter might have run its natural course, Charlie might never have known about it, and Luci's books would still be on these shelves. Her possessions would be stashed and strewn everywhere in this small house, as they were before I packed them into boxes and carried them out to her studio room at the back of the garage, where they've been stored ever since. Charlie couldn't face the task, so I gathered up her clothes, her shoe collection, her earrings, her letters and newspaper clippings, her books. If there had been a diary, a journal, a sketchbook--any record of Luci's private thoughts--I would have found it. I spent a whole day alone here, getting Luci's possessions out of his sight.

  Surprisingly, given all I have on my mind, I sleep until after ten the next morning and wake up refreshed. Charlie is in the kitchen, making pancakes. We spend what's left of the morning at the kitchen table drinking coffee and reading The Des Moines
Register, which we have delivered every Sunday. Charlie works six days a week this time of year; I take Wednesday off and work Saturday. Sunday is our one day together, and we usually go somewhere, a tradition we have maintained-- religiously, as Charlie says--since before we were married.
  When I fold up the travel section, done with the paper, I realize the coffee is gone. I've had enough anyway. I'm feeling jumpy again. As I start to rinse off the dishes, I notice the pinecone that's been on the windowsill above the sink all summer and suggest we take a drive later, maybe go to The Ledges. The state park is a couple of hours from here, a beautiful place Charlie introduced me to one Sunday afternoon last spring. "We could take another walk on the wild chives," I say, trying my best to make it sound like "the wild side."
  He gives me a blank look, and I start to remind him what I'm referring to. "Yes," he says, stopping me, "I remember," but he
 
doesn't smile. His eyes are still puffy, like when he first gets out of bed. I've distracted him from the crossword puzzle he's working. He makes a mark on it with his pen and says it's going to be too hot and humid to spend the day outside--the mosquitoes are terrible this year--and anyway, he doesn't feel like going anywhere. He's tired from the week. But he'll go if I really want him to.
  "No, that's okay."
  He looks at me to be sure I mean it, and I smile at him.
  The Sunday I'm remembering was in May, the first beautiful, sunny weekend after a spring that had been cloudy, cool, and rainy. Temperatures were predicted to reach eighty. As soon as we got to the park that afternoon, about three, we unloaded a red-plaid blanket and Styrofoam cooler from Charlie's van and claimed a picnic table near the shallow stream that meanders between high, butterscotch-colored cliffs. The rock walls of The Ledges rise up perpendicular to the floor on each side of a narrow valley. In some places the rock is browner, and wind erosion has rounded the rock formations into huge, organic shapes like elephants or hippos. I noticed signs warning NO CLIMBING OR RAPPELLING
ALLOWED ON FRAGILE SANDSTONE. Charlie pointed out ascending toeholds worn into the rock by climbers, and grooves here and there along the top edges of the cliffs where ropes had left their marks. There was graffiti, too, initials carved high on the cliffs. The park was filling up with families setting up volleyball nets, couples holding hands, children wading in the brook.
  Charlie and I took off our shoes and socks, rolled up our jeans, and stepped into the shallow stream. Laughing with surprise at the shock of the icy water, we put our arms out for balance as we made our way over broad, slippery boulders in the gentle current. I was beginning to think that negotiating the treacherous rocks was more tedious than fun when Charlie, who was ahead of me, reached a sandbar. He held out his hand to pull me onto safe footing, and we stood there, ankle deep in the clear water, securely grounded, holding on to each other. The air smelled of charcoal fires and roasting meat. We waded back to our picnic site to start our own fire in
 
the rusty iron grill by the table.
  Charlie had packed the food: T-bone steaks, potato salad from the Hy-Vee deli, a tomato to slice, a package of chocolate-chip cookies, and four cans of root beer. While we waited for the charcoal to burn to powdery white, then red, we lay on our backs and closed our eyes and listened to the stream whispering, and birds singing, and people shouting to each other happily off in the distance.
  After we ate, we took a walk. Charlie pointed out particular birds: cedar waxwings feeding on red berries in a chokecherry tree, a redheaded woodpecker tat-tatting away on a dead oak. He spotted a group of tiny, ruby-crowned kinglets and--high above the cliffs in the cloudless sky--a red-tailed hawk. "You're quite a nature guide," I teased him.
  "Count yourself lucky I'm not identifying the insects." He proved his point with a Latin term, long as a sentence.
  "It wasn't a complaint, Charlie. I like it. I was never good at remembering names. And you have a better eye than I do, for detailed markings." I thought I detected the faint scent of onions as a couple of teenagers approached. The girl, wearing a tight pink T-shirt, was in the lead. She was talking in a forceful, animated manner, gesturing broadly until she saw us. Then she dropped her arms to her sides, clamped her lips shut, and walked faster. The boy followed solemnly, a few paces behind. "Rosy-breasted warbler," I whispered to Charlie when they were safely past.
  "And isn't that a gray titmouse?" "Tit-mouse?"
  Charlie bumped into me as I turned to glance back at the retreating couple, and his arm went around me as we kept walking, but more slowly. "He's following her like a sleepwalker. The least he could do is puff himself up a little." Charlie paused, inhaling deeply to demonstrate. "You smell onions?"
  "I thought I imagined it."
  He hunkered down. "This area's been mowed recently, see?" He pulled a handful of bright green, grasslike plants, pinching the roots off with a thumbnail and offering me a whiff of delicate, oniony scent. "Wild chives. Mowing released the smell, and so did walking on
 
them." At that moment the sun went behind a cloud, and we decided to head back. On the way I gave my version of a nature tour, spotting a "red-faced realtor" in plaid Bermuda shorts and, as we passed a group of giggling middle-school-aged girls, a "gaggle of guinea friends."
  Along the path Charlie picked up four large pinecones, their surfaces closed tight and formal as the overlapping scales of a fish. To my surprise, he began tossing them into the air, first in a circle, then in a fountain pattern, higher and higher. "I was in the juggling club in college."
  "And you're showing off to impress me." "You bet." He changed the pattern of what he was doing, stooping to pick up another pinecone, then another, until he had seven going. Finally he launched them forward onto the grass, one by one --except for the last, which he handed to me with a bow. "For you," he said.
  That's the pinecone on the windowsill. I'm looking at it now.
  I leave him to his crossword puzzle. I guess I'll work in the yard for a while before taking my shower. I soon work up a sweat trimming the bushes across the front of the house. As I stand back to appraise my work, Charlie comes to the front door and asks me for a seven-letter word that starts with D, "a person who occupies a particular place regularly," but I can't help him. My mind is full of what Peter Garvey told me: We talked through the screen door. ... She was holding a book. ... Some dull color.
  After I take a shower to wash off the salty perspiration and oily insect repellent, I close up the house and turn on the air-conditioner and bake a cherry pie while Charlie takes a nap. The day slows. The house is silent. I don't know what to do with myself. When I hear Charlie get up, I fire up the grill for steaks, but I cook them too long and they're not as pink in the center as we like them. We don't talk much while we eat. If she hadn't talked you into moving to town, she wouldn't have thrown me over like that ... Then all of a sudden it was you she wanted to be with. "Did you hear me?" Charlie is saying.
  "Oh, sorry. I guess I was thinking about
 
something else."
  "I said I'm going to watch a golf tournament."
  He goes into the spare room, but when I go in there and curl next to him on the bed, he puts the TV on mute and pulls one of the pillows out from behind his back, so I can recline next to him. "I'm not exactly a bundle of energy today, am I?" he says. "I just didn't feel like going anywhere, but maybe I should have made the effort. You haven't been able to sit still." He's watching the silent screen of the TV, an instant replay of a ball circling the rim before dropping into the hole. When he notices me watching, he turns the TV off.
  "I didn't want you to do that."
  "Yes you did," he says gently, pulling me against him. "Now you have my full attention."
  I rear back enough to smile at him. "Maybe I don't always know what I want."
  "None of us does. Let's talk. Ask me anything."
  "What's the secret of juggling?" "Keeping the balls in the air."
  "No, really, Charlie." I settle my head into the hollow of his neck.
  "You might imagine the secret is to keep your eye on the ball," he says, "but that advice doesn't apply to juggling. You have to shift your attention from one ball--"
  "Or pinecone ..."
  "--or pinecone to the next, so you see only part of each object's flight. You have to look at the highest point and throw the next object when the previous one reaches the top." He pauses. "Maybe that's what we need to do. As we recognize a high point, we can aim for another just as high. Knowing there will always be ups and downs. And that there won't be any more highs without effort."
  I look at his face again and see that he's serious. "I wouldn't have guessed you were thinking about us today."
  "I wasn't really, until you asked." "I asked about juggling."
  "Point well taken," he says. "You've unlocked the secrets of my mind." He kisses me on the nose. He seems content. "Now tell me what you've been thinking about today."
  "Why would you owe Russell Weber money?" "How do you know Weber?"
 
  "He's the cook at the Grubstake."
  "He helped me build the garage. But he walked off the job when he was half done staining the siding, and he never came back. Never collected his last few hours' pay. Why?"
  "I just didn't know you knew him."
  "He could be a hell of a good worker, when I was here to keep an eye on him. A fair carpenter, good at finishing cement. Could even do wiring. The kind of guy who knows how to do a hundred jobs but never sticks to one. Later, when I tried to send the check to him, I discovered he'd left town. I never saw him again, until the other day."
  "What brought him back?"
  "Apparently an uncle has some rental property where he can stay, so he can get his feet on the ground. Told me he's starting a band. I didn't realize he was a cook." Charlie shifts his body away from me, pulling a pillow up behind his shoulders so he can sit up straighter. "He wanted his money. He apologized for taking off, but it's no longer important. I was plenty mad at the time. Now it just makes me sick."
  "Because he left before the garage was finished?" "The work was pretty much done."
  "That couldn't have been too long before Luci died."
  "Two or three weeks." Charlie hunches his shoulders, then lowers them again, as if he's trying to shake something off. "I might have been wrong," he says quickly, "but it occurred to me that in coming after his pay, he wasn't at all sure I'd give it to him. He told me he was sorry about my loss, that sort of thing. And all the time he was watching me like I was a bomb about to go off. I've never seen a guy so jumpy. On the other hand, would he come back for a hundred bucks if he'd been--" Charlie raises the remote control and turns the TV back on. The camera is tight on the golfer as he sizes up his final shot on the green, the commentator so close he's whispering.
  "If he'd been what, Charlie?"
  "Weber was around here for weeks. I can't help wondering if Luci was messing around with him, too. I gave him his check the other day, but I told him I never wanted to see his face again." Charlie clicks off the TV and swings around to sit on the edge of the bed, his back to me.
 
"He's not worth thinking about."
  I put my hand on his shoulder. "You know," he says, "up until now, today has been one of those high points I was talking about, knowing I can restore myself at home with you, when I need to. Comfortable and quiet. We almost got through the whole day without mentioning Luci."
  "I didn't know asking about Weber would bring up her name," I say gently. "Why don't you turn the TV back on? I'll lie here and watch it with you."
  "I didn't know you liked golf."
  "The whispering will relax me," I joke as he clicks the TV on and lies beside me. "I just want to be close."
  A while later I rouse myself and a seven-letter word starting with D comes to me unbidden: "Do-Every-Not-I-As-Every-Not," I murmur, but Charlie's breathing is so regular I know he's asleep. One who occupies a particular place. The room is dark and quiet. I get up and put on my nightgown and crawl into our own bed, but now sleep is out of the question. My shoulder muscles tense as my conversation with Peter Garvey resumes its unrelenting replay in my brain.

  As soon as Charlie leaves for work on Monday morning, I take a cup of coffee out to the garage and unlock the studio room.
  The first thing I do is open the windows to admit a pleasant, loamy breeze. Luci's large worktable is shoved against the inside wall, stacked with boxes, and her loom stands in the middle of the big room, draped in a white sheet. She brought me here the day I arrived, pointing out the slanted, eighteen-inch louvers across the ceiling that diffuse the light from the skylights and naming the trees outside the back windows: oak and ash, maple and linden. "What a perfect place to work," I remember saying. "No one would know it's here, hidden away behind what looks for all the world like an ordinary garage."
  "You always were this odd mix of artist and thief," she said, laughing. "Balancing your need to show off with a need to conceal. Very neurotic. I love you for it."
  Recalling artist and thief, I miss her, angry we can't finish the arguments we started during the final days of her life. Before I could
 
accuse her of contriving drama to avoid revealing herself directly, she evaded me. "You're right. You look great. Big and beautiful as ever."
  Hearing only the "big," I looked down over the hill of my chest past curved belly and broad, tanned knees, all the way down to stretched-out cotton socks and size-twelve sandals, and then over at Luci, in tucked-in white T-shirt and frayed cutoffs, who by that time had slid sideways onto the bench of her loom. "I'd be hard to hide. Like a thief or otherwise." I was watching her bare feet shift the treadles of the loom.
  She slipped a butterfly of yarn onto her fingers and began feeding it from behind through the weave of her tapestry, each movement effortless as a caress, while I admired the room, walking in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows. Though the garage is on solid ground, this room, supported by huge vertical timbers set in concrete footings, juts out over the ravine. Looking out those windows into the treetops, I felt like I was in a tree house. The two overhead fans weren't needed that day. When I turned back to her again, she was beating the wool tight with a fork that looked like an Afro pick.
  Suddenly she stopped. The woods outside, stirred by a breeze, burst into applause. "When I started this piece," she said, smiling, "I was afraid I wouldn't be able to do it. But I had to prove something to you." She ran a fingertip along the last line of wool. "Weaving is unnatural for me. I'm nearly defeated by the monotony, and taming materials that want to twist and tangle is penance for me. Did you know that?" She barely hesitated for an answer. "I didn't dream you'd actually pull up stakes and move here, Linda." She pulled the batten hard against the weave with a hearty whomp. "Time will tell if you're my friend or if you couldn't resist coming here to watch me disintegrate."
  I was too appalled to speak.
  "I slip, you see," she said. "Charlie's such a trusting soul, he looks at me and figures he sees me for all time. I'm not even sure what he should expect of me. Sometimes I can barely keep from running for my life." The loom shifted again with the finality of a door slamming shut.
 
  The fact that I've remembered her words all this time reminds me how mysterious they were at the time, how typically I listened without asking a single question. I slip. What was that about? The tapestry she had going involved many colors. While we talked, she was constantly trading the shuttle loaded with the background blue with loops of ivory, chamois, and citron yellow for what was left of the pattern. By the end of our conversation she was working in deep-blue yarn all the way across. "It's finished. One by one, I'm bringing things to completion." She smiled sadly. "Charlie and I might as well be married. What's the difference, if I'm never going to leave this place? And why would I do that?" The loom shifted again, for the last time. "Would you?"
  Now her once-rhetorical question haunts me as I walk over to the loom and lift the sheet so I can trace a line of the tapestry with my own finger. Was she testing the idea of leaving Charlie by denying she'd ever consider such a thing? It was only the next morning that she would sit at the kitchen table, complaining of being bored here. And what about her question? Would I leave? Will this place ever be as much mine as it was hers? Only now--as I begin to open every box and handle every silky undergarment, every soft T-shirt and gauzy skirt, every skein of brightly dyed wool, every letter and folded newspaper clipping I packed away all those months ago--do such thoughts occur to me.
  Finally, with both hands, I yank open the four-square-tuck closure of the only box marked BOOKS--THE word scrawled in my handwriting across the red, heraldic Seagram shield on the side. I packed this box neatly, out of respect for Luci, layering her paperbacks--the small size, with covers showing busty women bent backward in the arms of men with biceps like ninepins under titles promising PASSION, DESIRE, and LUST, the sort of romance novels I never knew her to read. There are a few others, pop-psyche books about "the child within," or "deciding to heal."
  I open the shoe boxes, lining up the dozen pairs of spiky heels on one of the open shelves, puzzled all over again by why she saved these gaudy, never-worn shoes with their rhinestone buckles, pleated bows, tiny straps to snake around the ankle. One pair is tomato and purple with bill-like toes, another gold lam`e
 
with Lucite heels in which threads of gold swim like excretions of tiny fish. The boxes are labeled UNITED STATES SHOE
CORPORATION, the company her father was working for in Missouri when Luci and I were in school together. I never saw her wear anything other than flat brown-leather sandals. These shoes are not even her size.
  When I've reached the end--opened every box, read every letter, unfolded every garment--I lock the room and walk to the back of the yard. Just a few feet into the trees the ground drops off sharply. It's at least fifteen feet to the bottom of the ravine. Birds whistle and chirp. Not a crow in sight.
  Before I can think better of the impulse, I hurry inside the kitchen and find the phone listing for the newspaper. John Bender will hear Peter's version of our visit soon enough. He may as well hear mine first. As the phone whirs, I plan what I'll say: You're going to get another letter from prison. I think you should help him. But when Bender's machine picks up after four rings, my heart trips. I hit the switch hook with my finger. The dial tone drones.
  This impulse to call Bender must have been like wanting to press the body where it hurts, to see if the pain is illusive. It's real all right. No matter what Hansen says, I still think Bender's been watching me.
  I head for the basement, where I search along the tops of rafters, behind fruit jars, under a dried-up can of paint. Whether or not it's true that Peter saw Luci around noon with a diary in her hand, his story sent me home to look through her things all over again. Something I would do only if I were worried I had put the wrong man in prison. The phone rings overhead, but I let it ring as I search and search. And find nothing but dust.

  I get to my studio later than usual and spend a couple hours fiddling with a brochure layout on the computer--a project I'm doing for BodyWorks, a local fitness center. By a quarter to twelve I'm starving, so I walk over to the Grubstake. The place is filling up already. I get the last table. As I order my food, a shadow falls across the menu. "I take it you had second thoughts about calling me this morning."
 
  I stare at John Bender long enough to figure out that The Linden Times has Caller ID on its phones. My hanging up without leaving a message this morning has brought him here, looking for me. He didn't waste any time. I'm more sure than ever that I've been right all along: He has more than a casual interest in me. Steam rises from his mug of coffee as he proceeds to sit sideways on the chair across from mine, the temporary posture of the uninvited. I don't know how to send him on his way without showing my anger, so I get up from the table and head for the back of the restaurant. I pause at the coffee urn, staring dumbly at the shiny surface of the coffee in my cup, two-thirds full, as I slide it under the spigot and touch the handle lightly for effect.
  Of course, Bender is watching, but when I return to my chair, his attention remains focused on something behind me. I turn to look. Beyond the pass-through to the kitchen, Russell Weber is reaching overhead for a long-handled pot, a red bandanna covering what I know are flattened ropes of yarnlike hair. "You know him?" I ask.
  Bender ignores my question. "You walked back there with a full cup of coffee." He takes a sip of his own, then clears his throat. "To follow up on our conversation from the other day, I think Garvey may try and contact you directly. He wants you to come and see him."
  "He told you that?"
  "Yes."
  "What else did he tell you?"
  "Nothing new. Just that you lied about seeing him that afternoon."
  Most days I eat lunch here at Angela's Grubstake Caf`e, a neighborhood place offering a few vegetarian dishes and light curries alongside homemade pies, chicken-fried steaks, and pork tenderloins. The ten tables are covered with bright oilcloth in an abstract tropical print and surrounded by wooden chairs painted the same vivid colors-- coral, cobalt blue, bright citron yellow, and the soft turquoise of copper oxide. Bender leans against the ancient pine paneling and fingers a package of Winstons in the pocket of his pale shirt. There's not an ashtray in sight. "I called you right back this morning, but you didn't
 
answer." He smiles, but it does him no good.
  I gaze at him, unblinking, until he shakes his head and considers the unlit cigarette in his hand. In a moment the waitress arrives with my Angela's Special, an odd but delicious arrangement of tabbouleh, cottage cheese, and tortilla chips.
  Bender dumps a packet of sugar into his coffee and stirs, studying the empty envelope before dropping it on top of the other two beside his cup. "Prisons are full of innocent men, Linda. None of the younger ones are ready to give up the hope they can escape by their wits. Pete Garvey asked me to visit him, but it isn't really my attention he's after." Bender bites his lower lip as I refuse to respond. "When you accused me of following you last Friday, I was really caught off guard. Why would I do such a thing?"
  "Maybe Garvey's convinced you I have something to hide."
  Bender shakes his head, studying my face. I have to look away. He rubs the crystal of his watch, then runs the fingers of his right hand back and forth along a white line from wrist to the base of his little finger. It's a scar, and I think of asking, but to my dismay my face warms as his eyes meet mine again--a bonding look, that intense. He might actually be attractive, if he weren't such a threat. Turning my head, I can see my reflection in the plate-glass window of the caf`e --the long streaks of light hair, the tilt of my oval face. Encouraged by the vaporous reflection, I smile at Bender. His eyes stop blinking, for three long seconds. "You actually interviewed me when Luci died?"
  "Only once," he says, "out at the house, the day it happened. You were holding up better than I would have under the circumstances. But I remember the way you were breathing, forgetting to inhale. And then when you did, it was like someone coming up from a dive. We only spoke for a few minutes. I don't go for the kind of journalism that puts the victims of misfortune in the spotlight at the height of trauma."
  "I wasn't the victim."
  "So I didn't feel the need to interview you more than that once."
  "Luci was the victim."
 
  "A crime like that has many victims."
We lift our heavy, ceramic mugs simultaneously, then lower them in silence, while Luci's body floats like the ghost of a flashbulb's afterburn. I want this conversation to be over.
  I pick up the check and reach for my purse, but I hesitate, remembering something Peter said: She still wanted me to finish her car. Before the day was over. ... No one with any balls would have done that. Ask Bender. I clear my throat.
"I've always believed Garvey worked on Luci's car to be near her, but if he killed her, why on earth would he ...?"
  "That was always the question, wasn't it? But don't try to think like a killer, Linda. A psychopath can commit murder, then resume watching television, mowing the lawn, fixing a car, as if nothing happened." If Bender noticed I said "if he killed her," he isn't letting on.
He succeeds in looking sleepy, even bored. But he interrupted me just now a little too eagerly, which tells me he's repeating an explanation he has come to doubt. "If we know he was there, why do we have to know why?"
  It occurs to me I have something I can give Bender, a piece of information to send him on his way. "Charlie gave Luci's car to the local high school," I say slowly, "so the auto-mechanics class could practice on it."
  Bender nods thoughtfully. Then, as if I have given him an assignment, he places a few coins on the table, drains his coffee cup, and excuses himself. I smile at my reflection in the window glass as he walks away.

  After finishing my lunch, I drive halfway home and park on the shoulder of the road at the exact spot where I saw Peter slide himself under Luci's car that day. My sandals scatter loose gravel as I slide down the steep embankment at the road's edge and find a footing where I can aim my camera through the break in the honeysuckle bushes.
  On the other side of the cornfield below, the house casts a shadow over the drive that circles past the front door and back to the road. By the nearest corner of the house, the drive y's away from the circle and goes straight back to the double garage door, which is wide open most of the
 
time, as it is now.
  The camera shutter's ch-ch is answered by insects as the place moves closer through the viewfinder. I lower the camera. From the opposite side of the valley Charlie's putty-colored van is approaching the house, trailing a wake of dust. Even through the lens I can't see his features at this distance as he gets out of the van. He walks out to the road and opens the mailbox, then turns this way and looks up at the sky, which is cloudless and faded this afternoon. As I wonder what he's thinking, just standing there so long, he turns and walks into the garage.
  I should snap another picture and hurry back to my studio. Develop the pictures. Start on a sketch of the house for Charlie's etching. But I'm unable to move. In the heat of August the underbrush--high and in flower--is abuzz with gnats and bees. Maybe my Calvinist ancestors have imprinted me with some genetic homing device drawing me to this hair shirt of a place. Above me on the road I hear a car slow to a stop, then the slam of a car door and the crunch of gravel under someone's foot. At once I'm flushed with panic. Inching up the eroded path, I stop when I've got the road at eye level. My lungs fill with heat. I can smell the dust that colors the air above the road behind the departing car. One I recognize.
  I return to my station down here over the edge, to my surveillance of the house. Charlie's secretary, Rosemary, drives a silvery-green Toyota like the one I watch as it slows down for the house and turns into the driveway. I take a shallow breath and wait until the dust settles. Her white blouse is untucked over bright blue slacks, her bottle-blond hair big and loose. She stands at the back door, then gives up. For a moment she plants herself in the driveway, hands on hips, looking around. I can almost hear her calling out his name as she approaches the open garage door, then stops. I can guess by the way her animated hand gestures stop and start that they're disagreeing about something. She doesn't go in. And he doesn't come out.
  Finally Rosemary turns on her heels, gets into her car, and heads this way. Looking down at the house that in an odd way Luci and I still share, I lift the camera and take one last
 
picture before I go back to work to develop the film. The shadows have shifted a little in the few minutes I've been standing here.

  I spend the rest of the workday printing photographs and sketching versions of the house. When I arrive home at the end of the afternoon, Charlie is in the kitchen unloading a basketful of carrots, tomatoes, onions, and peppers, the vegetables still muddy from the garden. He's facing away from the door and doesn't turn to look when he hears me. So I know something is wrong. When I hug him from behind, he keeps his hands in the sink. "Were you rummaging around in the room behind the garage?" he wants to know. "Because if it wasn't you ..."
  "It was me."
  His eyebrows draw together with displeasure, and the room is silent for a moment except for the plopping of the soup on the stove. Charlie glances in that direction, and I know he wants to turn down the heat under the kettle, but he's waiting for more.
  "I thought there might have been something Luci wrote, something to help me understand her better. She wrote to me over the years, about her thoughts. I think she kept a diary. Lots of people do."
  "Do they?" He glances at me just long enough to see my shrug, then returns to the mound of carrots and tomatoes. The bread dough I mixed this morning has risen too high and is spongy with gas bubbles. I punch it down a little harder than necessary, forming two loaves, until I notice that Charlie is standing still, watching me slap the dough into shape. "At first I thought someone had broken in, when I saw the mess. Then I noticed your coffee cup." He nods toward my favorite blue mug, back in its usual place in the dish rack by the sink. "I straightened things up out there. So you don't have to face it all again."
  Cleaning up after me implies I can't be trusted to finish what I started, or that I'm careless, I want to tell him. Instead, I concentrate on placing the loaves into tins, coating my hands with shortening and sliding them gently over the top of the dough, which is warm and soft as flesh. "I took some pictures of the house today," I say, keeping my voice calm. "When the sun was high, early afternoon."
  He doesn't look up.
  "Charlie?"
 
  Again he ignores me. After sliding a pile of diced potato off the cutting board into the soup pot, he returns to the counter, where he rocks his knife against the cutting board like an expert.
  "What was Rosemary doing out here today? I saw her from the road, when I was photographing the house. Was anything wrong?"
  He heads for the stove, cupping a two-handed measure of sliced carrots. "I'd missed an appointment with a customer, and when I didn't answer the phone all morning, she decided she'd drive out here. She said she was worried."
  "About what?"
  "Oh, she thinks I'm not taking care of business. It is my business. I told her that. She's getting tiresome. I'm afraid I said so when she came by here. I apologized later. She say something to you?" He studies my face for an answer.
  "Of course not. I rarely even see her, Charlie. She doesn't tell me things."
  That puts an end to conversation for now. Opening the baking cupboard next to the sink, I have to think of what I want to do next. I find the Karo corn syrup way in the back. When I tilt the sticky bottle in my hand, the quarter inch of syrup in the bottom barely moves, stiff with age. "Do honey and corn syrup--"
  "Hmmm?" He doesn't look up, so I reach for the pint jar of honey on the counter and pull it forward. It's basswood honey, from our own hives in the woods behind the house, and I don't see why I can't substitute it for Karo in my recipe. Charlie's knife against the cutting board continues its march.
  I pour five ounces of honey into a Pyrex measuring cup and then hunker down to rummage in the counter under the sink for a quart Ball jar--pale water-blue glass with a heavy lid of dull, pewter-gray metal. I scrape the honey into it and then head for the laundry room to get the orange box of Tide off the top of the washing machine. Back in the kitchen I add a couple teaspoons of soap to the honey. As I glance through the window into the backyard, I comment that the rabbits are back. But the look of fear on Charlie's face stops me midsentence. "Luci was not the reflective person you say she was, Linda. She could barely manage to write a grocery
 
list. She didn't keep a diary."
He's visibly unnerved, watching the blue flecks of Tide dissolve into the honey. He doesn't ask, so he must assume I'm doing something crazy.
  To answer the question he's so carefully avoiding, I tell him the formula for sugar-lift ground--the solution of honey, detergent, india ink, and gum arabic I'll use to paint an image of the house onto a copper etching plate tomorrow. My stomach tightens. "Did you pack her shoes away, too? When you cleaned up after me?" I am angry now, but it's a passive anger, the kind that holds things back.
  "No one wants her possessions, Linda. It's time to get rid of them." He bows in front of the stove to peer under the iron kettle and adjust the ring of blue flames I know are there, out of sight, like all remembered things.

  Tuesday morning when I dip my brush into the sugar solution, the bitter scent of ink, cut by the honey's sweetness, brings back the pain of Charlie's attitude that my behavior is sometimes irrational. With the first brushstroke across the copper plate I pull back and stare at the long, wet mark and wonder if I have set in motion a series of deceptions that will end with my losing him to Luci. I'm beginning to suspect he hasn't grieved for her fully. He's still very angry.
  I work quickly, focused as ever. By eleven I've painted about half the image onto the copper plate, which is lying flat on a layer of newspapers. It's upside down because I'm doing the branches that overarch the roof, and I want that area closest to me for now. The sketch I'm working from is propped in front of me, also upside down. The photos of the house, along with the six of Tess and Russell Weber, are scattered along the table. I finish the curving branches of trees framing the composition and begin to apply horizontal strokes that drag the still-wet vertical lines, forming a net of C@ezanne-like puzzle pieces. My right shoulder aches with the effort of holding wrist and elbow up so as not to touch the plate accidentally. Later, when I coat the plate and soak it in hot water to lift the
 
image, I don't want fingerprints to appear on the plate along with the house and the trees.
  The police found a lot of prints in that kitchen: mine on a coffee cup and on the frame of the aluminum screen door, Charlie's on a fresh apple in a bowl on the table and on the flat surface of the kitchen counter, Peter's on a glass by the sink as well as on the knife and on Luci's forearm. There were unidentified prints, from two different individuals. In hot, humid weather, prints can last for weeks. The touch of the hand is like that. Touch can leave a mark forever.
  I lift the plate by the edges and rotate it right side up. All I have left to do is fill in the blank copper above the roof. I've taken liberties with the camera's view, pushing the trees back to open up the sky. I lift my shoulders, rolling the kinks out. I've been working for two hours straight.
  Right after Luci's murder Charlie and I had the sense that our perceptions of each other would always be heightened by matters of life and death. The afternoon it happened, when he showed up drenched with sweat and thirsty from jogging, I put my hands on his shoulders and backed him away from the house, made him wait with me in the shade of an oak tree while the police finished taping off the crime scene. I didn't want him to see Luci there on the floor, that terrible wound and all the blood, and have to live with that sight for the rest of his life. He lifted his white T-shirt to wipe his forehead and kept his face covered for a few seconds. I thought he might be crying, but he was composing himself. The ambulance driver and paramedics questioned the police in the yard about what had happened; bystanders gathered to speculate among themselves as quietly as if they were already at a funeral. When Detective Hansen stepped out of the kitchen door, pulling surgical gloves off with two loud snaps, the abrupt, rubbery sounds made everyone in the yard fall silent. In that moment I knew we were in the hands of some terrible evil and that at all costs I must stay in control of myself. So much was going to be up to me.
  Only when they brought her out on one of those gurneys and uncovered her face carefully down to the chin for him to see did Charlie have to look. He averted his eyes from the people gathered around as
 
someone asked me questions, a reporter. I seem to remember that now. But I wouldn't let him talk to Charlie. I can almost, but not quite, remember that it was John Bender.
  We closed ranks after that, Charlie and I, sitting there in the yard, turning to face each other. He took hold of both of my hands, stroking one knuckle after another with his thumbs--a series of tiny, quickening circles of touch that took my breath away. I knew he didn't realize he was doing it. Nor could he know that even under such terrible circumstances he was affecting me in a way that had nothing to do with terror, or death, and everything to do with being needed. He even lifted my hand to his mouth, pressing his lips firmly against my fingers as if to steady himself. Much later, when I asked him about that moment, he didn't remember touching me at all that afternoon.
  Now the ring of the phone brings me back from such thoughts. It's Judy, calling from the bookstore. Her voice is tight, breathy. "Come over. Can you?"
  "What's wrong?"
  "It's Tess. Can you come now?"

  The hot asphalt surface of the parking lot is a field of puddles dimpled by a sizzle of rain. Judy Allard is at the front of the bookstore, making change for an elderly man in a yellow mackintosh. Judy is plump, lively, about forty, her strawberry-blond hair a crown of curls. Her customer nods, actually bows a little, as she tells him good-bye in her husky, smoker's voice. She turns and smiles at me. If she hadn't hung up on me just now, to make me hurry, I'd never have guessed she's upset.
  The farm report for today, August 5, is on the radio here in the back corner she refers to as her office. "Hogs are an eighth to two-eighths higher. Corn down an eighth." Last night at supper Charlie was explaining a jump in clover-seed yields, from one to sixteen bushels an acre, after he set one of his farmers up with maximum bee pollination. Crops are beginning to interest me.
  Judy frowns as she approaches.
Soybeans steady. Out of the small refrigerator on the end of the table, which doubles as her desk, she takes a wedge of cheese and a
 
large can of V-8 pierced by crusty, triangular pour-holes. She dumps a box of Wheat Thins into a basket lined with a paper napkin. "Did you see Mr. Fredericks?" She points toward the front of the shop. "He wanted to know why I named the store Little Reed. "Past tense," I kept telling him, "past tense. Like the color red." He doesn't get it."
  I turn the radio off. "What's this about Tess?"
  Judy pulls her lips between her teeth and looks away. Finally she inhales deeply and blows air out through ballooned cheeks. "She's probably at a friend's house, hiding out." The little bell at the front door dings. "Honestly, before I called you, hardly a soul had darkened my door all morning." She escapes toward the sound, but I'm right behind her, and I stay at her elbow while she collects for a magazine. The customer is a clerk from Ace Hardware around the corner.
  In contrast to her white blouse, Judy's skin is almost blue, like skim milk, a real achievement in Iowa, in August. She avoids the sun like a mole because of a tendency to freckle. I notice she's wearing a nicotine patch on her upper arm, something she's tried before. She's worrying the edges of the shiny patch with her pink fingernails as the customer finally leaves. "Stress makes me crave cigarettes all the more." She pauses, changes her mind about something. "Tess was helping me on Saturday."
  "I know. I saw her. I even took her picture."
  When we get back to the rear of the store, Judy puts her hand on the phone. "She rode her bike over wearing a really short dress, and I was mad at her. I don't like my daughter showing her ass all across town. I wanted her to go back with me. She took off in a huff. Her bike was found under a bridge out by the interstate. The last thing she said to me was "You always expect me to be perfect. I wish I could live somewhere else," and I said, "By the time I get home, you'd better be there.""
  "But she wasn't."
  "No."
  "You mean you haven't seen her since then?" Judy shakes her head. She's looking at her hands, fingers interlocked and shaking. "Tess
 
has stayed out all night three other times this summer. When she comes home the next day, she refuses to say where she's been. Last time she did this, Bill wanted her to spend some time at the youth shelter, for a cooling-off period, but I didn't want to admit we couldn't handle the situation. This time I just figured she was testing us again."
  "For three nights?"
  "I know." She looks like she might cry. "Yesterday I kept reaching for the phone to call you, and then I'd convince myself I had to keep the line free. You haven't come around much lately. I know something's going on with you and Charlie, but I need you, too. The vast majority of runaways return within forty-eight hours, on their own. Did you know that?"
  "I must have been the last person to see her--" "So maybe she's not a runaway. Maybe someone did something to her. Sunday morning Bill started talking to people, retracing her steps. All I could manage was waiting by the phone. When she wasn't home by last night, I went cold as ice at how passive I'd been. Bill says
I only care about what people think, but, of course, he's as scared as I am. I'm just paralyzed, remembering her face as she stormed out of here." Judy hugs herself, stroking her arms for friction. ""Cold as ice," those are Bill's words.
He doesn't mention Luci's murder, but when I look at his eyes, I know that's what he's afraid of. I kept thinking Tessie was about to show up, or call again. I still think that. Don't you think she will? Say yes."
  "More likely she'll walk through the door." "She said something else. She said, "I'm so tired of watching you every minute.""
  "What did she mean?"
  "It can't be good." The front of Judy's white blouse strains apart in crescents. She pulls on a bust-level button nervously. "I'm afraid of her, Linda. She has something in her we didn't put there, some influence. She's the one who bears watching, not the other way around. Don't say you were the last person to see her. It sounds like you mean ever." She flinches as the bell signals the arrival of another customer.
  It's the paper carrier, a tan-haired boy of about ten, with The Linden Times. She's reading
 
from it as she walks back toward me.
"I wanted to tell you before you saw this. We should have called the cops sooner. We just kept thinking she'd come home."
  The fuzzy photo of Tess smiling with her lips held carefully together is from last year, when she wore braces on her teeth and still looked like a little girl. That was before her torso lengthened and she started wearing lipstick and short dresses, like in the five shots of her and Russell Weber scattered across my worktable. In one of them she is trying not to smile at him. It's not hard to imagine that Luci might have looked at Weber in that coy way. But Tess? "She's an innocent girl."
  "That's the whole point, isn't it?" Judy sinks into a chair and covers her face.
  "Let me help," I murmur as she takes a shuddering breath. "I'll enlarge one of the pictures I took of Tess Saturday, make copies." Cropped, of course. With Russell Weber cut away.
  Maybe Luci was right when she accused me once of being too self-contained, minding my own business instead of getting involved to the point of friendship in the lives of people around me. If only I had put down my camera and walked across the parking lot, before Weber showed up, and said, "Hey, Tess. What's with the angry face? Who you mad at?" As I stroke Judy's hair, I realize how absorbed I've been in my own worries. "Has Tess ever talked about Russell Weber?"
  Judy's lips part soundlessly, as if some terrible possibility is dawning for the first time. "Why?"
  "Has she?"
  "No."
  As I tell her about the conversation I witnessed between her daughter and Weber on Saturday, I remember another picture I took, the one of John Bender, watching from the alley. I wasn't the last person to see Tess in the neighborhood. While I was taking that picture, Weber must have seen Tess get on her bicycle and ride away.

  In the clearest photo Tess's face is turned to the left, in profile, talking to Weber without looking at him. He is looking at her
 
feet, suggesting a furtive exchange that I entirely missed until now. Or maybe the camera is lying, in the same way the human eye can lie. I walk to the back window of the studio. Judy has locked up Little Read and gone home. The rain is over for now, leaving the sky a dark navy blue. I return to stare at the copper plate lying on the table, at that empty, unfinished sky over the house where Luci died.
  I'm more certain than ever that Charlie was wrong when he said there is no one out there who could harm us. In a flash Tess is sprawled the way Luci lay, and I stand up abruptly, reminding myself Tess is just an angry kid, making her mother pay. When I showed her these photographs, Judy saw nothing at all stealthy in the way Weber looks at Tess. Such is the power of denial in the eye of the beholder.
  According to Judy, Bill has organized an afternoon search of the wooded area adjacent to the abandoned railroad trestle where Tess's bicycle was found, so I drive out past the edge of town to where the blacktop turns to gravel. The long, multicolored gauze skirt I've got on is not really appropriate for tramping through underbrush, but I don't want to take the time to go home and change. If Tess is with someone who wishes her harm, finding her could be a race.
  Three other cars are already parked off the road by the time I arrive to begin the walk along the muddy trail. The tracks that lay along this raised bed have been replaced by parallel paths worn by hikers. Branches of trees meet overhead, loaded with songbirds. After about ten minutes I can see a section of chain-link fence across the path in the distance. Behind me I think I hear a car door, but when I look back the way I've come, I see nothing but a star-shaped piece of sky at the end of the tunnel of trees. Up ahead the fence marks the place where the bridge once took off over the wide creek bed. It's there to save me from walking off the edge of the earth. A twig snaps behind me, but this time I don't look back.
  When I get to the steep path around the right-hand edge of the fence, I slide down to a level, dirt area beside the concrete footings for the ruined trestle. I can't see water through the brush, but I can hear it. Clouds of tiny black midges
 
hang in the humid air. The timbers of the collapsed trestle lie carelessly strewn below, across the deep ravine, like Lincoln Logs. There's ample evidence kids meet here--beer cans and the charred remains of a campfire inside a circle of rocks. One of the two-foot-thick timbers is charred, and the stone-gray concrete bridge support is cool to my touch and covered with graffiti. Crouching, I grip a fi/l of damp, black dirt and hold it until it warms in my hand. I wish I could believe that Tess herself stood on this very spot, and that if I concentrate hard enough on this fi/l of dirt, I might imagine where she went from here. It's the sort of fanciful impulse I'd expect of Rosemary Lindstrom, Charlie's secretary, who is known for her uncanny way of revealing secrets by holding inanimate objects in her hands. I drop the fi/l of dirt in a hurry.
  Tess is so smart she skipped a grade.
Last summer when she used to come over to my studio and watch me work, I'd give her paper and oil pastels and she'd draw happily for hours. She got her ears pierced the day she got her braces off, though her parents had forbidden it. This summer she's been too busy to come see me at work, busy with things I don't know about, apparently--like staying out all night. She's shy and quiet, a personality that masks her cleverness and maybe unhappier traits as well. It's not a lot to know about a person.
  All of a sudden, with a violent updraft of sound, birds rise straight up in fright from the trees, wings beating the air. A painful drumming enters my chest. John Bender is sliding down the embankment, gripping the fence post to stop himself. He sees my expression. It takes all my breath to say, "What do you think happened to Tess?"
  He's watching me closely. "I figure she met someone here, someone with a car. But none of her high-school friends saw her Saturday night." I look toward the closest of the two concrete supports, which is a good four feet wide and six feet tall. Tess's name appears there like magic--bold and prominent, though the surface is solid with color. The letters are layered over earlier graffiti and embellished with vines and flowers, like a book illumination, the S's curved as snakes. Under her name is a
 
bright red heart, and under that another name, painted in the same elaborate style. I walk over to the wall and trace the serpentine S's, then the heart, with my fingertips. Bender is right beside me. I'm so panicked I feel as if breathing is an act of will.
  We both stare at the snarl of spray paint and chalk, sentiments so weathered as to be illegible with a kind of chaotic and--because Tess is gone--sinister beauty. "I never would have picked that out," he says. "And here you see it right away. "Tess loves Russ."" He clears his throat. "Jesus." He studies the colorful surface up and down. Then he leans against the concrete. His favorite posture, it seems. His left shoulder bruises with color that rubs off the concrete onto his shirt, orange browning into blue.
  "You know the other day when I was getting my hair cut in Le's?" I ask him. "When you followed me down there?"
  "I wasn't following you."
  "You weren't going down there to get your hair cut." He fingers what I know is the usual red rubber band at the nape of his neck. "You don't seem like someone who'd frequent such a place. Russell Weber was in the salon at the time. Maybe he's the one you were checking out. Maybe you thought there might be some other business going on down there besides hair." I stare at the TESS and RUSS, separated by the valentine stand-in for the word "love." "You think this could be Russell Weber?"
  Before he can answer, we both turn our heads toward the sound of voices and the rustling of someone tramping through the underbrush. John moves uphill a bit, shading his eyes.
  "If I had known about your interest in Weber," I say, "I'd have been across that parking lot like a shot when I saw Tess talking to him. Detective Hansen asked me what I thought they might have to talk about." I pause to swallow before I continue the lie. "Hansen has a pretty good idea."
  "What did he tell you?"
  "He told me why you've been watching Weber."
  "I keep my eye out to help Hansen, but I've never seen Weber pass anything to anyone. Maybe he's clean. I can't go around starting
 
rumors and blow Hansen's investigation."
  I remember one of the photos: The Girl and The Cook, refusing to look at each other, all four hands out of sight for the moment my camera happened, by chance, to record. Suddenly the sounds around me rise to a level I can't ignore: the sweep of the stream below, the dreary buzz of insects, the distant throb of trucks on the interstate--sounds that surge up through my body as I brace myself. "The high-school auto-mech teacher is due back in a couple days from a family vacation," Bender says. "I'm going to find out what he remembers about Luci's car. You're not afraid of where this might lead me, are you?"
  I falter, wiping the sweat off my upper lip with the back of my hand. A series of shouts off in the distance come closer, and I sink heavily, hugging my knees to my chest, hearing a roar. Crouching down in front of me, Bender gently lowers my hands from my ears, his face so close I avert my eyes and stare at the thin white line of scar on his suntanned right hand and the oval red stain on my fingertip, from the graffiti heart. Rubbing finger and thumb together makes the color spread, and onto the palm of my left hand when I try that. Even when I close my eyes tight, I see red.
  "Don't try to talk."
  I raise my head and glare at him.
  He says my name gently, coaching me to lift my shoulders with his, exhaling when he does. "Yes," he prompts me. "Good." Gradually my heart slows. His face is still close to mine, until the moment embarrasses me and I stumble to my feet. He's kneeling on the hem of my long skirt, and I lurch sideways to pull free.
  His hands grip my shoulders just long enough to steady me, and then I twist away to look longingly at the uphill path leading over the embankment above. "She has to be okay."
  "We'll find her."
  "Hansen didn't tell me Russell
Weber is suspected of dealing drugs. I was bluffing," I manage to say at the very moment Bill appears out of the brush, his round face shiny with the heat and the band of his green baseball cap stained with sweat. I can't tell from his grim expression whether the news is good or bad.
 
  "We didn't find anything," Bill says to Bender, who says, "Thank God." Bender proceeds to introduce me to the other two men, Alan Gunderson and Robert Reed. They nod, wiping their faces with handkerchiefs, silent with fatigue.
  Bender falls into step with me as we walk to our cars. Ahead of us, Bill Allard smooths the back of his head with his left hand, replacing his green bill cap on his shiny, bald head and quickening his pace as if he could know he fits the description of the man Detective Hansen told me was seen emerging from the woods on the day Luci was killed. Bill knew Luci in college, long before I knew her in art school. For the first time I wonder if their friendship was as innocent as everyone thought.
  As usual, Bender is pretending not to watch me. "Thanks for the breathing lessons," I tell him, "but don't get the idea that makes us a team."
  I sit in my car for a few minutes while the others pull out and head for town. Bender is the last to go. He actually waves. Something dark and immense blocks the sun, and I lock my doors. It's only a cloud full of rain, which moves on, giving back the light, but not the heat. I put my car into gear. Driving on loose gravel will require unhurried acceleration, so as not to skid and slide and lose control. Being seen in a fit of hysteria by John Bender has turned my fear to anger. I open the window and taste the metallic, storm-laden air. Something tells me I've suffered my last panic attack.

  As soon as I get to my studio, I call Ken Hansen to tell him about the snapshots I have of Tess Allard. "A recent photo might help," he says, "if this doesn't get resolved right away. The girl's been abusing alcohol, coming home in bad shape. Her dad thinks she's been experimenting with other substances as well." Hansen wants me to hang on to the photos for now, but when I describe Tess standing next to Weber, smoke rising from his mouth, right shoulder nearly touching the back of the girl's head, the detective says he'll come right over and get them.
  I've fanned out the pictures in my hand. I
 
ask Hansen if he's ever suspected
Russell Weber of illegal activity, but he doesn't answer right away. I figure he can't tell me that kind of information. The photo of Bender alone in the alley is on the bottom of my hand, at the far right. I pull it out so I can see it better, as if it were a card I don't know how to play. Hansen is telling me he has already questioned Weber about Tess's disappearance because Bender remembered seeing them together on Saturday.

  As soon as I get home, I try to call Judy. Her line is busy. From where I stand just inside the kitchen, I can see Charlie in his recliner in the living room, the newspaper folded and forgotten over his knees. I know I don't have to explain that my rush to the phone has to do with the front-page story about Tess. Usually when I open the back door, the sound brings him into the kitchen, to kiss me hello.
  Finger still on the switch hook, I tell him about the place her bicycle was found, about Judy's denial of the danger Tess might be in, and about Bill and the other men searching along Onion Creek. I tell him the police have questioned Russell Weber, because she was seen talking with him behind the Grubstake right before she disappeared. "I'll bet Judy's talking to Tess right now. Or someone's found her. Otherwise they'd be keeping the line free."
  Charlie comes to stand close enough for me to touch his arm. "If Bill was raising volunteers," he says, "I wonder why he didn't call me."
  I never thought of that.
  "I know the place you mean. I used to go out there when I was visiting my grandparents, to drink beer and sing dirty songs."
  "And spray-paint your initials? Did you do that?"
  "Considering what kids write on walls these days, those were innocent times." His expression alters, but he can't quite smile.
  This time when I punch the tune of the Allards' number, the phone purrs three times, and Judy answers. "Bill was talking to someone about doing flyers with that picture you took. We have to keep this short. I made him go take a shower. He
 
said he saw you this afternoon with a reporter. What was that all about?"
  "I'll do anything I can to help. Charlie, too. I'll blow up the picture tonight and bring it over." She sniffs softly as I describe the graffiti, the bright colors and layers of lines, a record of generations of area teenagers who have survived adolescence to become fine adults, just as Tess will.
  Charlie looks sadder than I've ever seen him, lines carved into his forehead and down from the sides of his nose. The thought that Peter Garvey, a local boy once, too, might have written his name there when he was a kid presents itself in my mind and is covered over immediately by the gestural S's of TESS and RUSS. "When she comes back," I say to Judy, "I should give her some real drawing lessons. I could tell she did those initials herself. She has a good mark." Judy sniffs again. "I know Tess knows Russell Weber. Does she know anyone else named Russ?"
  "Yeah. He was her steady boyfriend." "Is."
  "She broke up with Rusty a few weeks ago. She actually told us about it."
  "Rusty?"
  "Rusty Burkhalter. You know Mandy and Fred Burkhalter?"
  "No."
  "You're lucky."
  It's such a relief to learn about this other Russ, a red-haired boy, a reasonable candidate for having his name chalked on the trestle pillar. "Whose idea was it to break up, hers or his?"
  "Hers. Our all-too-obvious relief really set her off, though."
  "So she wasn't surprised or hurt by the breakup." I wait a minute, until Judy's finished blowing her nose. "Not despondent or anything."
  "Definitely not despondent. More like royally pissed. This is not it, Linda."
  Judy asks to get off the phone, but when I hang up, it immediately rings again. It takes a beat or two for me to realize whose voice I'm hearing: "My mom isn't there, is she?"
  "No, Tess. Where are you?"
  Charlie stays where he is, relief rolling
 
across his features like water over sand, removing the lines from his forehead and around his eyes. "Our line's been busy," Tess is saying. "Then I got so scared they'd answer this time, I called you instead."
  "Tell me where you are."
  She makes the jerky inhaling sound children make when they've been crying themselves to exhaustion. "I'm not really ready to talk to my mom yet anyway. Or Daddy either. Can you come get me?"
  "If you'll tell me where you are." This time she does. She's in Creston, a town about sixty miles from here, calling from a minister's house, a Reverend Cooper. "He's really nice," she says sweetly, as if she's been away at camp. I'm sure he's standing right there.
  "I'll call your folks for you as soon as we hang up."
  "How about if just you come?"
  "You've scared them to death. It's their place to come get you. Nothing's changed that, has it?"
  "I guess not."
  "You're all right?"
  "Yes." Her voice is small and tired. "I'm very glad you called here, Tess. So is Charlie."
  "Yeah, well, I saw my face in The
Des Moines Register this morning."
  "It was in The Linden Times, too."
  She groans. "Seeing that picture, I got really scared for the trouble I've caused. You took that snapshot of me on my birthday last year, remember? You came over and brought me some pearl earrings because Mom had told you I wanted to get my ears pierced, but Daddy hadn't given permission. So there was this big fight after you went home, you know, like one of those really stupid arguments they have over some little thing that's supposed to be about me and then ends up leaving me out. Seeing that picture scared me, but it made me feel good, too. My mom admires you. She talks about you all the time. I thought you'd be someone who maybe they'd listen to, if you know what I mean. I could always talk to you anyway."
  "It's been a long time since we had a good conversation, Tess. I miss your coming over to talk while I work. I guess this summer hasn't been an easy one. But as for your folks, I think you have their attention."
  "I just want to come home."
 
  "We'll be there in an hour."
  "I cut my hair," she says hopefully, as if she's not quite ready to end the conversation.
  "Stay put, okay? We all love you."
  The Reverend Cooper gets on the phone and assures me she's fine. I write down the address before I hang up, and Charlie calls out from the other room, wanting to know where she's been all this time. He's angry.
  My throat contracts, and I'm mutely shaking my head no because we still don't know where she's been, and there could be something terrible in the answer to that question. When I recover myself, all I can say is "She cut her hair." I step into the doorway so I can see him while I press the buttons of Judy's number one more time. He's pacing the living room, fists at his sides.
  When I hang up the phone, Charlie says, "You can count me out." With both hands he combs his hair back from his temples and forehead two, three times. "She's had half the town thinking she's been kidnapped, or raped. Or worse. Staying away this long is not a lark. If she were mine, I'd lock her up for a month."
  "I think we should offer to drive Judy and Bill to get her, upset as they are. It would really help them. Anyway, Tess asked me to come. You'll be over your anger by the time we get there. She's safe, Charlie. I don't understand your reaction. She's coming home."
  He walks to the front door, where he stands looking out across the gravel drive and the lawn and the road and the cornfield beyond. Judy and Bill are probably waiting at their front window, watching for us, resenting Tess for pulling us into her homecoming. Charlie's stillness hangs in the air like an unfinished conversation. When he turns around at last, he sits on the sofa and puts his face in his hands. I'm not sure touching him is the comfort he needs; I'm not sure what he's thinking. So I simply sit beside him, and he says, "You go. You don't need me. I think I'll move Luci's things out of the garage tonight. I wish to hell I hadn't hired Weber to help build that garage. Now every time I hear his name, I can't help wondering what Luci might have done with him behind my back. I need to get her out of my life for good. Lately everything reminds me of her."
  "We can move her things another time, Charlie.
 
Right now we can help Judy and Bill.
I don't feel like going without you. I want you with me."
  Charlie's look tells me that's just what he wanted to hear.

  After his attempt at refusal in the living room, Charlie stood up and said, "Okay, I guess we'd better go, then," and proceeded to drive us all in his rattletrap, cavernous van to Creston. Tess has cut her hair short as a boy's--a spiky flattop with a tiny, braided tail at the nape of her neck. She's dressed like a boy, too, in faded jeans and a London Hard Rock Caf`e T-shirt that looks as though it's been used to polish furniture.
  Charlie hasn't stopped talking since Judy and Bill rushed down their driveway to get into the van, and now he's dominating the conversation on the ride home from Creston, too. Tess claimed the passenger seat up front with him, slipping past me as soon as I opened the door-- despite the protests of both parents, who wanted her in the backseat with them. Now Charlie's trying to relieve the tension by telling one of his bee stories, the one about the Carmichaels, who live north of town and who do organic, no-till gardening and whose bees kept vanishing by the hundreds last summer.
  "How would you solve this mystery?" Charlie has just asked Tess. "I made five trips out to the Carmichael place in a two-month period last summer, and every time I installed a new package of bees, I'd get a call in a few days that there were hardly any survivors left in the hives."
  Judy, sitting between me and Bill, sighs every few minutes. "We shouldn't have let them do this," I hear Bill say, though his voice is low.
  "You mean drive?" I bend forward to look past Judy. Bill is looking straight ahead. "We really wanted to help."
  "Yeah," he says. "I'm sure it was a relief to her." Leaning forward, he reaches between the front seats toward Tess's shoulder.
  She shrugs off her father's touch. "I don't know," she says flatly to Charlie. She's looking off to the right, where the sky has the same layered, silver sheen of another evening, another
 
mackerel sky.
  Bill freezes, his arm extended for long seconds, and when he sits back again, it's with a shrug of frustration. Judy's left hand goes onto his knee. "We'll be home soon," she whispers. The thin stripes of Bill's black-and-white shirt and his high, pale forehead render him more visible in the dim light of the van than is Judy, who in pink seems to fade away. "Count to ten. Empty your mind."
  "Well, think," says Charlie to Tess. "You've got a lot of missing bees. What could the culprit be? You're the detective."
  "Bee detective?" Tess says, a drone of sarcasm in her voice. "Yeah, right." In the brief sweep of light from an oncoming car, her profile turns toward him, her forehead and nose shiny, her haircut revealing the delicate stem of her neck.
  "This is a serious matter," responds Charlie, meaning it. "They have an orchard, and alfalfa to sell for cash, and they'll lose most of their crops without pollination. They depend on bees."
  Judy clears her throat, and I nudge her gently with my elbow. Silently I hope Tess cooperates with Charlie's attempt to make this seem like a normal outing. The van's tires tick over the lines of this often-mended section of road, and Bill coughs once. "Why does she want to look like that?" he asks. "And who gave her that shirt?"
  With this, Judy stiffens, addressing her daughter for the first time since we all shut ourselves into the van together. "You know that picture Linda took of you out back on Saturday, Tess, just before you left? I've been imagining your face on the sides of milk cartons, all in a row at Hy-Vee. Your long, shiny hair. Looks like you were trying to make yourself look as different from that girl as possible."
  "What picture?" Tess has risen up to look over the back of her seat, right at me. She's definitely not pleased.
  "You were busy talking," I tell her. "Behind the restaurant. You didn't see me."
  Her eyes narrow, lips parting. "Well, aren't you full of surprises," she says at last. Then she rises up even more in her seat, moving her gaze from me to Charlie, then to her father,
 
then her mother, fixing each of us with a glare of accusation. Finally she settles down again so I can't see her face. "You never know when you can trust a person, do you?" she says, in a tone only Charlie is meant to hear.
  "What about the bees?" he asks her. "The bees have a disease."
  Judy's laugh is manic. Against my left shoulder, I feel her tense. "Leave it alone," I whisper. We'd all rather listen to Charlie talk about bees than witness an explosion of feelings here in this confined space. "Put your hand back on Bill's knee."
  "This road is for shit," he's calling out to Charlie, over wind noise and rattles. "I don't know why you came this way." The van smells faintly of honey, though there's none on board.
  "There are no bodies, so it can't be disease," Charlie is saying. "Guess again."
  "Then I suppose it was a bee thief," says Tess wearily.
  "Be serious," says Charlie. He glances over at Tess as she twists her body to face him again.
  She pulls backward slightly, her face in profile. She's not too sure of this. "Be serious?" she echoes.
  Charlie deepens his already deep voice. "There are no serious bee thieves around these parts, I assure you. Here's a hint. It has something to do with religion."
  "Religion?"
  "Religion."
  Judy sighs.
  "She's a bit beyond bee thieves, Charlie." This is Bill. "She's fifteen."
  "You're the one who forgets she's not a child anymore," Judy says to him coldly.
  "A cult got them," guesses Tess, turning to frown at her father, as if to say he's wrong to fault Charlie. For him she has a smile, and finally a playful tone: "They sacrificed the bees to the gods on tiny altars."
  "Be serious," pipes up Judy beside me. Tess leans over between the divided front seats to give her mother another long look. "Well?" she wants to know, turning back to Charlie. "Am I getting warm?"
 
  "I'll give you another hint," he says. "It has to do with praying."
  "Praying?" Tess pauses for thought. "Let me get this straight. The bees disappeared, right? And this really happened, right? You're not making it up?"
  "I'm not making it up. You can ask Linda." That she ignores. "Okay. The bees disappear because someone prays."
  "Not exactly some-one," admits Charlie. "Not even I would refer to an insect as some-one."
  "Yeah, because they don't have souls. So insects don't pray. So this is ridiculous. They're atheist bees," she adds, looking over at Charlie for approval.
  "Say that again?"
  "Atheists."
  "No. Before that."
  "Insects don't pray."
  "Don't they?"
  "Okay," says Tess. And then, "Oh. I get it. They prey, right? As in eat each other?"
  In the dim light of the car Charlie nods. "But that's not fair."
  "Fair has nothing to do with it," says Charlie. "The Carmichaels don't use insecticides, don't believe in them, and they had a bumper crop of pests, so they ordered a large shipment of--are you ready?"
  "Yeah?" says Tess suspiciously. "European mantis egg cases. Ordered them from a catalog." He looks away from the road to see Tess's reaction. "You know, praying mantis. Mantis religiosa."
  It's Judy's turn to groan. "Jesus," says Bill.
  "Those skinny, long-legged insects that look like twigs and that fold their bony hands and pray?" Tess makes a laughing sound like air leaking from a balloon. "I learned about those in school. They prayed the bees would die, I suppose."
  "They ate them," says Charlie as the van clatters over a bump.
  "They hated them?"
  "They ate them. By the bucketful. The Carmichaels had read that mantises are biological control agents. But what they didn't know is that mantises don't
 
discriminate. So they become pests themselves. And there were a lot of them. They preyed on the bees, get it?"
  "Ohhh," moans Tess.
  "A real sweet feast," says Charlie, slowing for the exit off the Interstate.
  "So how did you get rid of these pests?" "That's the best part of the story." Charlie clears his throat importantly. "The female mantis," he begins, "usually devours the male during mating, so I lit candles and played soft music in the fields, and they romanced themselves to death."
  Bill has been still for a while, but for some reason this makes him shift his body.
  "Entomology is full of mysteries and passions," says Charlie darkly, hamming it up for Tess, who chuckles again. "Few people realize that." She's looking out the window to her right at her own tree-lined street, the lineup of houses on well-kept lawns, porch lights on. We're all silent for a moment, until she says, "But all the females would have been left. The lady mantises would have been just fine, and probably still hungry for bees. So I question that part of the story."
  "Well, here's an interesting fact," he says, looking to the left, signaling for a turn. "Because mantises can move their heads freely, they're the only insects who can turn to see who's behind them." Pulling into the Allards' driveway, he shifts into park and cranks the emergency brake. "And they cock their heads to the side, like dogs."
  Tess inclines her head his direction. "Like this?"
  "Yes," he says, looking into the backseat, at each of us in turn, focusing on Bill longer than on anyone else. "Just like that. We're home."
  Judy presses her body in my direction, anxious for me to open the side door and let them out. Tess hasn't made a move yet to open her door either. She bows her head and looks down to the right and then left in momentary confusion at undoing the seat belts in a vehicle she's not used to, and then she scoots to the front edge of her seat. "Thanks," she says to Charlie in a low voice, as though they've got something on the rest of us. Then she gives me a look so withering I'm sure that if she ever needs help again, I
 
will be the last person on earth she will think to call.

  When we pull into our driveway, Charlie stops short of the open garage door. He turns off the engine but doesn't make the moves that usually follow: opening the door and vaulting off the high seat onto the gravel drive. He's gazing through the windshield as if the trip's not over, hand still on the ignition. When I say his name, he pulls out the key and examines it as though it were suddenly very interesting. "I'm starving," I say, unbuckling my seat belt. "Let's go in."
  "You took a picture of Tess when she didn't know you were doing it?"
  "From the back of my studio."
  "I see." He clears his throat. "I need to sit here a few minutes." As I reach to touch his arm, he signals my hand away with a forward shift of his body, circling his arms to lean against the steering wheel. "I'm not going anyplace, Linda. I'm asking for a few minutes alone, is all. I don't feel like explaining myself. Don't make an issue of it."
  I go on in and start heating up the spaghetti sauce. When the van starts up, I go into the front room to watch out the window as he backs it around the front of the house, then pulls forward toward the road, finally backing into the long driveway. The rear doors of the van are only a couple of feet in front of the open garage. He's slid the van's side door open. The garage lights go on.
  When he finally comes in a few minutes later, he says, "I'm getting rid of Luci's things. By myself. No discussion." I have the bottle of salad oil in my right hand, the vinegar in my left, and I lower them to the counter as he touches my shoulder, my hands still gripping like fists. "Can we please not discuss it?" he repeats with such firmness that I wonder if he means the opposite.
  "Fine." I douse the salad with olive oil and red-wine vinegar. To my surprise, he fixes himself a plate of spaghetti and salad, pours himself a glass of ice water, and takes the food with him out the back door without a word. I step outside and watch him disappear into the garage. In a few seconds the lights go on in the room
 
out there.
  Twice while I'm moving food around my plate, trying to eat, he comes back into the house, once to get a roll of garbage bags out of the cabinet over the washing machine, then again for the broom we keep by the refrigerator. Last year, when I suggested we might clean out Luci's studio space so we could use it, he resisted. They weren't legally his things, he said then, because he and Luci weren't married. At the time I wasn't up to a debate over ownership, when to me, too, they were still her things, so I let it drop.
  When I hear sounds of pounding and of wood breaking, and then the bounce and ring of something metal rolling across the concrete floor, I can't stay in the house any longer. "Don't get rid of her shoes, Charlie," I yell as I approach the door of the studio. "Save them, at least."
  From the doorway I see he's got a length of splintered wood in his right hand. It's part of the loom, which lies at his feet, hinged together by the twisted folds of Luci's bright, beautiful tapestry. "Shoes?" he repeats, as if
I've said something absurd.
  "Yes, shoes. And I want to save that weaving."
  "I'll roll it up." He begins jerking it free. "If you want it so much, I'll leave it. But I want to do this alone."
  "So you said." I step back--and decide that I can't return to the house and listen to him so noisily destroy what little is left of Luci. I tell him I'm going to my studio for a while. Tired as I am, I'd rather get some work done of my own, something creative. "Something for you." He wipes his forearm across his sweaty forehead and refuses to ask me what I mean.
  It's a natural enough impulse to think I can always escape into the comfort of work, but when I get to my studio, I realize I'm way too tired for this. As I get organized anyway, my heart sinks even more. The painting lacks even a single element to transcend the ordinary. It's a cheat, this sketch--okay for a real-estate ad maybe, but devoid of the strong, conflicting emotions I feel as I approach the actual place every day. That empty sky over the house says it all. Empty. Maybe this barren perspective is the real truth about what Charlie
 
and I are coming to.
  If I can't bring life into the composition, I'm going to have to start over. Lower your brush, I tell myself, given a push by memory.
Step up to the door full of sky, throw yourself onto the air. Suddenly I feel, rather than see, that the lines of the composition have gathered around this empty space all along, like rays of light. Lower your brush.
  I finish the plate in about an hour. When I get back home, completely worn out, Charlie is gone.
  About ten miles west of our house there's a county landfill for non-garbage dumping--the Glory Hole, Charlie calls it--and I'm guessing he's taken Luci's things there, though I'd think the gate would be locked at this hour. He probably woke someone up to let him in. I take a quick shower and crawl into bed, but sleep is out of the question. I can't help thinking about the lanky blond man I saw leaving the house with a bandanna around his forehead and blood on his jeans.
  When Charlie returns a while later, he comes into the bedroom and sits on his side of the bed, lowering himself slowly. "I'm awake," I tell him. He shifts his weight, dropping a shoe onto the floor with a thunk. The resinous smell of insect repellent has come into the room with him, and the salty sweetness of grit and perspiration. I lift myself up on one elbow. The hallway light is still on, and he looks at me over his shoulder.
  "It upset me that you were rummaging through her things, Linda. I told you, there's no diary, if that's what you were looking for. I can't expect you to put it all behind you unless I am willing to do the same. Now we can use that room behind the garage for something else besides a shrine to Luci. Maybe now she'll leave us alone."
  I sit up and reach out to touch him, my gesture falling short, I'm so unsure of what's happening. I've kept so many things from him--my trip to see Peter Garvey, the story he told me about a diary--to avoid his reaction. I've been wrong to do that.
  "Try to sleep," he says gently. He's standing in the doorway, halfway out.
  "I would have helped, you know, Charlie. Where did you take her things anyway?"
  "The best way to help is to let me work this out
 
in my own way. I don't want to hear her name for a while." He closes the door behind him.
  Soon my thoughts drift to tomorrow, when I will work again on Charlie's print, when the ink will be dry enough for me to coat the copper plate, squeezing the viscous beeswax-asphaltum from a plastic bottle. In my imagination the dark stuff runs down to coat the entire plate until I can barely see the image underneath. Tomorrow afternoon, after the dark beeswax has hardened on the copper plate, I'll run the hot water until steam rises, fill a water tray half full, and submerge the plate.
  My heart always quickens at this point, when nothing matters but what's happening below the surface of the water. Cracks will appear on the dark skin as I watch the house begin to lift. I'm always tempted to stop short and preserve some of this unplanned texture. But gently tipping the tray to speed up the process, I know I'll force myself to allow all of the painted image to separate from the plate this time--not stop early to work off the unexpected marks that delight me about printmaking. That's not the sort of surprise I'm going for this time. This one's for Charlie.
  A couple of times, when the water's cooled, I'll have to drain the tray and fill it carefully with more hot water, until the image has lifted completely. Tonight when I lowered my brush to the empty sky above the roof, I finally saw what I'd saved the emptiness for--a fine, fat fish, long and light-bellied, ribbed with copper. Now I catch myself jerking wide awake. So much depends on the way this turns out.
  I've made it winter, for the sake of design, when branches cast shadows across the lawn like empty nets. The fish appears voluptuous over the house--quilted with overlapping scales that suggest the W shapes of flying birds-- authentic down to its pointy dorsal fin and forked tail. I turn over onto my back. After what seems like an hour of concentrating on the emergence of Mackerel Sky, I'm no closer to sleep. I try to imagine Charlie receiving his gift and remembering the night he decided this was what he wanted--the last night we made love, I realize, counting backward through the days.
 
                  7

  Exhausted as we are, Charlie and I both work unusually long hours in the days that follow Tess's return. I place a call to a man named Robert Chapman, who is heading a marketing team for the Linden Grove Mall, which is being built on I-35 just east of town. After a trip to Des Moines to show him my portfolio, I secure an agreement to compete for the design job. I will bill him $60 per hour for visual-identity sketches--ideas for a logo that could be used on brochures, shopping bags, signage for each individual store and for a huge sign that could be seen from the highway. My drafting table is soon adrift with sketches of nearly round, heart-shaped leaves with toothed margins and of various configurations of linden trees with dense, oval crowns. The more sketches I produce, the more chance a good idea--combining original type with a defining image--will come to me.
  Charlie calls the American linden by its more common name here in Iowa, basswood. He uses basswood for the frames of honeycombs because the wood is light and soft, easily worked, and imparts no taste or odor to food. His work is seasonal; in winter he prepares apiary supplies for the spring and does occasional cabinetmaking jobs for local people who know Charlie Carpenter as a man who lives up to his name.
  The night Luci died, Detective Hansen got me a room at the Holiday Inn. He had suggested I see a doctor, maybe get something to help me relax, but I had declined. The motel bed was too soft. I was sick to my stomach, and freezing cold. My mind swarmed with details of what I had seen in that kitchen, and I heard unfamiliar sounds all night and couldn't sleep. By the time the sun came up the next morning, I was at my studio and had my coffeemaker plugged in at the desk. The neon sign for my front window, LINDA GARBO DESIGNS, had been delivered a couple of days earlier, and I turned it on for the comfort it gave me while the coffee perked. It was my place. It had my name on it.
  I drank coffee until Ben Webb, the plumber, arrived at about nine with his helper. They were unloading supplies from their truck when Charlie showed up. He looked like he hadn't
 
slept either. The skin under his pink-rimmed eyes was loose, and his lips looked chapped. I stood holding the back door open, watching him get out of his van, at a loss as to what I could say that would ease his mind. "What in the hell," he said slowly, "is that?"
  Those words would lead to the best kind of comfort either of us could have wished for that day: work.
  "Now, just wait a minute." Charlie's impatient tone stopped Ben Webb cold; he didn't move a muscle. Charlie was staring at the unsightly object Webb was pulling out of his truck--the kitchen cabinet I'd settled on so impulsively the morning before, when Luci was still very much alive and I had not wanted to spend another night under the same roof with her. The metal cabinet was so awful I'd been surprised that even Ben Webb, whose backroom proved he was a hopeless pack rat, had saved it.
  "All I care about is that I have a home, as soon as possible," I said to Charlie. He didn't understand what I meant, of course. I had to explain about how the custom cabinets I'd ordered had been defective, and the replacements were on back order. And that only after the plumbing for the new kitchen area in the loft was inspected would I be granted a permit to live in my building. So this was temporary, this metal cabinet.
  "You have coffee?" Charlie asked. I nodded. When I returned to the parking lot, Webb and his helper were in the backseat of Charlie's van, and Charlie opened the passenger-side door for me. He was taking charge, that was clear, but of what I couldn't be sure. I was too dazed from lack of sleep to question what was happening. I simply responded to his air of authority. "I don't know what to do with myself," Charlie said as we turned onto the main street and headed north. I never could drive with one hand and manage a cup of coffee with the other, the way Charlie can. He looked over at me. "At least we can save you from an ugly kitchen."
  Charlie drove us to a row of storage buildings at the edge of town and raised the door on his collection of treasures from estate sales, flea markets, and salvage yards.
With the help of the other two men, he moved a waist-high stack of flooring aside and dragged out a deep 1930's butler's sink set into a battered pine cabinet painted a warm, earthy
 
red. "There's a countertop somewhere, too," he announced, heading back through a narrow aisle that led into the depths of the garagelike space. He was forgetting himself, excited to be producing something of use. In a few minutes he emerged towing a long slab of shiny, honey-colored wood. "It's teak," he said. "I found this under a layer of Formica, but I gave it lots of sanding and twelve coats of varnish. If you want it, it's yours."
  I touched the smooth wood and accepted his offer. The three men and I spent the rest of the day creating a kitchen complete with glass-doored cabinets mounted above the counter. After the plumbing inspector stopped by just long enough to sign the permit for residential occupancy, around three-thirty, Charlie said, "One last thing, and then I'll go." He asked me to step up to the sink. "Notice anything unusual?"
  The sink was a foot-deep rectangle, with straight sides and a ten-inch exterior lip across the front. The flawless, creamy porcelain felt smooth as a plate. "It's unique. That's even better than unusual."
  "Pretend you're washing dishes. What's different?"
  I let my hands drop into the sink, fingertips circling the drain. "There were moments, now and then," I said, "while we were getting this job done, that I wasn't thinking about what happened yesterday. Like when we were making this fit." My fingers followed the lip of the sink where we'd had to struggle to get the countertop to slide into place. I looked at him. "How are we going to live with what's happened, Charlie?" My eyes filled with tears, and all at once I leaned forward for support.
  Side by side, we both had our hands in the sink. His shoulder was nearly touching mine, so close I could smell the damp, bitter scent of exertion on his skin. "This is six inches over standard," he said.
  "Wide enough for two people to work in at once, is that what you mean?"
  "Two tall people. Have you ever worked at a counter before where you didn't have to bend over? The countertop is six inches--"
  "Higher than standard," I finished. "It's right for you, Linda," he said.
  As I stood there touching the bottom of that sink,
 
I felt something shift, and it all hit me--the stress of pulling up roots and moving to Linden Grove, the horrific shock of discovering Luci's body three days later, the stupefying effects of sleep deprivation, the exhaustion from working alongside Charlie all day. Standing there, I knew that nothing about my life was going to feel familiar for a long time. Charlie was saying something about how tomorrow we could match that earthy red and repaint the cabinets, and then he stopped. I guess he realized what he was saying. In that moment I think we both saw how our common grief over Luci's death had disarmed us. We felt comfortable together, like old friends, but we barely knew each other.
  Only one thing was certain. We were both hungry. That was something immediate, something we could do something about. My new kitchen had no food in it. "I know a place we can get a good pizza," he said.
  The least I could do was buy his supper. I turned on the sink faucets, both hot and cold, to calm myself with the sound of running water. "Works good," said Charlie. He left then, so I could take a shower. An hour later we met at Mona's to share our first meal. And the next day we did paint the cabinets together after all.

  It's been a week since John Bender waved good-bye to me out at the trestle. I haven't seen him since. I still look over my shoulder for him all day long; now it's his absence that makes me uneasy. As for Tess, Judy and Bill took her to Omaha a week ago for substance-abuse treatment, where they are joining her today for family therapy. Even Russell Weber is gone. When I stopped in the Grubstake on Friday for lunch, a plump, gray-haired woman in a flowered apron was in the kitchen. Angela just shrugged when I asked. "The register came up short a couple days in a row, and as soon as I noticed it, he stopped showing up," she said, counting out my change. "Just like that. No notice. I hadn't accused him. Just asked." She slammed the cash-register drawer harder than she needed to.
  That sent me back to my studio to call Rosemary Lindstrom--The Fortune-teller, I call her. Charlie's secretary is something of a character to my mind, her powdered face made even
 
paler by contrast to the crimson lipstick and tangled layers of necklaces I've rarely seen her without. I asked her to check on the exact date of Weber's work on the garage, the last day he would have been around Luci. I could hear those beads click as she came up with the answer: "Six days before she was killed." I heard a file drawer close. "I wish you wouldn't stir things up like this, Linda. Charlie's letting things slide here at work."
  "Is that why you drove out to the house the other day?"
  "I'm surprised he told you about that. I guess that explains why you're asking about Weber."
  I remember her in the driveway, hands on hips. "You were pretty upset."
  "We had a misunderstanding. I guess Charlie told you that, too."
  At that she said good-bye and hung up while my mouth was still open. She wouldn't have ended the conversation so rudely unless she'd guessed he hadn't told me a thing.
  As sunlight entered the bedroom this morning, while I was still squinting against the light and running my tongue over my teeth, Charlie murmured something about swarming bees. I closed my eyes again, drifting. He smelled like soap. The hair on his chest felt cool and damp to my fingertips. "It isn't as if I've wanted to keep things from you."
  "Like what, Charlie?"
  If he is ever going to answer that question, I guess it will have to be here, in an open pasture, away from the house. He's talked me into wearing one of his long-sleeved shirts tucked into long pants for protection from the bees. I feel like a giant bride, decked out in ankle and wrist clips, gloves, and a brimmed hat with a veil that filters the meadow into soft focus as I follow him uphill toward the row of white box hives at the edge of Carmichael's pasture. "I'll make sure nothing happens to you," he's saying. He knows bees scare me; he doesn't know how much. "You just need to know what you're doing. Honeybees are not aggressive."
  Charlie ascends the rise to Carmichael's orchard faster than I do, his khaki coveralls a blur up ahead. I hate having my vision obscured. I know I lowered the veil too
 
soon, but the two times I've been stung by bees in my life, the swelling was painful. The last time I ran a slight fever. I'm getting nervous. Carrying a small pack on his back and the new hive frames on his shoulder, Charlie is gesturing to the left, pointing out the honey plants for this late in the season: clusters of sweet clover and spikes of goldenrod; tall, scraggly aster plants-- browned out and brittle, but bearing pink and lavender blooms; and wild pansies, or heartsease-- so called, Charlie is shouting back to me over his shoulder, because they were once believed to cure the pains of love. He lets me catch up.
  The grasses of the meadow are high and tangled with the stiff sienna and ocher remnants of last year's growth. The sky is a cloudless, faded blue. An early morning like this, when the weather is warm and forage is abundant and most of the insects are out of the hive, is ideal for multiplying colonies, Charlie is explaining as I reach his side. "Making increase," he calls it, a term that rings false, like bad Indian dialogue in old Western movies. Under my veil I smell coffee on my breath. I'm starting to sweat. At the edge of the orchard it's a bit cooler.
  Hefting the new hive onto the ground beside the tallest stack in the lineup of eight at the edge of the apple orchard, Charlie swings his pack off and takes out a large piece of netting to cover his own head and a smoker that looks like a small oilcan with a bellows on its back. Lighting it, he runs puffs of smoke along the bottom of the hive and around the lid before he pries off the top of the old hive. He faces away from me, and I keep my distance.
  "We've lost ground this summer, haven't we," Charlie says, "you and I? In our marriage, I mean." He glances at me.
  It's the kind of question that contains its own answer. "Love has to go through changes. There are setbacks. Is that what you mean?"
  "I'm not sure I see the point in talking about love," he says. "Saying the word doesn't make a person loyal." He observes the open top of the hive for long seconds before he says, "I just don't want to lose it."
  "Feelings, you mean?"
  "Your attention. My feelings for you are not going
 
to change, Linda. I don't want to lose your attention. You've been preoccupied. We haven't been speaking our minds. Either of us. I've been guilty of it, too."
  I step closer. "You know why," I say softly. Despite the heat, I shiver as a bee bumps with an angry buzz against the gauze of my veil. His declaration the night he cleared out Luci's things, I don't want to hear her name for a while, turned out to be more than a request inspired by exhaustion. Whenever I've mentioned her since, he has held up his hand, palm forward, and stopped me with one word: Please.
  As if we're of one mind, he says, "It was wrong of me to declare any subject off-limits." He removes the glove from his right hand, and I know Luci is about to become the subject of this conversation. But then he says, "I have to look for the queen."
  I guess he'll let me know when he finds her. He can take his time. As I survey the pasture, locusts tune up to emit a louder and louder ratchet of noise that suddenly subsides for a couple of minutes before the cycle starts up again. I try to relax by taking a deep breath. Behind me, Charlie does his work.
  When I asked him once, soon after Luci's murder, if he believed in life after death, he explained how bees survive the Iowa winter--not going dormant or dying in favor of a new generation waiting to hatch in the spring like other insects, but clustering into an engine of heat from the furious wing-beating of their thoracic muscles. Deep in snow, the hives keep humming away. "So what are you suggesting?" I wanted to know.
  "We fight for life as long as we can, but then we die. Death isn't a next step, a phase in our growth. That's like saying divorce is a stage of marriage, or that a fatal heart attack is a stage of exercise. Death isn't a stage of life, it's the end of it. We'll never see her again, in another life. Death is not sentimental. Luci's gone." He paused to think. "Unless there's a next generation to continue. I suppose that's a kind of survival, too, the survival of the species, of the race."
  Now here we stand, under the apple trees, replacing a queen while Charlie works up the nerve to tell me something he couldn't tell me at
 
home. If he persists in being so mysterious, this time I'm going to ask.
  Dangling from my right hand, in a small paper bag, is a lump of honeycomb that holds an unborn queen. He entrusted it to me back at The Honey Barn as if I were about to participate in an important transaction, and I accepted the role with the same patient eagerness with which I'd watched him point out that the queen cell was larger than the others and protruded from the comb like the end of a peanut shell. He cut her away in her tiny square of beeswax comb. "I won't be able to see much from behind this veil," I say now.
  "Sure you will." He lifts the upper section of the hive and sets it on the ground, which increases the volume of the hum from inside. I rear back as he lifts the hive cover on its edge and uses it as a seat, proceeding to direct a few more puffs of smoke at the entrance to the hive and across the top before he pries off the inner lid. "See them scramble?" He leans over the hive and looks where he wants me to look. I turn my face away. "They're going for the honey cells to save what they can. Instinct tells them there's a fire."
  I take his word for it, swallowing, fighting instincts of my own. My mouth is dry. I suppose this is where Charlie is most at ease these days. He selects a frame from the hive and takes it over to the new box and inserts it, trading it for an empty one. "Remember last fall?" he asks. "When I killed most of the bees?"
  Charlie depends on the weather a lot in his business, and now he reminds me how last fall he studied the historical weather cycles and read about sunspots, concluding that the winter ahead would be long and harsh. He was right. It was a winter not so much of snow but of ice and dangerous wind-chill readings, with more days below zero than usual. In the evenings, because of the ice and the wind, branches of trees behind the house would break under the force of their own weight, snapping with loud reports, like gunshots.
  He pulls frame after frame from the hive as he talks. Even though he expected the harsh weather, and killed most of his bees during the fall to make the winter feed supply stretch, many that survived were killed by the cold, wet, windy weather of last spring, a spring so nasty that the
 
half-starved bees couldn't start their normal nectar-gathering chores. By April he'd lost most of the bees that had started the winter. So now, to build his colonies back up, he's dividing hives. And he's brought me with him today to talk about the discomforts of love.
  The other night he started knocking out a wall between the two rooms upstairs, and since then he's been scraping cracked linoleum off the floorboards, starting right after supper--dismissing any offer of help I might make with "Call me when it's time for the news, if you think of it." From down below I listen to the sounds of demolition and rehearse what I should go upstairs and tell him, the accumulation of things I've kept from him lately. All week my heart has leapt every time I've heard a phone ringing, and I've tensed for the sound of Bender's voice in my ear, announcing some theory about Luci's car. He may be reaching for the phone right now, even as Charlie is displaying a comb for my benefit, pointing out brood, eggs, and honey.
  I recognize the queen without his having to tell me what I'm looking for. She's larger and more wasplike than the other bees, with a long, slightly tapering abdomen and loosely attached thorax. The series of concentric circles in several combs in the center of the hive tell him this is a good brood nest, the sign of a good queen. He seems proud of her as he shakes frame after frame of bees gently around her. "Lately it's seemed beside the point, all this," he says.
  I'm not sure what he's getting at. He takes the embryo queen I've been holding all this time and with four quick pokes of his knife cuts an opening for her in a comb from the old hive. With luck, the bees will tend this new cell, and soon there will be a new virgin queen for the hive.
  "Linda," he says, "I want you to know why I've been so remote lately, so angry with you for talking about Luci's death." He watches his hands as he speaks. "A few months before she died, I accused her of something. Unfairly, as it turned out. She thought she had to explain herself or lose me. At any rate, she told me something she hadn't planned to tell anyone, ever. It was extremely difficult for her. The ordeal took all night and all of the next morning. Afterward, she made me promise to keep her secret forever, because there were other people who could be
 
hurt. So there's this once piece of knowledge about Luci I can't share with you." He pauses. "I know a man should be able to tell his wife anything, but the way she died has changed that, because when someone's murdered every bit of information assumes a kind of possible importance. This feels to me like an unfair barrier between us, but I can't help it."
  I want to move closer to Charlie and his bees, but he says, "You're entitled to tell me if you're worried or afraid. I regret shutting you out. That's the point I'm trying to make."
  He pauses to consider my features-- indistinct to him, I suppose, in this disguise I'm wearing. Then he goes on. "The other night, when I hauled Luci's things away, a kind of pressure had been building up inside me for a while. I was afraid you were about to start raising a lot of new questions about her." Bees mumble through the thick air. "The truth is, if I had talked about her with you at all that night, I'd have ended up telling you too much. I made a sacred promise to her that has nothing to do with us, or with the way she died. But I promised you even more, being your husband, so this is bothering the hell out of me. I'm not sure what to do. You and I have been holding each other almost at the breaking point lately, and I need some relief. That's all I can say."
  Lines of sweat run down the sides of my face. "Is this about the child she had?" His expression doesn't change at all. "Is that it?"
  "Not exactly."
  "Then what, exactly?" I reach up under my veil, admitting a cool breeze, to wipe the irritating perspiration from my face with a gloved hand. That's when I get it, a needle of pain below the eye, which instinctively I slap and press deeper into the flesh.

  The bee sting swells my eye shut and makes me feverish. Each time I wake up during the night, Charlie turns on the lamp by the bed and presses warm cloths, then cool, over the injury. He gives me the tiny white tablets the doctor prescribed after giving me an injection of epinephrine, for venom shock. When dawn lights the window, we're both awake. "I know
 
this isn't exactly what you had in mind when you took me back to nature, Charlie." I smile at him with my one good eye, and we finally hold each other the way we wanted to yesterday morning.
  "I had hoped for something more like this." He touches me slowly, telling me not to fight the fever's stillness, but to let him do all the work. Straddling me carefully, he presses his kisses deep into the side of my neck, then moves on until after a while I come with the kind of relief I've been needing for days. A hundred and three degrees of fever is a surprising state for all this pleasure.
  He seems to feel he's shared a secret with me by justifying his refusal to do so on the grounds he made a promise to a dead woman. But he's a good lover, even with a feverish, one-eyed partner. He'll tell me eventually, and I'll press him, but gently, until he does. "Beautiful," he murmurs against my skin.
  Still, when John Bender does turn up again, what he has to say may make me remember this day for the tension between Charlie and me that caused him to take me to see the bees. For a moment there I nearly forgot I'm the one who's holding out, keeping secrets. My heart throbs under my eye. It really hurts. "What is it,
Linda?" says Charlie softly. "I thought I was pleasing you. All of a sudden you went tense."

  I doze throughout the morning, barely waking up when Charlie comes into the bedroom to check on me. Upstairs he is steaming sepia cabbage roses off the walls of the room he suddenly has begun referring to as "the kid's" room. Have I missed something? Charlie has the energy of someone who just received good news.
  Nothing's more boring than a mild illness. At 3:21, according to the digital alarm clock, I rouse myself and pad to the livingroom sofa, which is the color of peach jam and has a curved depression that fits my backside perfectly. I love this room. The large, many-paned window looks out across the gravel drive--where the van is parked now, blocking the view.
  Opposite, the fireplace wall is lined with bookshelves. The pine floor is bare except for three worn Oriental rugs. Charlie's navy recliner, with its broad, pillowed back,
 
arms worn shiny, squats close by with the  insolence of a long-standing tenant who knows he'll  never be put out of the house. I get to my feet and  sink into its wide comfort, pulling on the lever to be  cradled backward as Charlie's reassuring  footsteps knock across the floor overhead. The  ceiling, newly plastered and painted last fall,  just before I moved in, is such a flawless  expanse that I lose focus with my one good  eye, the last thing I know until I wake up  cold and the room is in shadows.
  It takes me a minute to remember it's  Sunday and why I feel so bad. "Charlie?"
I say, as if some sound he made woke me  up. When there's no answer, I reach for the  recliner's lever. The chair springs to sitting  position. I stand up, stiff and disoriented, and  stagger toward the bookcase, my right hand out. The  book I touch for balance is Art on the  Streets of SoHo.
  In the tiled bathroom the sound of my peeing is  very loud, expanding the familiar room to a  cavernous, almost public space around me.  Something registers, something Luci said, and I head  back to the bookshelf. A few of these art books  were hers, but I left them here when I packed her  things because I thought I might want them myself. I  can't see much with my swollen right eye, but I  find the book I'm looking for, tilting it toward  me--Art on the Streets of SoHo: A  Photographic Collection. The cover  photograph is of a mime perched on the edge of a  trash barrel on a crowded street. Inside the  dust jacket is a journal, the binding covered with  gray fabric, repeat-patterned with dots,  lines, and half-moons of muted green. Every  page is crowded with Luci's handwriting and  occasional sketches.
  Suddenly I'm freezing. Clutching Luci's  diary to my chest, I tremble with weakness. In the  bedroom I find a big sweatshirt that smells  like Charlie and pull it carefully over my face  and down over my bathrobe. I cup my swollen  cheek, still hot to the touch, with my hand. "Charlie?"  I call out again, through the window screen. Where's  he gone? At the back of the garage, I see a  light.
  I open the book. On the page is a sketch  of Charlie's face, but beardless, with a weak chin.  On the next page is another drawing of him,  identical except for his actual chin,  the one I recognize from old photographs.  The third version has the strongest jawline of  all. I close the book and open it again to a  page about a third of the way through. My swollen  eye waters as I squint to make out the  difficult script. "The sublime and ornery"  --Lifting the book to the light, I see the word  is "ordinary," and I manage to read on:

The sublime and ordinary--meet in kitchens. So  today Charlie and I made pesto--a whole vat of  it!--and before we were done, we tasted of basil head  to toe--I never knew how good pesto could be--before  this. There'll be no end to it, I said to Charlie.  Cooking up one pleasure--after another. What  we consume in the kitchen--we burn down the  hall.

  The book snaps shut of its own accord,  exhaling a sniff of dust, as I hurry into the  living room, disguise the diary again as Art on  the Streets of SoHo, slip it onto the  shelf and head back to the bedroom.
  I sit on the edge of the bed and pull the covers  around me to wait. The ring of the phone makes me  jump. Bender? I only have to scoot along the  bed a couple of feet and get my right arm  untangled from the quilt to reach the phone by the  second ring.
  "Did I wake you up?" Judy sounds  surprised.
  "You're back. Good." I have imagined her and  Bill and Tess sitting in a circle with other  troubled teenagers and parents, shouting at each  other, crying. "How was it?"
  "It was incredible. Are you sick?"
  "I sound bad, don't I?"
  "Disappointed, I thought at first. I did  wake you up. I'm sorry."
  "You can't imagine how glad I am you  called." I turn on the lamp by the bed. The  light hurts my eye. "Charlie's outside.  I'm feeling deserted."
  I ask about Tess and Bill, but Judy  evades my questions with questions of her own, and I'm  prattling on about the bee sting and the fever. Looking  out the window across the dark yard toward the light from  Luci's studio, I take courage from  Charlie's presence out there and from the sound of  Judy's voice. "Charlie's really  been struggling with his feelings about Luci, after all  this time," I hear myself say. "He vacillates  between refusing to talk about her and--" I stop before  I can say holding out tantalizing secrets.  "I'm beginning to think his relationship with her was more  complicated than I realized. I don't know how  to help him."
  "Just take care of yourself." Judy talks for a  few more minutes. The phone is heavy in my hand.  When I hang up, I turn on the overhead  lights in the bedroom and hallway, bathroom and  front room, and even the amber bug light  outside the kitchen door, banishing the darkness.
  Outside, the air is chilly, the first cool  night all month. I have to concentrate to lift my  feet, not to shuffle but to move flat-footed toward  the garage. I feel every rock distinctly through my  heavy socks. My feet barely make a sound  in the gravel.
  Instead of entering the garage, I circle to the  left of the building. From here I can see the side  window of the studio. What could he be doing there, in  that empty space? His shadow moves around  inside. He plans to turn the space into a  woodshop; maybe he's doing some measuring. In  my terry-cloth robe, sweatshirt, and socks,  I must look like a madwoman--swollen and  one-eyed, sodden with sweat, panting. The ground  lists, and I steady myself. I should have stayed put.  Even this slight exertion has made my heart  race. My face is throbbing, and I feel too  weak to shout, but at least I'm impatient, no  longer afraid. However he tries to explain  himself, he's still shutting me out.
  Inside the dimly lit garage, a dark oil  spot marks the center of the floor, and I walk  around it. "Charlie, what are you doing back there?"  I can hear the irritation in my voice, and it's  about time. Patience is no virtue when someone you  love is going through terrible grief. He needs  to talk. I need to insist. In front of the studio  doorway I hesitate, my left foot lagging  behind, as the light in the studio goes out.
  In the dark someone bumps against me hard enough  to push me aside, and footsteps fall away behind  me across the concrete of the garage floor. With both  hands I cover my mouth, where my heart beats.  I'm struck by the bright headlights that blaze into the  driveway.
  Though the light hurts, I stare into it  until the rumble of the engine shuts off and the  headlights go out and the van's familiar bulk  replaces the tunnels of light. I'm hugging  myself so that my right hand covers the spot on my  shoulder where the intruder pushed against me. I'm  operating blind, but the stale smell of tobacco  stays with me, and something about the rhythm of his stride  convinces me John Bender has made another  appearance.
  While Charlie walks the perimeter of the  backyard, I sit in the kitchen, sickened by the  garlic and sesame smells of the Chinese food in  front of me on the table. He startles me as  he bangs through the back door. "Whoever it was,  he's gone," he announces, pausing to glance at  the flashlight stuck to the side of the  refrigerator. It's like the one in his hand, chrome  with a chunky magnet on its side. "This was on the  table in the back room out there." I notice he  doesn't refer to the place as Luci's studio.  "Everything's locked up tight now." The awkward  way he holds the flashlight with his fingertips as  he upends it on the table negates his comforting  tone. He's treating it like evidence.
  He withdraws a square white carton from the  paper bag and unfolds the lid to let out a starchy  whiff of steam. It's the rice. "You going to call  the police?"
  He shakes his head. "Nothing seems to be  missing, and neither of us got a good look at him."
  Too exhausted to argue, I watch Charlie  remove the cartons of food from the bag bearing the  droopy, pagoda-like logo I designed for The  China Palace: Orange Beef, Garlic
Chicken, Shrimp with Black Bean Sauce.
He dishes food onto plates. "I hope this  looks good to you. I got all your favorites."
  Though I haven't eaten much all day, I  shake my head at the egg roll he lifts over  my plate. He uses chopsticks with Chinese  food, and when I wave my hand in refusal, he  keeps the small egg roll moving full  circle and bites into it. Why am I the only  one who's upset over what's just happened? As  if he reads my mind, he leans over to touch my  forehead with his mouth, a testing kiss. "Your  fever's broken." He lifts my chin to rotate  my face, examining the still-swollen eye. "I had  no idea I was exposing you to so much harm."
  He's right about the fever. The chills and  light-headedness have passed, leaving me limp. I  guess I'm cured. "I'm sure it was just a  transient," he says. "My fault, for leaving  the garage door up all the time. I'll be more  careful from now on."
  
  "Weren't you thinking we could give the  cops the flashlight?"
  He nods. "But on second thought, I  don't think it matters. Let's eat."
  The next morning, for the second day in a  week, Charlie is out of the house before I wake  up. As I prepare to leave for work, I take  Luci's journal from the bookshelf and slip it  into my shoulder bag. The flashlight still sits on  the kitchen table. If whoever was in the garage last  night was looking for something to steal, he must have been  disappointed. Charlie could be right, and it was someone  seeking shelter. Without certainty, without proof,  I don't want to admit I think it might have  been Bender.
  Before I leave for town, I unlock the studio  and study the clean-swept floor, the empty  worktable, the shelves--bare also, except for a row  of five shoe boxes. A cardboard box
Charlie must have missed the other night is on the  floor, its contents jumbled: a road map of  Iowa, a pair of winter gloves, a camera, a  brown extension cord, and three picture  postcards, which I read quickly. One of them's from  me, an announcement of a show in Santa Fe with a  quick message scrawled on the back: "I got  a series of five small prints into this one." That  was five years ago. I sent those cards to everyone  I knew. Now, after cranking open a window  to admit a bracing, early-day breeze from the  damp trees outside, I hoist myself up to sit  on the worktable and pull Luci's diary out of my  shoulder bag, finding a page headed by a lineup of  shoes. Luci's handwriting is small and  cramped:

  Of course he would leave me to imagine who they  might suit--what strides might be taken  by elegant, large women--while my poor feet    wander lost as the rest of me. To burn them would be  to give up the only way he tried to please me.  They follow me everywhere--these Unsuitable  Shoes.

  I read the paragraph again, the oddness of the  phrases leaving me with a sense of dread. The words  --puzzling enough that they might be profound, or they  might be nonsense--sound like Luci. Nothing  preceding those words identifies the he in the  passage about the shoes. Turning back to the very
  
beginning of the diary, I skim the pages.  At first I find nothing but more unattached  pronouns--he this and he that, with no reference.  Finally I find a name: Bill came up out  of the woods behind the house along the old path behind the  garage and saw someone hammering away on the siding  and singing at the top of his lungs. On the next  page I learn that the someone hammering on the  siding was Russell Weber. And that she and Bill  met again, and did a lot of kissing. Thumbing through  the pages, I find Bill's name over and over.  I drop the book into my bag and get in my car  to head for Ken Hansen's office.

  The halls of the police station are deserted this  time of day. Hansen's got puffy, early-morning  eyes and a shiny, just-shaved smoothness along the  jaw. His pale-blue shirt is still starchy and  unwrinkled at the armpits. He gives off the  leathery smell of cologne. I stand the  flashlight, bulb end down, on his desk in  front of him. "An intruder left this at our  place last night."
  His hand is halfway to the flashlight before he  stops, narrowing his eyes. "What happened to you?"
  The focus of his stare reminds me that the  discoloration around my eye has left me looking  like a victim of abuse. I tell him about the  bee sting. "I'm here about this flashlight. I  want you to check for prints."
  "Could this have anything to do with Bender?"  "Why? Have you two been talking about me?" He  nods solemnly. Neither of us has smiled yet.  I sit in the oak chair facing him, my back  straight, leaning forward slightly. "Bender's  guessing, you know. Exactly what did he tell  you, and when?"
  Hansen leans back, stifling a grin. His  chair squeaks. Maybe I am coming on a little  strong. His amusement tells me he means to slow  things down a bit, and that whatever Bender told  him, he's not taking it too seriously. If he  wants to buy some time so he can figure out how  to handle me, fine. I'll wait. On his feet  now, the detective offers me coffee.  "Cream?"
  "Black." Let him go. Let him collect  himself.
  When he returns, he brings coffee mugs and  grimly tries to smile again. I don't thank
  
him for the coffee, though I have to stop myself  from the reflex of good manners. "I know Bender's  a friend of yours. I'm wondering how that might  affect your objectivity." My voice is  formal, flat. If Hansen registers my  insult, he doesn't let it show. The coffee  is better than the police-station coffee I  remember, maybe because it's fresh at this hour of the  morning. "I think I have a right to know what he  has said to you."
  "John's been out of town most of the week,"  says Hansen, as if that were the information I was  looking for.
  "I think he's back."
  "No, he won't be back for a few more days.  His father's ill, in Racine, Wisconsin."  We're both staring at the flashlight standing up on  the desk between us like a primitive object. "Where  did this come from again?"
  He knows very well I haven't gotten that far.  I tell him about the intruder, what time it  happened. "If there are any fingerprints on this,  I want to know if they match any of the  unidentified prints found in the kitchen when  Luci died."
  His eyes meet my gaze and lock there for a  moment. Then, sighing with exasperation, Hansen  does something very uncharacteristic. He looks away in  disgust, fed up and not caring if I know it. "Come  on, Linda," he says, shaking his head. "What  you're asking is not appropriate, not even  rational."
  "I thought John told you--"
  "He told me you're still so upset about  Luci's death you're second-guessing yourself enough  to exhibit paranoid suspicions about him."
  "Will you check this for prints?"  "Tell me who you think was in your garage last  night."
  "I can't be sure. Someone tall, about my  height."
  "So we have nothing concrete to go on."  "We have this." I point at the flashlight.  "Charlie brought it into the house, so his prints will be  there."
  "You're proposing that we might find a  second person's prints and that they might match  untagged prints from the scene of a crime solved a  long time ago? Is that where you're going with this?"  It's not a question that requires an answer. He
  
walks to the window, rubbing the small of his  back just above the belt with the knuckles of his fist.
  When he turns to face me again, he clears his  throat and then speaks slowly. "John has  looked at your original statement. He thinks  I may have led you with my questions." He's silent  for a moment, thinking. "He can be a bit of a loose  cannon, Bender. He seems to think you're  suffering under the moral weight of believing you  convicted Garvey all by yourself, that you're vulnerable  to suggestion, doubting yourself in some way that might  surprise us. I can't help wondering if he  hasn't hit on something, the way the case is still  eating at you. Why don't you tell me about it?"
  "Check the flashlight," I say firmly.
  To my surprise Hansen slides a pencil  through the triangular handle on the top of the  flashlight and carries it to the doorway, where he  pauses. "Tell you what. I'll give this  to Dennis Johnson. I saw him come in a few  minutes ago."
  "Who's Dennis Johnson?"
  "He's one of our guys, in training to match  prints. He's not certified as an expert  witness at this point, but if I send these to the lab  with all the lift cards from the Garvey case, the  way you want me to, it would likely be three  or four months before we hear back anyway. I  think Dennis could get an answer in a few  days. But I need a clear reason to ask him to do  that." Hansen steps out of sight into the hallway,  then reappears to deliver one parting comment: "I have  to remind you, Linda, that one of the most damaging  pieces of evidence against Peter Garvey was that his  prints were on the knife blade."
  And on Luci's forearm. I know he's thinking  that, too. If not for the way she died, I would never    have learned that the smooth skin of a breast, or the  inside of the wrist, or the inside of the upper arm can  hold a latent fingerprint for many hours,  especially from a hand as oily and soiled as Peter  Garvey's was that day.
  I finish my coffee and wait for Hansen  to return. After what seems like forever, he comes  back with a file card bearing a crude sketch of the  flashlight, a rash of X's showing where prints were  found. The date, hour, and location of the trespass  are neatly printed on the card, along with the  initials DJ., for Dennis Johnson. Four  other cards bear smaller sketches, each also
  
bearing a single, lettered X and white  space awaiting the photographs of the prints when  they've been developed. The camera they use  makes negatives the same size as the  original fingerprint. I remember seeing some at  the trial. Hansen straightens up and walks  around his desk.
  "I don't think I can justify spending any  more of Dennis's time on this, Linda."
  "Then why did you bother lifting these?" I touch  the top fingerprint card and turn it around to face  me on the desktop.
  "Even if we did get a match, we wouldn't  know whose prints they were. All we'd learn would  be that last night's intruder had been in your house  before."
  "That's what I'm afraid of," I say,  meeting his eyes. "I'm asking you to prove to me  that I'm wrong."
  "You want me to relieve your anxiety."  "Will you do it?"
  "It'll get bottom priority," he says.  "If you think of anything that would move it up on the  list, you let me know."
  By the time I get to the sidewalk outside, I  realize I've left without so much as a good-bye.

  For a couple of hours I work in my studio,  finishing up a logo for Jennifer Lilligren, a  local dentist who wants to emphasize the word  "family" in advertising her dental practice.  By placing dots above the l's in the "illi" part  of her name, I've managed to create a strong    visual suggestion of a nuclear family, using  typography alone. She'll be pleased with the  results. Late in the morning I walk across the  parking lot to the bookshop. "You're smoking again"  is the first thing I say to Judy as I step through the  back door of The Little Read.
  She pulls the cigarette out of her mouth with a  breathy pfft and a tossing gesture. "No  kidding," she says, letting go with a pissed-off  exhale that has enough force behind it to fill a sail.  "What else is different about me?"
  Though she usually wears makeup, today her  ginger-colored eyebrows and eyelashes are barely  there, her eyes pink at the corners. "Why do you  do this, Judy?" I smile, hoping to ease her  mood. "Don't make me work so hard. You still  act like a second grade teacher sometimes, running
  
the class with guessing games."
  She's up to her elbows in books she's  unpacking from a cardboard carton on her worktable.  "You'd guess wrong anyway."
  She's angry all right. "How about if I go  out and come in again?"
  "Can we just talk about other things first, not about my  weekend?"
  "Who said anything about your weekend?" I  grasp the carton she's shoved my way and stack  it on top of another empty box on the floor  by the door.
  "Did I miss much the last couple days?"  Judy pulls another cigarette out of the  package and strikes a match.
  "Russell Weber no longer works next  door. The new cook doesn't know how to make  Angela's Special. She substitutes  coleslaw for tabbouleh."
  "I hear Weber was stealing from the till."  "So you knew he was gone."
  "It's probably not true, though. The  customer who told me couldn't even remember  Weber's name. Called him "that guy with the weird  hair."" Judy gives me a sharp look.  "Your detective questioned Tess about being seen with  Weber out back the day she took off. Hansen  wanted to know what they were talking about, if Weber  has ever given her grass, or any other  drugs. Tess insists he was telling her about some  piece of music he was working on, impressing her  with his plan to make a demo tape at a studio  in Des Moines. If you ask me, Weber's  guilty of nothing more than looking suspicious,  living up to some stereotype of the wacked-out  musician, drifter."
  "So you think he has nothing to do with Tess's  running away?"
  "Right. Turns out she made up with that boyfriend  of hers, Rusty Burkhalter, and they got into some  Saturday-night partying with kids from the community  college. One of the college guys took the  party on the road. He was from Creston, and  drove a carload to his parents' house.  Parents who were gone for a few days, of course.  So Tess found herself in a strange town, with people  she didn't know, who were drinking way too much,  then sleeping it off, then starting all over again.  She got scared when one of the guys got too  aggressive with her, and took off walking toward the
  
only landmark that made sense to her--a  church steeple. Hence the call from the minister. This  is the short version of her adventure--" She  pauses. Her confidence falters, but she sniffs  and straightens her shoulders. "Russell Weber  had nothing to do with it."
  "What about Rusty Burkhalter?"
  "He was home by ten that Saturday night."  "Why didn't he come forward when she was  missing?"
  "The Burkhalters left for a family  reunion in Nebraska on Sunday and continued  on to Colorado for a vacation. They didn't get  back until after Tess was safely home, so  Rusty didn't know anything about her disappearance  until it was too late to help us find her."  Judy inflates herself with another lungful of  smoke.
  I cough. "Why'd you give up on the  nicotine patch?"
  "Would you believe that in the middle of the night  last night I got up and put one on each arm,  to see what kind of pickup it would give me?  Three in the morning and I'm abusing nicotine  patches. God." She looks at the  cigarette in her hand, then takes another  dramatic drag from it, leaning her head back and  exhaling upward.
  "You remind me of Bette Davis in some  old movie."
  She lowers her eyelids and does a  suggestive side-to-side thing with her shoulders.  "Right now," she says, smoke drifting from her  lips, "this is the only way I have to get my  heart racing." Despite her put-on, Judy  looks anything but vampy, her face so pale the  freckles stand out like grains of sand on a white    sheet of paper. She tries so hard to hide her  misery, but she's no actress. She's blue  under the eyes.
  "You can quit later, when you're not so  worried."
  "Quit?"
  "Smoking. What did you think I meant?"  "I thought maybe you thought I was into denial or  something."
  "That is what I think. I wouldn't dismiss  Weber as a threat to Tess. If he has been  providing drugs to high-school kids, are you  sure she would say so?" I hope my tone is
  
both firm and gentle. "You don't think  you know exactly where Tess was all that time, do you?  Or what she was doing every minute? She was gone for  three days, Judy."
  That does it. She turns her face away.
"Bill and I are dealing with her the best way we  can. I'm not dumb. There was most likely something  sexual going on, and we don't know who these people were  she was with." Judy takes a shaky breath.  "What other neighborhood gossip do you have?"
  "Well, I found some postcards among
Luci's things. One of them is a card I sent  her years ago, a brag about an art show I'd  gotten into. The fact she saved it tells me  she attached some value to it. When I decided  to move down here from Minneapolis, I imagined  she and I might get to know each other a lot  better than we ever had before. She really worked at  persuading me to make the move. It took some  convincing; this is such a small town. What I  discovered in the few hours I spent with her right before  she died was that she was more conflicted, more emotionally  fragile than I knew."
  "Why were you looking through Luci's things?"  I ignore her question. "I know Bill and
Luci knew each other when they were college  freshmen. After she came here to teach at the  community college, she told me about running  into him again. She read a lot into the coincidence, as  if his presence had drawn her here in some  mystical way. Did he ever talk to you about what  she was like when he first knew her?"
  "Sure." Judy seems calmer now, so  maybe getting her off the subject of Tess for a  few minutes is a good idea. "He said Luci  was very intense, very bright. They had been in the same  freshman humanities class, I think it  was, at Carleton. I guess they had a few  meaningful conversations about Greek plays, and then  she hadn't come back after Thanksgiving break.  She lived here awhile before he heard from her. She  wanted to befriend him again. He almost seemed a little  afraid of her, I thought, at first. He would  complain she was calling him, wanting to have coffee and  talk, that sort of thing. She didn't make friends  easily. Later she met Charlie, and the four of  us did things together sometimes, and she was fine then. I  really enjoyed her, but Bill thinks Luci was  kind of a case, that Charlie put up with a lot, that  Luci tended to hide behind being overly dramatic.
  
I never heard her say much about her  background, did you?"
  I shake my head. "When her dad died during  the time we knew each other in art school, she  didn't go to the funeral, which I found more than  odd. All she would say about him was that he was very  charming and handsome, and that he had worked for a company that  manufactured shoes, somewhere in Missouri. Her  parents--her mom was a teacher--had been separated  since she was little. Back in school, if I'd  ask Luci questions about her family, the facts would  change, like it was a game to continually reinvent  herself."
  "So she was a liar."
  "Or like a child who tells tales because she's  afraid no one will accept her for who she really  is."
  "Like Tess." The name slips out like a sigh.  I hope that means Judy will finally talk about her  daughter without being so brittle and defensive. For  long seconds Judy is motionless with thought. Then  she shrugs herself to attention. "I'm not so sure  our family problems are about Tess at all.  Getting her back to where she's safe is going  to cost us a lot, me and Bill. I never  bargained on that."
  "Cost you how?"
  "I'm not talking about money."
  "I didn't think you were, Judy. What  happened?"
  "I'm not really sure. Tess seems to feel  there needs to be some deep revelation about our  household to make this family-therapy thing really  fly, like there's got to be something we're not owning  up to."
  "I don't know what you mean."
  "I don't know what she means." Judy  ticks the pages of a new book against her  thumbnail, pausing to stare at the words. "But I  think Bill knows. I always thought the three of us were  a reasonably good family unit." She spits  out the word "unit" with disdain, as if it's a body  part not commonly mentioned in polite conversation.  "I've got all week to stew. We can't see  Tess again until Friday night." She goes  silent again, and when I startle her by clearing my  throat, she says, "Bill, of course, has  decided the therapist doesn't know her ass from her  ego."
  "Is that what you think?"
  
  "I think he knows what Tess is  talking about. That pretty well defines the  mystery, doesn't it?"
  "Back up. You've lost me."
  "I'd really rather not talk about this."  "I know this is difficult. But don't clam  up like you did when she disappeared. I'm not going  to let you get away with it this time. It was a  mistake, you have to admit, that you wanted to keep  quiet about her running away when talking about it was  your best chance of finding her. Now it's  important that you understand what happened to her, so  she won't take off again."
  Judy crushes out her cigarette in the  ashtray, and with every stab and grind of the butt she  sniffs dryly. Her teeth are clenched, and the  narrow glitter in her eyes means she's having a  hard time holding herself together. She turns her  back on me, jerking open a file drawer.
  She rifles through folders for a few minutes,  and when she turns around again, a sheaf of papers in  her hand, her smile is actually pretty  convincing. "What else have you been up to?" She  rubs her nose with the back of her hand and sniffs  again. "Besides being attacked by killer bees."
  "Only one bee, and I was the aggressor. I  forgot the rules and trapped it inside my  veil."
  "I thought artists made up their own rules."  "Tell that to the bees. Anyway, that's a  damning, romantic myth, that free-spirit artist  stuff what made you say that?"
  "Tess mentioned you over the weekend. She  thinks you're brave and talented. She wants  to be like you."
  "She's over being mad at me?"
  "I was jealous." She pauses. "I don't  think she's over anything." Judy is cutting  open another box, drawing her X-acto knife  toward her, and I take the knife from her and show  her how to hold it close to the body and push the  blade away with the heel of the hand. Anybody  who's ever gone to art school has seen more than one  accident resulting from a careless slip while  cutting a mat board. A sea of red flashes in  my brain.
  Judy has no comment as I retract the  blade and place the knife carefully on the  table. My fingers are shaking. Taking the top  book out of the carton, she opens the cover and reads
  
the dust flaps. ""The smoky  chiaroscuro of familial love recalled through  time,"" she reads. "Yeah, sure." At least  her sarcasm is cheering her up. "That's a clever  way to recall something, all right. Through time."
  "Come on. Tell me more about Tess. It  might help you put things into perspective."
  Judy settles into her swivel desk chair,  and I face her across a chin-high stack of  books, shifting a few of them to another pile so  my view of her will not be obstructed. "It was like the  end of the first act of a little Greek tragedy," she  begins. I'm about to get the long version.
  "Picture this." She gives me a few  broad strokes--a dim conference room, a  circle of chairs. I add a wash of gray  carpet, a steely glow from closed metal blinds  on the high windows, bluish overhead lights  turned low. "Anyway, it's the last session of the  weekend, which Bill and I have been thinking is  pretty calm and helpful, dealing with our  expectations about substances, with us telling Tess  how we feel when she comes home drunk, when the  therapist, Susan Ginger-Banning, starts pushing  Tess really hard to talk about something she had  apparently alluded to privately as "this underlying  tension at our house."" Judy stops for thought,  and in my mind's eye Susan Ginger-Banning  sprouts long red fingernails, good for pointing at  Tess, whose eyes are round. Her mouth, too,  is round.
  Judy starts again, but slower: "There's been  plenty of tension--and not all that underlying either--since  Tess started coming home this summer with beer on her  breath and throwing up. I spoke up, of course,  and Susan asked Tess if she thought I was  accurate in attributing the tension between us to the  drinking, or did she think her drinking could be an  effect, and not simply a cause, of another  problem. Tess looked down at her hands,  glancing off to the side now and then, refusing  to look at any of us, and then finally she said,  "Well, if there is something, why does it have  to be me who brings it up?"'
  "No one was talking. So that's when it happened.  I just gradually began noticing, in all that  silence--with Tess and the therapist and me not moving a  muscle--that Bill kept scratching, clearing his  throat, switching positions in his chair. All  three of us noticed.
  
  "At first he didn't catch on.
He started looking from Tess to me to Susan,  back and forth, and then it dawned on him. He  settled on Tess and said her name in a tone of    voice he used to use with her when she was little, a  warning pitch that would get her to stop whatever  naughty thing she was doing.
  "But this time she repeated herself just to him: "I  don't think it's fair that I should have to be the one  to tell." Right on cue Susan Ginger-Banning  stood up and walked over to the light switch by the  door and turned the overhead lights up to high."
  My lips part, but I wait for the finish.  "It was like stage lights going up. I swear  she planned it that way, to leave us hanging. She  should be a goddamn theater director."
  "That was it?"
  "She's a grandmotherly type. Family  therapist. It didn't sink in until Bill and  I were in the car, starting for home, that she'd given  us an assignment to complete before next weekend.  I got the idea she suspected Bill knew  something about Tess's troubles that I didn't, and that  maybe if I figured that, I'd get it out of  him."
  "That seems awfully manipulative.
Surely she would come out and say what she thought."  "That's exactly what Bill said, before we were  even out of the parking lot. He thinks that with therapy  these days there always has to be someone to blame. And  that Tess has apparently latched on to the idea  that the pressure will be off of her if there's some  malfunction in our family to pin her problems  on."
  "I think it's dysfunction."
  "Whatever. If there's some buried treasure  in our family, she'll be off the hook with this  drinking thing. He thinks this therapist is using  tactics with Tess that are very suggestive, and that  he and I are going to be expected to defend ourselves  as soon as the guessing starts. I pointed out how  he'd given himself away by twitching around back there  in that room when the three of us were so calm, and he  demanded to know why I hadn't been more  uncomfortable. Was it because I wasn't smart enough  to see what was happening? It was awful. I cried.  Then he wanted to go back and get her. We  stopped at a rest area and seriously considered  it." She sighs. "It was hot, but the rest area  is on a hill above the highway. You know the
  
one?"
  I nod.
  "There was a nice breeze, and we could see for  miles, both east and west. I wasn't getting  back into the car until we were agreed about what  direction to go--home or back to Tess. I  said, "You've got to stop this, Bill. She  needs this help. You can't play games with what  they're asking us to do." He got tears in his  eyes."
  I've stopped at that rest area along  I-80 and remember the steep rise of  turf-grass hillside and the molded-concrete  picnic tables, each under its own triangular  roof of shade. I can almost see Bill's high,  rounded forehead grow shiny in the heat. The bell on  the front door signals a customer, a young  woman with a ponytail and blue shorts, and  Judy hurries away from me.
  By the cash register, Judy looks toward me,  her features obscured by the faded afternoon light in  the plate-glass window behind her. She takes a  book from the customer and examines the blurb on the  back, gesturing as she speaks. I can't make out  the words from this far away, but the inflection of her  voice, without the earlier sarcasm, suggests "the  smoky chiaroscuro of familial love." Is  that really what she's saying? As the ponytailed  customer reclaims the book and returns to the  shelves to browse, I stand, intending to walk to the  front of the store. But Judy stops me by shaking  her head with such vigor that I know she needs  to hold herself together until Miss Ponytail  decides to go.
  Tess was only thirteen when Luci was  murdered--a woman she knew, a friend of her  parents. Charlie stayed with the Allards for a couple  of nights after it happened. None of us has  wondered if Tess, too, may still be frightened by that  horrible event and may not even know what is  bothering her. Who was it who said a crime like that  has many victims? The effects will be with us all  our lives.
  They follow me everywhere--these Unsuitable  Shoes.
  We're as healthy or as sick as the secrets  we keep. Though I've yet to read it  carefully, line by line, it's clear from Luci's  diary that she was a lot closer to Bill than  Judy knew. From her safe position at the
  
front of the store, she watches her  customer browse. She has no idea what I  am about to do to her.

  While waiting for Judy to come back from helping  her customer, I pick up The Intelligent  Investor off the nearest pile of books and open  it to a page that might as well read "Today we  made pesto," for all the jealousy I've felt  since seeing Charlie's name in Luci's  journal.
  A diary is a controlled version of a life, not  a reliable record. We all tell stories,  trying to master the events of our lives, entertaining  ourselves in the process. Isn't that what Judy  did just now, setting the scene of her conversation with  Bill at the highway rest stop, so I'd  relive the drama, feel her confusion about what's  happening to her family? I know one thing Bill  didn't tell her during that conversation--that one day  during the last months of Luci's life he  came up out of the woods along the old path behind the  garage, according to Luci's diary, and saw someone  hammering away on the siding. I'll look again  tonight, soon as I get home, but I'm sure  there's no way to get onto our property from the  back. The ravine is too steep for a path. It  drops at least fifteen feet at every point, and the  ridge runs for a mile on either side of us.
  If Luci's diary is part fiction, how can  I believe any of it?
  Bill's gotten smaller around the middle  since he's taken to running this past year. His  shoulders seem narrower, too. Though his hair's  thinning on top, he's let it grow into a smooth  curl over his collar. In his early forties, he  has a pleasant, broad-cheeked face and a  classroom manner when he speaks, his  grammar-perfect delivery explanatory and  reserved. Except for times like the other night in the  van, when he was upset, he has a gentle way  of trying to redirect others' opinions without being  wishy-washy. He's a quiet but no-bull,  straight-from-the-shoulder kind of guy, probably  why his students like him so much. I like him, too,  though sometimes I wish he'd loosen up.
  If it's true that Bill's relationship with  Luci was sexual, I wonder if his
  
straight-arrow demeanor masks other  behavior he'd be unwilling to share with Judy.  Has Tess discovered something about her father her mother  doesn't know? I try placing him in Big  Earl's, a topless juice bar at the edge of  town, but it doesn't quite work. I try watching him  inhale lines of coke off a cracked rearview  mirror in the backroom at Carney's, the  local auto-parts store where he works every summer,  but that's ridiculous, too. I try putting him  into something strange but not truly bad, like Judy's  underwear. Maybe he hides spiky high heels  and Victoria's Secret panties in the back  of the storage closet in the high-school chem  lab, and one day poor Tess was looking for a box  of pipettes--
  "Hey, Linda." The book snaps shut in  my hand as I turn toward Bill's voice  to confront the hollow above the top button of his  shirt where a fuzz of graying hair curls  proudly. "What happened to your face?"
  My hand rises to touch the memory of pain.  "A bee stung me." My laugh's a nervous  reflex at what he's caught me thinking.
  He looks puzzled. "What's so funny?"
He pokes upward at the bill of his green  seed-corn cap, moving the embroidered flying ear  of corn back slightly on his head. Then he  lifts the open book in my hand so he can see the  cover. "Ah, yes, Benjamin Graham. That's  a funny one all right." He's teasing me.  Two skeptical lines crease his forehead. "I  had no idea you were interested in the stock market,  Linda."
  "We all have our little secrets."
  "I guess you've been talking to Judy."  "Until we got interrupted." He  hesitates, and the silence makes me uneasy.  "Did Luci know you lived here," I say  quickly, "when she took the job at the community  college?"
  He straightens his back, turns, and is out the  door, just like that.
  Stunned by his sudden departure, I watch him  through the screen door and then decide to follow,  reaching his car just as he puts it into reverse, his  attention focused behind him. When he turns his  head and sees me, he shifts into park. He  speaks before I have a chance to. "Judy's upset  enough without your putting ideas in her head," he
  
says.
  "I haven't done that."
  "You will, if you keep asking about Luci."  "Looks like you're the one upset by that."
  He puts the car in reverse again, his foot on  the brake, letting me know this will be a short  conversation. "To answer your question, Luci did not know  I lived here when she took that job and moved  to town. It was the kind of coincidence a weak-minded  person might see as fate, our ending up in the  same place for the second time in our lives.  I'm afraid seeing me again stirred up something in  her. We weren't particularly close in  college. For one thing, she was only there for the first  half of fall semester. She was shy and intense,  very serious. Most girls back then tried to get  me to talk about myself. She wanted to talk about  The Birds, a play we'd had to read for  Humanities." To my surprise he smiles,  remembering, then sobers. "She wasn't the same  agitated woman who showed up here years later.  Charlie calmed her down, though." He pauses  to think. "She couldn't make it work."
  "Make what work?"
  "The idea that her running into me again was a sign  there was some kind of extrasensory bond between us."  His chuckle is dismissive. "It turned out  she'd said something about me all those years ago,  something untrue, and had always felt guilty about  it. Once she got that off her chest, I was able  to persuade her that taking a job in a town where I  just happened to live didn't mean anything in  particular. Except that we felt closer, as it  turned out."
  "Had you dated her, back in college?"  "No, it wasn't like that. We were friends, until  the end." He squints up at me into the bright  sunlight. "Why bring this up now?"
  "I always knew she had some real contradictions  in her personality. Now that she's gone, I wish  I'd asked her more questions."
  He nods, but with deliberation, as if my  explanation doesn't satisfy him. "Linda,
I was just by your place, looking for you. I was hoping  you could give Judy some moral support.  Tess ran out of the final therapy session in  Omaha and went back to her room without saying  good-bye to us. Did Judy tell you that?"
  "Not exactly."
  "The doctor tried to explain that Tess's
  
resentment is part of her recovery, but  Judy was too hurt to hear that, I guess.  All Judy's defenses have gone up, and I  can't seem to get through to her at all. Maybe you  could talk some sense into her."
  "A minute ago you accused me of putting  ideas in her head."
  "Tess is the one who's doing that. Sorry  I'm so jumpy, but Judy's reaction is really  throwing me." He gives me a sad look. "I  don't think I'm a bad father. Just talk to her,  okay? I don't seem to be very good at it these  days." He looks at his rearview mirror and  backs away.

  Inside, Judy wants to know why Bill  didn't wait for her. "Why did he take off  that way?"
  "That was my fault. I asked him if Luci  knew he was here when she moved to Linden Grove.  He didn't like that."
  Judy sinks into the nearest chair, silent for a  minute or so. I suppose she's thinking about  Luci, but then she says, "Bill thinks the  family therapy is deflecting attention away from  the real issues of alcoholism, suffering  consequences, setting limits." I pull a  chair over and sit beside her. "He figures that  if I think Tess was accusing him of something  during the session, the therapist probably thinks  so, too. He's pissed that Ginger-Banning  allowed the session to end the way it did. He  thinks she should have tried to keep us all in the room  until Tess explained herself."
  "Couldn't you have gone on talking with the lights on  high?"
  "Sure, but Tess got up and left.  Running away again, according to Bill. He doesn't  remember it at all the way I do. He thinks  the therapist raised the lights after Tess left  the room, that it was Tess who brought things to a  halt. The only thing I'm sure of is that  Bill and I were sent off to fight it out; I'm just  not sure by whom." She moves her hand across her  face, smearing tears. "I do love him,  Linda, but sometimes I hate him just for being a  man, just for the possibilities. What if the  awful secret Bill's supposed to have from me is  that he's cheating, and somehow Tess found out about it?  He denies it, of course. I asked. My dad
  
ran around on my mother, and I always had  to protect her from the obvious. Once she found a  pair of black underpants under the car seat, and  Dad told her he kept it there for when he  checked the oil, to wipe off the dipstick."
  "She must have known."
  "Yeah, but I didn't think so. It was  awful."
  "If Tess knew about such a thing, like you with your  mom, she'd be staying close to home, not running  away, and certainly not bringing it out in the open,  knowing you'd be hurt. That would be the last thing she'd  want."
  "Unless--" she begins. Behind her, two  middle-school boys with baseball caps on  backward come into the store to read magazines.  Judy keeps her back to them. "A mother's  supposed to protect her daughter, not be  gullible, not be blind. There's something she wants me  to know. Why can't she just tell me? What's she  trying to do?"
  "Make trouble between you and Bill. Divide and  conquer. Take the heat off herself. Maybe he's  right."
  "That's not like her."
  "Hasn't she done other things lately that  aren't like her?"
  Judy bites on her lower lip. "Linda,  I asked him last night if he'd ever done  anything to Tess, touched her in a sexual way.  He's acting as though my asking that question was a breach  of trust."
  "I take it the answer was no."
  "Of course the answer was no. And now that I  think about it, if Tess had told Susan  Ginger-Banning she'd been sexually abused, even  so much as suggested it, the therapist would have  confronted Bill herself. So I should have known it  wasn't that."
  "If the question was in your mind, you had to ask it,  Judy."
  "Right," she says. "I had to ask."  "And you accept the answer?"
  "I'll have to ask Tess, too, but I've  never had any reason to suspect such a thing.  Never." She looks at me, shaking her head.  "I know, Linda, you think I'm a champion of  denial, but not this time. A mother's supposed  to protect her child."
  What about a child protecting a parent?
  
Doesn't it work that way, too? I  wonder, even as I look for a way to bring  closure to the conversation before I have to go back to my  work and let Judy get back to hers. Maybe  I can talk to Tess myself when she's back from  Omaha. "I have a chance for the design account for the  new Linden Grove Mall," I say, "but
I'm having trouble coming up with ideas for a  visual-identity system, and the deadline is in just  a few days. Maybe I could bring over some of  my sketches, get your opinion."
  Judy frowns. "I heard there's going to be a  Lemstone Books in that mall. One of those  stores with religious books and wise-saying  coffee mugs and angel figurines."
  "That won't hurt your business, Judy."  "Of course it will. I do have a religion  section, Linda. Malls kill a small  town's shopping areas."
  "I don't have the job yet, Judy." I  think of the scatter of linden-leaf drawings on my  desk, as alike as if they all fell from the  same tree. Lack of variety in thumbnail  sketches is a sure sign a good solution will be  hard to get to. "Maybe I'll give up the  idea."
  "Don't do it on my account."
  I do want the job. But at this point the last  thing I want to be called in Linden Grove is  an outsider.

  As I step out the back door of The Little  Read Book Shop, a handful of sparrows flies  up to the power lines, where they wait in rows,  chirping with complaint. I wish I could move my  loft to a town where no one knows me and where if  anyone has trouble, I'm not aware of it.  By habit I listen for the distant drone of the  interstate, the way people near the ocean must pause  sometimes to listen for the surf, and for the same reasons:  a reminder the world is vast, beyond this speck of a  place, and there's a way out.
  From the back door of the Grubstake, Angela  flings another handful of crumbs, and the birds  gather on the pavement again. I inquire after  Russell Weber fondly, as one who loved the  dishes he cooked for me. "I just let everyone  know the register was short," she says. "I  didn't accuse him. But he's gone, so he must  be guilty, right?"
  
  I shrug, feigning unconcern about  what the guilty might do. "If he figured you  weren't going to believe him ..." My voice  trails off. I'd be gone in a flash, too,  if someone implied I'd put my hand in the  till. Halfway to my door, I turn.
Angela's still there, sunning her broad, shiny  face. "So you think he has a temper?" I  call out.
  "Not about this. Got a call about him this morning,  checking references for another kitchen job.  Don't you think that's strange?"
  "A place here in town?"
  "Yes."
  "Did you tell them he was a thief?"
  "I recommended him highly. So maybe he  knew I'd figure out I was wrong. The thing is  ..." She leaves the frame of her doorway and  walks out to me at the edge of the parking lot so she  doesn't have to talk so loudly. "I've come up  short since he's been gone, too. I've  started counting out the change again, the way I used  to. And the new cook's slow. This morning I had  to do some of the prep work myself."
  "You could offer him his job back."
  She considers that. "After this, he wouldn't trust  me anymore, so why would he want to come back?  I discovered when I asked him for references, when  I hired him, that he never stuck with any job for  long. It was something for him to stick with me for as long  as he did. And then I went and did this."
  She returns to her kitchen door. Her hair  is the color of ashes under the control of her hair  net, which she removes now, fingers spread to lift  it in a mime of penitence. "I wouldn't come  back," she calls out to me, turning away. The  rest of her words are lost. She's a heavy  woman. Moves slowly. Especially now, with  what she's thinking.
  Pretending fondness for Weber just now was not so  difficult, I realize. I'm becoming a good  liar. The door to my studio doesn't yield  at first, so I twist the key again, and it opens  easily. Alert, I hesitate just inside the  door. The desk chair squeaks at the far end  of the room, and John Bender's head and shoulders  appear beyond the etching press, his dark eyes  wide, as if I've caught him at something.
  With his hair pulled back and his high  cheekbones, his expression looks carved, aloof.
  
For a long moment we consider each other  across the space of the studio. I'm afraid  to move closer to him, yet angry enough to cover  half the distance before I speak. "How did you get  in here?"
  He turns his head to where I'm pointing--at the  sign hanging by a cord in the front-door  window. OPEN it says, on this side. When he  looks at me again, it strikes me that he looks  tired. His mouth is nearly a straight line.  "The door was open back there," he says, "so  I figured you weren't far away. I've been  waiting." He stands, palms open as if  to appease me. He must be tired. "I was leaving  you a note."
  "The door was open?"
  "Well, unlocked."
  With a single, sweeping glance, I take in the  studio between us: the drafting table and print files  to my left, the counter along the wall to my right with  its sink and acid bath, the work surface under the  skylight, where the plate for Charlie's print  lies faceup on last week's newspaper, the  image bitten and ready for ink. No sooner do  I think his name than Charlie's face appears  behind the OPEN sign. We make eye contact.  He raises his hand.
  "I don't appreciate your talking  to Hansen," I'm saying to Bender as I walk  around the end of the worktable toward Charlie's face,  framed by the window in the front door. "And  don't let on to Charlie that I've been to see  Garvey."
  Bender's already on the far side of the worktable,  headed for the back door. He stops. "You've  been to see Garvey?"
  I twist the deadbolt lock to admit  Charlie, flipping the sign automatically,  CLOSED side in. Smiling, he kisses me  on the mouth. "I tried calling, but I had  to pick something up at Ace Hardware anyway."  He looks toward the sound of the back door  snapping shut. With a touch to my chin, he tilts  my face to examine it. "I didn't want  to wake you this morning. You feeling okay?"
  "Like new."
  "Who was that?" He lowers himself into the desk  chair, which is no doubt still warm from Bender's  body.
  When I don't answer, Charlie looks up,
  
eyes still asking the question. "He looks  familiar." He's rotating my sketch pad  to look at six variations on a group of trees  surrounding the words LINDEN GROVE MALL.
  I move papers around on the desk, covering  Bender's note. "The leaf of the linden is not  symmetrical," I point out. "The base is  unequal; one bulge of the heart is bigger than  the other. I thought I might use that heart shape.  Every idea I came up with this morning was as trite  as that. So I took a break and went over to see  Judy." I sit opposite Charlie, in the  chair reserved for customers. "Tess is in good  hands, I think. The place is called Three  Oaks. It's a complicated business, treatment  for alcohol abuse. Especially with kids.  I'm afraid Judy and Bill are resisting how  much the whole family's affected."
  "I'll bet. Wasn't that the reporter?  Bender?"
  "Yeah, it was."
  "I do remember him." Charlie's leaning  back in the chair, spray-legged, broad hands  resting on the arms of the chair. "You haven't  mentioned him for a while. What was he doing here?  He's not still bothering you?"
  "He might like to. I won't let him."
  "I don't like the sound of that. He left in an  awful hurry."
  "He came by to see if I was still upset with  him. I gave him a lot of grief when I thought  I'd caught him harassing me. I was over at  Judy's when you called earlier, like I said." I  clear my throat. "I don't know why he left  so suddenly."
  Charlie surveys the studio. He looks  back toward the iron stairs that rise along the  left wall up to the loft. Up there, obscured from  view by a blue-and-white coverlet I threw  over the railing for privacy, are a queen-size  bed and a chest of drawers, an overstuffed chair and  reading lamp, all draped in old sheets. I  haven't gone up there much since last  September, when Charlie and I got married.  His gaze scans the work surfaces, lingers on the  etching press, returns to my face. "He's not  very friendly, is he? At least when I come on the  scene. Maybe he's got his eye on you in a  different way than you thought."
  I shake my head. "I doubt that, Charlie.
  
Detective Hansen says Bender's  a nice guy. You made me check him out,  remember? And now you have to go, too. Your etching's  in plain sight, and I want to run it this afternoon."  Charlie's eyes wander the room again, but I turn  him toward the front door. His van's parked right  there, at the curb. Outside, the air smells  fresh. There's a nice breeze. Charlie's in  no hurry to leave. "Judy hates the mall,"  I say. "She seems to think I should refuse  to help promote it out of loyalty to her and other  small-business owners in town."
  "It will have a big impact, I'm afraid,"  says Charlie, "but at this point the mall's a  done deal. It would be a good account for you."
  "I'd make a lot of money, and it would lead  to other work; but maybe I should consider seeing things  from Judy's point of view. What if I were  to work with the merchants who feel threatened by the mall,  help them develop a marketing strategy to cope  with the change--an identity for Linden Grove  Old Town shopping? A logo, street  banners, brochures. Judy is so upset about  Tess, and she and Bill are having problems.  If she and I could start a project together it would  do her good."
  "She's getting to be a pretty good friend for you,  isn't she?"
  "She's hard to get close to. But then so am  I, I suppose."
  "Not for me." He kisses me carefully, under  the eye, where the bee sting is still tender.
  "Do I still have a mark there?"  "Almost gone. Just a little bruise."
  I tell him that since the therapy session over  the weekend, Judy and Bill are barely  speaking. Charlie has always thought they were an odd  match--Judy's so flighty, Bill's so  solid. "Something the therapist said made Judy  ask him if he has abused Tess sexually, but  he denies it."
  Charlie's face darkens, and he looks at the  ground. Then he opens the van door. "Did  Tess accuse him of that?"
  "I don't think so. I don't know what  Tess is up to."
  Charlie shakes his head. "Tell that reporter  to get lost," he says, forgetting our usual  kiss good-bye. "I'll see you at supper."
  Back inside my studio, I cross to the
  
desk and uncover Bender's note:

I've been out of town, and the one time I called,  I got your machine. I wanted to explain myself  in person. I know you're mad I talked  to Hansen about you, but I had to check out his  attitude toward Luci's case. That one got  him his promotion, so he has a lot invested in  believing he handled it right. It's your safety  I'm most worried about. I've hit a dead end  with Luci's car.

  I stare at his confident scrawl for a moment,  then head for the worktable to give a final polish  to Mackerel Sky. Who does Bender think  he's kidding, my safety? Why did he  take off like that when Charlie showed up? Bending  over the table, my breath stops in my throat.  Across the copper plate, diagonal and deep,  run two deep slashes.
  A terrible X. In disbelief, I trace the  jagged line, then stare at the hairline of red the  torn metal has left across my fingertip.  Finger to tongue, I taste the salt of my own  blood, backing instinctively toward the front  door to keep the whole room in sight,  especially the coverlet that blocks my view of the  loft.

  My mind flashes through redoing the plate and  printing it in time for Charlie's birthday on  Friday, but I'm frozen where I stand. Whoever  X'ed out the house had to know how personal this  violation would be.
  The police dispatcher promises to send someone  right over. As I hang up the phone, my gaze  settles on the quilt hanging over the loft  railing, a pattern called Log Cabin, worked  in a watery progression of blues, scraps of  old clothes. It was part of Luci's collection  of folk quilts, and she gave it to me the day I  took possession of the building. That was a couple  of months before she died. I had come to town for the  closing, and because the building was already empty, I  had arranged for plumbers and electricians and  carpenters to start renovation work right away. I'd  drawn up the plans myself. When I finally moved  in, the day after the murder, I was grateful that the
  
quilt not only added color to the space  but blocked the view of my sleeping area from down  here at a time when I didn't have blinds in the  front window.
  Now I strain to remember leaving for Judy's  shop earlier, but the act of locking the back door  is lost along with other automatic moments since  the day began. The back door latch is a big,  square mechanism. It's hard to believe it  wouldn't hold. Bill said he had come by looking for  me, to make sure I realized Judy needed a  friend. Maybe he saw something.
  Maybe he came into the studio himself.  Ken Hansen arrives in a few minutes and  precedes me up the stairs to the loft. When I  snap the sheet off the overstuffed reading chair, I  disturb enough dust to make both of us sneeze. He  hunkers down to sweep the space under the bed with his  flashlight and then goes into the small bath. I  hear the shower curtain jerked aside as I hitch  the cord controlling the shade for the skylight over the  bed, allowing sunlight to illuminate the loft. From  the bathroom doorway Hansen surveys the  space approvingly, as if I'm a realtor and  he might want to buy the place.
  Back downstairs he inspects the damaged  plate while I remind him Bill Allard was  around earlier and John Bender was right here.  Hansen lifts what he says is a  thumbprint, then flips open the cover of his  notebook and refuses to look at me as he  says, "What dollar amount would you attach to this?"
  "I can't duplicate it exactly. So I can  assign it a standard amount, but as a loss, it's  priceless."
  "I can't write down "priceless.""  "Mackerel Sky was to be a gift for  Charlie."
  The detective writes something in his  notebook. Then his eyes meet mine as the phone  starts to ring. "Any reason you can think of that  anyone would want to frighten you like this?" We count  three rings, four, until the answering machine  clicks on and my own voice says, "Garbo  Designs. After the tone, please leave a  message."
  The caller speaks: "I got another letter just  now from Garvey, about your visit." Hansen  picks up the phone. "Bender?" His voice  reverberates through the machine, an auditory
  
version of reflections in a room walled  with mirrors. It's an old machine, with a tape;  I should replace it with better technology. I  intercept Hansen's hand before he can touch the "off"  button. "John? It's Ken."
  The recorder hums with silence for a second before  Bender says, "What's happened? Is Linda  there?"
  While the detective tells him about the  vandalism, I leave the machine on so I can hear  both their voices. "We've got one scared  woman here," Hansen says evenly, "and she  tells me you've been paying too much attention  to her lately. You had opportunity. Stop down  later and let me take your fingerprints. And you can  explain to me what you're up to, that business about  hearing from Garvey."
  My skin goes cold. "Let me talk  to him."
  Hansen holds out the phone. I press the  button as I say hello.
  "The machine's off?" John Bender's voice  is private, low.
  "Yes."
  "I shouldn't have taken off like that when Charlie  showed up."
  "Then why did you?" I ask. Silence brings  no response. "What's in Garvey's letter? I  want to see it."
  Hansen's gray eyes narrow at the mention of  Peter's name. A muscle works in his jaw. He  takes off his glasses. In my ear Bender is  saying, "Garvey says he told you he  remembered Luci Cole wrote in a  notebook sometimes. He says no one will  believe he suddenly remembered such a thing unless  it's found: and now he figures if you find it  you'll destroy it. He always insisted you lied about  him to protect someone."
  "He couldn't get out on bail if his trial  was reexamined, could he?" I watch the effect of  my words on Hansen.
  "What are you two talking about?" he says.  "The guy was convicted of murder one."
  I back up a couple of steps and trace the  jagged X, rough as a bread knife, in the  copper plate while Bender repeats in my ear  that no one was around my studio earlier, when he  got there. He saw no one. "From now on,  Linda," he says, "whenever you go out, don't
  
forget to lock the door."

  Detective Hansen has a tape recorder  with him. He places it on my desk, by the  phone, and clicks it on. He pronounces the  date, the time, the place. Then he asks me  to say my name, to declare that I have asked to make this  statement about my testimony in Peter Garvey's  trial, and then to explain why.
  "There's one thing I should have circled on the  statement I signed after Luci Cole was  murdered," I say carefully. "The description  of what I saw outside her house that day. I  should have deleted the part where I say Peter  Garvey slid himself out from underneath the car and stood  up. The part where I described the grime on his  face, how sweaty he was. The part where I said  we exchanged a few words. What I'm saying  now is that it's possible he stayed under the car the  whole time that day, it's possible he didn't  speak a word to me, it's possible I didn't  see his face at all. I may have confused those  details with what happened the day before, and the day before  that, when I came walking up to the house and he was  working on Luci Cole's car. Three days in a  row I walked past him and went into the house,  except that the third day--" My mouth goes  dry, and I swallow. "I discovered Luci's  body."
  "Did you see Peter Garvey outside
Luci Cole's house that day?"
  "Yes, but I'm afraid the only time I could  have seen his face was from up on the road. At that  distance a man is known by the color and shape of his  body, and his hair, and by the way he moves.  It's not possible to recognize more than that from such  a distance."
  "So is it possible it was someone else you  saw?"
  "It's not likely. But it's possible."
  I look at Hansen. He waits. He  doesn't want to lead me with his questions this time.  "When did you first realize your earlier statement  might have been misleading?" he wants to know.
  "The day I signed it. But even then, even  then I went back and forth in my mind about whether  he had stood up and talked to me at the house that  afternoon. I had no doubt it was Peter under that car.  What I doubted was that I'd be believed, if it  turned out I hadn't seen him face to face. I
  
thought my admitting to mental confusion  might allow him to get away with killing her. I  overcame my uncertainty by repressing it." I  turn to look over at the vandalized etching  plate. "More recently I have realized that what  I did was tell a kind of lie."
  After a few more questions and answers, Hansen  turns off the tape recorder. Neither of us  speaks for a few minutes. Then he stands up  to put the tiny machine in his pocket and says,  "I'll get this transcribed and over to the county  attorney's office, Linda. If you want my  opinion, this won't change anything, considering the  other evidence in the Garvey case." He touches  the point on the etching plate where the two lines  intersect, and I wonder what he thinks it  means.

  I have to admit that talking with Detective  Hansen about the doubts that have been on my mind  all summer was the biggest letdown of my life.  Instead of the strong reaction I expected from him,  he made it sound as though my great confession is not  likely to make any difference. Now what do I  do to protect myself?
  As soon as Hansen leaves, I call  Wayne's Lock and Key. Wayne turns out  to be a slight man in his sixties with a wide  forehead that swoops up over the top of his head,  giving him a gnomelike appearance. "Most  gals changing locks are fighting with their  husbands." He waits, as if he's used to his  customers telling their life stories at the drop  of a dead bolt.
  "Charlie and I get along fine."
  "Glad to hear it."
  He's all business as he gets down to work.  The back of his sun-burned neck is mapped with  pink lines. "This latch is loose, but there's  nothing wrong with the lock. It's a classic old  beauty, a Yale from the twenties. Sure you  want to replace it?"
  I'm sure. The front-door lock, too,  and I want them keyed the same. While he's  working, I settle down to rethink Mackerel  Sky and prepare a clean copper plate. As  soon as he leaves, I lock the door behind him  and call directory assistance for Russell  Weber. There's no listing for that name. I want  to find out if he's still in town.
  
  Next I find the pictures I  took of Tess the day she ran away, selecting  a shot that includes Weber. Seeing it brings  back the way he pulled the bandanna off his head  to scratch his scalp, revealing the brassy color  of his ropy hair.
  In less than a minute I've hurried down  the alley and descended the narrow steps to Le's  Salon, where both Doug and Sylvie are busy  with customers. Sylvie's finishing up a little  girl of about ten with the curling iron. Seeing me,  Doug raises his eyebrows in question.
  Sylvie removes the vinyl cape from the  girl's shoulders and smiles at me, then  returns to the child's reflection in the mirror.  "What do you think, Janie?" Sylvie's dark  hair is pulled back tightly, her dark eyes  outlined as usual with black and her generous mouth a  bright, purply color. Janie tilts her  serious face to study her helmet of dark brown  hair, smooth and round as a buckeye.
  "I need to ask you something," I say  to Sylvie as soon as the girl and her mother are  gone.
  "Shoot."
  "You know where I could find Russell Weber?  The cook upstairs? I know he comes here--"
  "Yeah, he lives over at one of his  uncle's rental places, over on Railroad  Street, twelve-twelve. My boyfriend stays  there sometimes, too." Well, that was easy.  "Russ quit upstairs, you know."
  "I heard he was fired."
  "Maybe." She seems disgusted. "Russ is  okay, you know? He just never can bring himself to finish  anything."
  "Did he have something to finish at the  Grubstake?"
  "He promised me and my boyfriend he'd hold  a job steady till we had enough money to go somewhere  they could work on their music again. My boyfriend could  get transferred easy, and I--" she gives  Doug a quick glance, lowering her voice. "I can't  see myself working in this town for the rest of my life."
  "He's a musician?"
  "They have big plans to send a demo tape  to Nashville."
  "He's that good, is he?"
  "I suppose he could be, if he'd ever  finish a song."
  
  Railroad Street turns out to be an  unpaved road at the edge of town near the  lumberyard. By the ruined sofas in the front  yards, I would guess most of these are rentals  inhabited by kids attending the local branch of  Des Moines Area Community College.  Twelve-twelve is a white clapboard with  black foundation, a box of a house, trim painted  a clean gray. The basement lights are on. The  grass is mowed, and the place is well kept,  unlike the houses on either side. I've stopped  my car across the street, and as I linger, a dirty  white Dodge turns into the drive. The young man  who gets out is dark and thick-waisted like  Sylvie, wearing the brown shirt and matching,  belted shorts that UPS drivers wear. He  pauses to collect the mail at the front  door. He returns something to the mailbox and  heads back to his car.
  After shopping for frozen shrimp and some tart  apples for the curry I've decided to make for  supper, I drive by The Honey Barn.  Charlie's van is not there, so I stop to see  Rosemary. She's typing on the computer, her  head tilted back in order to see the screen with  her bifocals. Her dress is bright yellow,  her Gypsy beads red and orange and hot pink.  She smiles her hello. "Ah, Linda. What  brings you by?"
  "Charlie head home already?"
  "He's around here somewhere." Rosemary  examines a crimson fingernail and opens her  desk drawer to pull out an emery board and  smooth the nail with a soft scraping sound. "He's  cleaning one of the extractors. Come to think of it,  he did mention he had to go after some gizmo or  other. He's been in and out all day." She could  manage this part of the business single-handedly if she  had to. A widow, she lives just two doors  away. She's worked for Charlie for years.
  She pulls two tea bags from a burgundy  box marked LAPSANG SOUCHONG and places them  into flowered cups. I didn't plan to stay long  enough for tea, but the phone interrupts my protest.  She raises her chin a notch as she answers it.  "You'll need to set them aside for us to examine.  No, I'll have it picked up within a week."  She listens. "Well, of course, but not until  we've seen the product." She's pouring hot
  
water into our cups as she speaks.
  "Someone found a fly in a jar of honey," she  huffs when she's off the phone. "I'll believe  it when I see it. Charlie gives every jar a  personal look-see." She lifts the tea  bags out of the cups. "Though lately his mind's  somewhere else half the time."
  "You hung up before I was finished talking the  other day, Rosemary. I was asking about the  disagreement you and Charlie had over Russell  Weber." I try sipping my tea, which smells  like stale wood smoke and menthol. She's  ignoring me. "Rosemary?"
  "You've been good for Charlie," she says  simply. "It's no secret I didn't think  much of that other one. The more she hurt him, the more he  wanted to marry her, as if that might change things.  It wouldn't have."
  "It was humiliating for him to find out about her and  Peter after she died. For me, having to tell him  about that was one of the most difficult parts of the whole  ordeal."
  "He already suspected about Peter and Luci.  I heard gossip about Peter visiting with Luci  a lot while Charlie was at work, and I thought he  should know what kind of things were said about the woman he  wanted to marry. He was angry with me for days, but  at least I warned him."
  I'll never be able to drink a whole cup of this  tea. It's awful. Boiled oak leaves would  taste like this. Rosemary's wrong. I told  Charlie about Peter and Luci as gently as I  could. I remember his face as his feelings  evolved from disbelief into hurt, then to anger. I  can't believe he had suspected that Luci and  Peter had been intimately involved.  Rosemary's recollection is no doubt  colored by her dislike of Luci.
  "He called me late that night and told me  to be sure and tell the police he was here all  afternoon," she says. "He thought it was important  for me to be definite about that." She tastes her  tea with an apologetic wince, teeth held  tight together.
  "He was here all afternoon, wasn't he?"  "Of course he was."
  "Most days he's in and out?"
  "That day wasn't like most days." She stares  at me steadily.
  "Remember when you saw my car on the road
  
above the house the other day, Rosemary?"  She stops blinking. "I was walking along the edge  of the field. From up there I could see you standing in the  driveway, talking to Charlie. It was clear from  your body language you were mad about something. I  think you were upset because he'd given Russell  Weber money."
  "Why don't you ask, so you won't have  to guess?"
  "Okay, I'm asking."
  "Charlie's been neglecting the business.  He's convinced you're sorry you married him, and that  just kills me. After what he's been through, he  deserves better." She starts to sip her tea but  lowers her cup into its saucer with a knock.  "Sorry about this. It was on sale. It tastes like  a cure for something."
  "A cure?" It's Charlie, in the doorway.  "You telling fortunes again?"
  "Linda's fortune is a good one." Rosemary  reaches for the switch to turn her computer off,  retrieves her purse from the bottom drawer of  her desk, and hoists herself up out of her chair,  adjusting the belt of her shirtwaist dress. "I  see good things ahead for both of you."
  Charlie's hand rests on the small of my  back. He says he's hungry, and I mutter  something about shrimp thawing in the front seat of my  car. Rosemary dumps out the teacups, drops the  box of Lapsang Souchong into the wastebasket,  and turns out the light.

  Wednesday is my regular day off. I spend  it cleaning house, working in the garden, doing  laundry. When I go back to work on Thursday,  I miss being at home. My studio no longer  feels safe, since the vandalism. All morning  I struggle with ideas for the Linden Grove Mall  and finally decide that the reason I'm not making  progress with my sketches is I'm too  ambivalent. My mind keeps turning to ideas for  promoting Linden Old Town. Before I can  change my mind, I call Robert Chapman and  tell him I appreciate the opportunity  to try for the mall job, but that I have decided not  to submit sketches. I won't be billing him for  my time.
  I devote the rest of the day to redoing  Mackerel Sky. I've gained something by having  to start over. This time the fish above the house is not
  
pasted onto the sky like an afterthought but  woven into the lapping clouds. By the time I've  gotten the plate bitten in the acid tank and  cleaned, ready for inking, I'm almost glad I had  to start over.
  Thursday night I call Judy, asking her  to drop by in the morning to watch me pull the  artist's proof. She and Bill will drive  to Omaha in the afternoon for their second weekend with  Tess, and she plans to close her shop for the  whole day. "I've given up the idea of doing the  design work for the new mall," I tell her.  "I've called around, and nobody seems to be  thinking about how the town might benefit from the  inevitable changes."
  "Like how?"
  "Once people get off the interstate to shop, we  could entice them to drive three miles further and  check out what we have to offer here in town. I'm  thinking about some new signage, defining the unique  products we might be selling here. We could do  a long-term plan for storefront restoration,  maybe even find a grant to apply for."
  "Develop a concept, you mean?" She's  teasing me.
  "And there's something else I want to talk with you  about. I found a diary Luci kept the final  months of her life."
  "Have you read it?"
  "I've skimmed it, only reading full  paragraphs when I've come to a proper name. Her  handwriting is difficult. If we'd had this  diary during her murder investigation, some of the people  mentioned would have been interviewed by the police. They  might have seen something unusual at the house around  the time she died, but they had personal reasons for  not coming forward."
  "Like what?"
  "Let's just say Garvey wasn't the only  man who came around when Charlie wasn't home.  I want you to read a couple of passages and  tell me what you think. Bring bagels."

  Friday morning Judy arrives just minutes  after I fitted my key into the solid new lock  in the back door and entered, relieved to find the  plate--a coppery rectangle in the  skylight's pale, early light--in the condition  I left it yesterday. I check out the place as  I do every morning now, climbing up to the loft,
  
looking for signs of disturbance.
Judy's at my elbow, the paper Bagel Works  bag crackling in her fist.
  After making coffee, I assemble my  materials while Judy hitches herself up onto  the counter near the press so she can watch me work--  coffee in her right hand, Luci's journal in her  left, violet half-moons under her hazel  eyes. She hasn't put on her makeup yet,  so her eyebrows and lashes are nearly invisible,  giving her a faded, watercolor look. She  holds the white mug near her tight, chewing  mouth, waiting until she swallows so she can sip  her coffee, put the mug down, open the book.
  I make a mental note of the time, another  fallout habit from Luci's murder, as I  slip my canvas apron over my head. Over  and over, every day, I register the time, as if someone  might ask. Exactly what time was it that you  stopped along the road to look down at the  house? It's 8:52 when Judy opens the book  and I roll the bed of the press out to its full  length toward her. Just seeing Judy with that book in  her hand gives me a nervous rush. Even as I  tell her to read every word, I am wondering if I  will bring myself to show her the first appearance of  Bill's name. "From the beginning. You need to see the  state of her mind, the way she describes men."
  "Where else would I start but the beginning?"  "Just stay away from the middle of the book for  now." My hands are flat on the printing  blanket, on the press bed. "How are you and  Bill getting along?"
  "He wanders the house all night. This morning  he seemed like he was at the end of his rope. I  said, "I suppose you aren't going to admit  to knowing what Tess was hinting at, are you?"' and he  said, "Not unless it's absolutely necessary," like  it was a joke. He's accused me of inventing things  out of whole cloth because I'm convinced he's holding  out on me. He says what I'm doing's as bad  as anything I might suspect him of."
  "Maybe he has a point." I unfold the  second felt blanket and smooth it flat, the  friction of the wool warming my hands.
  I take her silence to signify she's  angry, but when she speaks again, her tone is  unchanged. "The two people I love most in the world  are in this power struggle, and I'm the focus of their  attention. We should be concentrating on Tess."
  
  "You will be, in a few hours." I  turn the handle until the overlapping ends of the  blankets are caught, then smooth the free ends  up and over the large roller to clear the bed for the  plate and the paper. With my back to Judy, I  step to the worktable to lift the plate with my  fingernails, angling it to catch the light for a final  inspection. For a few long moments neither of us  speaks.
  Then she says, "Listen. I want to make  him see what we've done--what chances we're  taking." She sounds like she's talking around a  bite full of bagel. "I'm so scared of  driving--" She pauses, probably to swallow.  I still have my back to her. "Driving him further  away."
  "You should have seen Bill tramping the creek bed  that day, looking for Tess." I lift the plate  off the worktable and carry it to the press. "He was  frantic. Tess means the world to him. Your  suspicions about him are based on fear, not  evidence. You've both been worried to the breaking  point since Tess took off that day. This is no  time--"
  "Linda, look at me." I glance at her.  "That was Luci talking." Two-handed, Judy  has raised the journal to chest level, like a  choir singer, and I realize, of course, she was  reading to me. I've skimmed the book for  passages that have to do with Charlie, Bill, and  Russell Weber, but I have not gone over each  line, each page. "Doesn't this sound just like  Luci?" Judy looks down and reads it again:  ""I'm so scared of driving him further  away."" When our eyes meet again, mine  unblinking, Judy is alert, amused--maybe  even vindicated--by my confusion. "Okay, I'll  start again." Her pronunciation is as deliberate  as a reading teacher's, which is what she used to be.  ""I want to make him see what we've done  --what chances we're taking.""
  "Back to the beginning. Who is "he"?"  "This is the beginning." Judy picks up her  mug of coffee and manages a hurried, noisy  sip. "Well, that's just like Luci, isn't it?  Turning up here out of the blue, moving in with  Charlie. Slipping into his perfectly calm  life, starting her story in the middle like this."
  "She knew who she meant."
  "Making us guess who she's talking about."
  
  "She didn't write it for us."
  Judy ignores that, and proceeds to read:

    March 12, 1995.
  I want to make him see what we've done--  what chances we're taking--without blowing the whole  thing. But I'm so scared of driving him away. I  need him in some perverse way--to help me get out  of here. I don't have the nerve to tell him I'm  leaving. He has to see he's better off without  me. Anyway, I can't stand it sometimes--thinking  I'll be here forever. He wants everything about my  life to be decided. How do people stand that?
  Peter is not complicated. Mostly I love  his body--the lean muscles in his arms that thicken  when he moves, the pulsebeat in the hollow of his  throat--the whiteness of his skin where the sun never  strikes it, swirl of light brown hair around his  nipples and down around his belly button,  narrowing to a thin dark line--drawn all the way  to the brushy stubble of his privates.

  "Privates," Judy scoffs. "The way  she's getting warmed up you'd think she'd come right  out and say "dick," or "cock." Or  wait." Her eyes move across the page.  "There's tons of description here." She turns  a page. "Listen to this. Lists of words,  organized by senses. Under "SMELL" she  has "motor oil, new-turned garden soil,  loamy."" She reads on silently,  apparently looking for items worth reporting:  ""starchy after sex,"" she says, ""like  laundry soap."" She looks at me.
  My face feels stiff as a mask.
  "I'd like to know her brand of detergent." Judy  reads silently again. "Oh, how about this one:  "When he comes in from work--his skin smells  sour and ready, like wet grass rotting in the  sun."" She draws her shoulders together in a  fast shudder and in one continuous motion snaps the  journal shut and slams it flat onto the  countertop with a sound that's louder than she  expected, judging by the way she flinches. My  own reaction is one of relief. What was I  thinking, placing that book in Judy's hands?
  She picks up her coffee cup and glares.  She takes a very long, deep breath, then  shivers. "Remember Peter in court? In his  suit and blue tie to match his eyes, fair
  
hair all trimmed, clean as a  priest? Imagine reducing a man to what he  smells like. Why write such stuff anyway?  Luci wasn't like this. Are you sure this is her  handwriting?"
  I'm sure. I dampen a thick blotter,  then wipe it down with a sponge. I'm seeing the  perfect circles of Luci's gold earrings,  seeing her eyes narrow as she concentrates. On  a later page will she catalog Bill's  smells? I toss the sponge toward the sink and  miss. Bending to retrieve it from the floor, I  say, "If she hadn't turned into such a bitch,  she'd still be alive."
  "God, Linda. I can't believe you said that."  "Well, isn't that how she got herself killed?  Trying to escape Charlie by sleeping around?  Isn't that how that sounds?" Still hunkered down, I  point in the general direction of the journal. In  my hand the sponge smells sour.
  "She didn't get herself killed, Linda."  Judy slides off the counter and adjusts her  slacks down around her thighs. "Luci may have  complained real life wasn't exciting enough, and  God knows what she was trying to prove with this, but  that doesn't mean she--"
  "Oh, I know that." I manage to push myself  upright, sluggish with size and the impossible,  dead-weight-burden of Luci's body in my  mind. "You know I didn't mean it."
  "Maybe you did," says Judy quietly.  "You're still plenty mad at her. We both know  Luci was a lot more complex," she says, lifting  the journal in her hand, "than this. We shouldn't  fault her for not writing great thoughts in her diary.  After all, she never dreamed this would be all that would  be left of her."
  "I've just told Detective Hansen I  think the man I saw that afternoon might have been someone  who just looked like Peter. I'm pretty sure  he stayed under the car that day. I didn't see his  face. Hansen doesn't think a change in my  testimony will change the conviction, but it's not up  to him. It's up to the lawyers. If the case were  to be reopened, anything in this book that reveals  what Luci was up to before she died might be  investigated." No matter who it hurts.
I should take it from Judy's hand right now,  protect her from Luci's ghostly gossip.
  As if Judy reads my mind, she says,
  
"Reading this is like walking in on someone  at a very bad moment. Let's stop."
  "Judy--"
  "Wouldn't there have to be new evidence for the murder  case to be reopened? This diary just makes her  relationship with Peter even more clear."
  My mouth is dry. "I think I'm in  danger. It isn't just that vandalism on Monday.  Someone was prowling around our garage Sunday  night."
  "But, Linda--"
  "I know you think this is survivor's guilt,  or delayed terror--"
  "Everyone thinks that. You've acted so strange,  for weeks."
  "Like who?"
  "Oh, Rosemary Lindstrom. And you have  to admit you were ignoring me there for a while, until  Tess ran away and you knew I needed you.  Angela says you jump out of your skin when she  approaches your table to take your lunch order."
  "She startled me once--once, when I was  daydreaming."
  "Even Russ Weber brought it up."  "You're kidding."
  "And Tess, of course, flat out envies your  grief."
  "Weber barely knows who I am."
  "When he was working at the Grubstake, he'd  come in for his paper every day and we'd chat, the way people  do, small talk. I admit I have my doubts  about him now, after Tess's trouble, but I always  saw him as a hometown boy who couldn't cut  loose, who keeps coming back to regroup."
  "He's hardly a boy, Judy. He's at  least my age."
  "He talked about other people in the neighborhood  all the time. It would take him half an hour  to buy his paper. His theory about you was that Charlie  shouldn't expect you to live in the same house where  you found Luci's body, that that's what's keeping  you scared. I think Russ found you attractive.  I know you go into the Grubstake every day for lunch, but  I wonder if he noticed all the customers as  much as he noticed you. He mentioned to me that you'd  lost weight. I hadn't even noticed that."
  I glance down past the familiar terrain of my  body, flexing the fanned-out sinews of my right  foot in its sandal, studying the knobs of my  ankle. "Exactly what did you tell him?"
  
  "I told him you act like Luci's  murder case isn't settled."
  "I wish you hadn't done that."
  "Gossip can be very caring. It's not like I said  you're stupid, or crazy. You're deeply  affected, that's all." She pauses, realizing  how that sounded. "I mean, not affected as in  weird, but distressed, upset. People around here care  about you." Judy's face inclines toward mine with  concern. "If it will make you feel better,  I'll take the journal with me to Omaha and  give you a full report when I get back."
  Pulling the thin volume gently from her hand, I  manage only a shake of the head to convey my  displeasure. She follows the journal with a look  of longing as it disappears into the middle of three  pockets in my canvas apron. It's a tight  fit, and hangs heavy. As I turn back to the  press, my hands shake.
  I center the damp blotter over the etching  plate and smooth the three blankets, one by one,  on top of the paper, trying to calm myself. So  I've been discussed around the neighborhood, have  I? Poor Linda, addled for life by what she  saw. "Why don't you just go to Omaha and  straighten out your own life? You're right, I  don't consider Luci's murder settled, as you  call it, but I never dreamed, of all people, you'd  speculate about my fears with Russell  Weber--"
  "Is that what you're so mad about?"  "Who else did you discuss this with?"
  She's gathering her things, dropping a  half-eaten bagel back into the bag, crushing it  shut with a vengeance. "No one," she says  calmly. "Well, Bill, of course. I do  talk to my husband. At least I try."
  "Luci mentions Bill in her diary," I  say, tapping my pocket.
  "I'm sure she had plenty to say about all of  us. I'll see you when I get back from  Omaha."
  When she tells Bill about this diary, maybe  he'll come clean with her about how close he and  Luci were, and I won't have to be the one to give  her the bad news. I feel a twinge of guilt.  After all, Judy's in trouble of her own, and  I've upset her further. And we didn't even  talk about Linden Old Town. Cranking the  press slowly and evenly, my hands--warm now, and
  
steady--tighten to overcome a slight  resistance as the roller mounts the plate.

  After Judy leaves, I keep working until  an edition of twelve prints of Mackerel  Sky is stacked on the counter, layered with  newsprint and blotters. John Bender, calling  my name through the screen door, snaps me out of my  trancelike concentration. I left a message at  his office earlier. If he was the one who came  here and X'ed out the original image for this print,  I want him to see it takes a lot more than that  to make me give up a project, especially  if the project has to do with finding out the truth.
  He rattles the door to remind me I  locked it. As I approach him, I wipe my  right wrist across my forehead and roll my shoulders,  stiff and tight from the long hours of work. My  fingers hesitate on the lock. "You brought  Garvey's letter?"
  "Yes."
  "Your note said you hit a dead end with  Luci's car."
  "Neither of us is going to figure this out alone."  Bender follows me over to Mackerel
Sky. As he steps close enough to inspect the  print, I resist the impulse to back away from  the fish's staring eye. "Ummm," he says  thoughtfully. "Fish and bird. This makes me think  of those metamorphosis prints where black  birds become negative spaces around white  fish." His pointing finger hovers above the fish's  scalloped scales, woven with suggestions of  clouds and birds in flight. "I'm not explaining  it well."
  "Probably Escher." Bender doesn't  react. "My work is based on gestural  drawing, not repeat-pattern design." This could be  the start of a conversation I'm in no mood for right  now. "My idea came from Charlie's metaphor  for the way the sky looked one night. Maybe it's  more personal than original."
  "It wasn't a criticism." Seeing my  dismissive shrug for what it is, a signal  to change the subject, Bender pulls a long  envelope from his pocket. His name and address run  across the face of it in large, sprawling script.  Peter's letter is a lot shorter than I had
  
imagined and ends with a direct order:  "You scared her enough to get her here. Watch what she  does next."
  "Watching me is an assignment you're well  qualified for."
  "Garvey really gave you an earful, didn't  he? That business about a book Luci wrote  in."
  It's clear to me Bender sees this letter as  confirmation he and I are in this together. My right hand  moves protectively against the hard surface of  Luci's journal in the tight pocket of my  apron. I've been reading it word for word, in  bits and pieces all day: Gradually I can  feel myself already transferring to you some of my great  need to depend. I love your self-sufficiency,  crave it for myself. I need another mind  to grapple with to understand what happened to her, but it's  not going to be Bender's. My fixation with him could  easily become a dangerous game. "Luci  knew she was risking everything with Peter, but she  couldn't seem to help herself. It's almost as if her  toying with him was part of a self-destructive  plan."
  "What did he tell you?"
  "He remembered something about birds roosting in  the woods behind the house, something about horses  bolting." I pause, imagining the raucous  crows, their long, jointed wings flapping against the  sky--like those rising across the belly of the fish in my  print. "Hansen says your father's been ill."
  "I was back and forth for a few days. It's a  four-hour drive. The funeral was yesterday."
  "He didn't tell me that. I'm sorry."  "He didn't know yet, when you took him the  flashlight. Dad had time to get used to the idea  of dying. We talked a lot at the end. He  told me being an old man was the most interesting  part of an interesting life. His mind was flooded with  memories of things he hadn't thought about for  years." He hesitates. "This makes it harder  for you to be mad at me, doesn't it?"
  I return my attention to Mackerel
Sky.
  "This is Charlie's house, isn't it?"  "Not just his." Turning my back on Bender,  I walk over to the print cabinet to retrieve the  vandalized plate. "I guess you know I've  given Hansen a new statement about what I saw  the day Luci died." I lick my lips as I
  
place the plate with its wild X on  the surface of the worktable.
  "Yes, he told me." Bender gauges the  scratches on the copper plate with his  thumbnail. "This has to be the act of someone who  knows your work but not your character."
  We look at each other. "I'm still very much an  outsider in this town," I say. "The only way  I can imagine speaking frankly, with someone I  could trust, would be to find a professional  counselor. For a while this summer Charlie was  encouraging me to do just that, until he gave up.  It wasn't a suggestion I took kindly to.
I understand from Detective Hansen that you think  I'm a bit paranoid, too, but counseling  won't undo this."
  "Unless you did the damage yourself."
  My back stiffens.
  "I don't think you did, but you should know that  Hansen has his doubts about you." He leans a  hip against the thick edge of the worktable. "This is a  telling kind of vandalism. It has to be someone  who knows you well enough to know what kind of artwork you do  but not well enough to know this wouldn't scare you off."
  "That's not something you could have known about me until  now."
  "You're forgetting I observed you closely  during the trial. You appeared self-possessed  and prudent, exactly the traits I see in you  at this moment." He traces a diagonal  scratch that bisects the image of the house. "I  didn't do this, Linda. I'm more than a little  worried about who did. I stopped by Hansen's  office Tuesday so he could take my  fingerprints. All I can do is ask you to believe  me until the thumbprint he lifted here Monday  rules me out. In the meantime you have something to gain  by making a leap of trust."
  "That's hardly necessary." I tell him that up  until the week before Luci died, Russell  Weber had been helping Charlie build the  garage. I never laid eyes on Weber until  this summer, when he became the cook at the  Grubstake, so I couldn't have been aware at the  time of Luci's murder that he was tall and blond  like Peter Garvey. Now I wonder if it could have  been Weber lying under her car that day. It's a  preposterous suggestion, and the only way I can  think of to recruit Bender without trusting him the  way he wants me to. He places a finger
  
on the X that crosses out the house.  Within a minute, he's out the door.

  Charlie insists on celebrating his birthday  quietly--no surprises, no cakes, no  big deal. I take home one of the proofs of his  print, and after dinner of chicken and roasting ears  fixed on the grill and strawberry shortcake,  I give him his gift. His kiss is the kind of  double-peck bestowed with public awards. He  tells me I'm brilliant. "I might not  understand what the fish means," he admits.  "Maybe I'm too literal-minded."
  "It's about seeing, and imagination, your  imagination, Charlie." He props Mackerel  Sky on the mantel, moving a pair of  blue-patterned Polish candlesticks in front  of it to keep it from buckling and sliding down.  We're side by side, looking at the mackerel  sky the way we looked at the real thing in the  parking lot outside Mona's Pizza. But that  silence was comfortable, and close. This silence makes  me uneasy. "Don't worry about being literal  minded," I tell him. "I'm more interested in how  you feel."
  The pressure of his arm against mine diminishes.  "Are you going to leave me?"
  "Of course not." My lips stay open with  surprise as he backs up and sits on the edge  of the sofa, open hands braced on his knees as if  he might push up onto his feet at any  moment. "Why would you say that?"
  "I ran into Ken Hansen having lunch at  Mona's. He assumed I knew you'd asked  him to check that flashlight against prints from  Luci's murder investigation." Charlie stands,  unbuttoning his shirt. He jerks his shirttails  free of his belt, wide gestures to get him out  of the room into the hallway.
  "Then he must have told you he didn't want  to do it, that my request was inappropriate. I'm  sorry if I neglected to tell you how foolish  I felt." My loud voice doesn't bring  Charlie back. I hate it when he leaves the  room angry. Water's running in the bathroom.  His face is wet, half covered with his dripping  hands, when I step into the doorway. "I wanted  tonight to feel like a celebration."
  "It's fine," he says, toweling his hair  back from his face. "Really. I love your
  
present."
  "I did that plate for you twice, Charlie."  A sigh deflates him and he looks as  dumbfounded as when I first told him about the  vandalism. He sits on the edge of the tub, a  blue towel draped across his knees. His upper  body is muscular across the shoulders but rounded below  the ribcage, a slackness that makes him appear  old, weary. As if he knows what I'm thinking,  he fingers his belly, giving it a dismissive  slap. "I do love you, Linda," he says  then, as if it were the logical next thought, the  gesture and the words so incongruous I'm afraid  I'm going to laugh.
  Instead, tears blur my vision. "I know that,  Charlie."
  "But I want our life to be  uncomplicated. If it's not too late for that."  He's wiping the towel across his forehead again, and then  he sits motionless. "You start. This is too hard  for me."
  "I'm not trying to start anything."  "You want something from me you're not getting. You  want me showing you how I feel." He looks  at me, combing his wet hair back with his fingers.  A vein stands out along the inside of his forearm.  "And if you don't get enough from me, you'll go  elsewhere. Talk to Hansen behind my back. I  thought we decided there was no point in reporting that  intruder to the police. What connection could you  possibly make between that event and Luci's death?  And why haven't you been talking to me about these  things?"
  "Because you think I'm being irrationally fearful."  "Don't you think I have good reason? If I    seem to have lost confidence in you, maybe it's that  I've lost confidence in everything else. After  Luci--"
  "Don't project Luci onto me."
  "Then don't give me a reason to."
  For a moment we're both silent. Then I  say, "Luci's death has called all kinds of  things into question for me, too, doubts about my own character.  I was too eager to blame Garvey. It was such  an ugly death, and it caught Luci at such a  bad moment."
  He starts to smile but catches himself. "She  doesn't deserve your kindness."
  The matter-of-fact coldness of his voice  returns my attention to the bright chrome faucets
  
and the glint of mirror above the sink. "I  was sure it was Peter I saw that day, but I  shouldn't have sworn to it."
  "Hansen told me you're second-guessing  yourself. I have to learn my wife's weightiest  thoughts from a police detective. Now, why  would that be?" Charlie backs me out of the room and  braces his arms on the doorframe. He is  exactly my height with his shoes off. His face  darkens even before he starts to speak again,  pronouncing his words in a measured, aggressive  whisper. "Garvey took her life, Linda.
You can't let him get away with ruining ours,  too. I know what you found that day. I saw the  pictures. You seem to forget that. If you can't  put Luci's death behind you, maybe you had  better leave, until you get help to deal with  it."
  Shaken, I'm against the wall of the dim  hallway. "Charlie, we can't have things simple  and uncomplicated right now, the way we want.  But that doesn't mean we have to give up on each  other. I need your comfort, and your reassurance. I  should have told you I took the flashlight  to Hansen. I don't know why I didn't."
  For a moment his concentration falters, but then his  eyes narrow and his nostrils grow larger. He's  breathing hard. The light from the bathroom doorway  behind him outlines his hair in a jagged red line.  "You certainly don't think I'm going to leave,  do you?"
  "Nobody's leaving."
  "It's my house," he says simply,  dropping his arms to his sides and backing away,  "not yours."
  Later I can hardly remember packing a few  things, driving to the studio, climbing to the loft, and  falling asleep under the dust sheet, too tired  even to make up the bed properly. I wake in  full darkness, trying to recall locking the door.

  It's cold in the loft. I leave the bed just  long enough to pull Luci's blue coverlet off the  railing. Wrapped in the quilt, my view  unobstructed now, I can see across the studio to the  front window below, where the blinds filter slits of  light from the street onto my desk. Luci's  journal is visible even at this distance. The  skylight admits a gloss of moonlight, and  I shiver, wide awake. I turn on the lamp
  
by the bed to look at my watch. Three  fifty-three.
  Eyes closed, I fumble around in the duffel  bag on the bed with me, pull on the pair of  socks I find there, and pad over to the  kitchenette to fill the coffeemaker and lug it  over to the small lamp table within easy reach of the  warm covers. I have to make another trip  downstairs to get my favorite cup and  Luci's journal, closing the front blinds while  I'm at it. Once I'm back upstairs, the  smell of the coffee revives me. "Charlie,"  I whisper against the rim of the cup, missing him.  I pull the quilt close around me. I lift  the coffee, actually taking a sip this time,  swallowing fast because of an impending sneeze, which  echoes in the cavernous space. I shiver at the  smallness of the sound and scan the first entry, which  Judy read to me yesterday, and continue to read:

    March 17, 1995.
  This house has become my prison. But how  could I have accused Charlie last night of wanting  to keep me away from life--as if this frozen  state I'm in were his fault? He reminds me  how our life together was to give me more energy  to create, not less--more time and space for my art.  So why isn't it working out that way? He wants  to know. His protective, generous love  terrifies me--he doesn't suspect how  unworthy I am.
  Every day I betray his love in ways I  don't mean to--deeper and deeper entrapping  myself in my own secrecy--until now there seems  to be but one way to stop--the obvious one--to let  him discover I am not what I seem. Lately  the Old Darkness has come over me again--giving  me a warped talent for drama, with him one of the  unsuspecting players--and me a woman who  sets things in motion, but who rarely appears  to start anything herself.

  I let the quilt slip off my shoulders as  I shiver again, but not with the cold. Years ago,  back in school, Luci used to suffer what she  called the Dark Blues. Could that be what she  means here by the "Old Darkness"? At those times  she'd mutter about the myth that the artist has to be out  of control, baffled by convention, and in near-constant  torment. She'd try to make light, in her
  
ironic way, of what I could tell were  terrible times for her. She'd get behind on  projects, mope about, sleep too much, wake  up with a blazing headache and a bad case of guilt  over her lack of control, punishing herself for being  "stuck."
  Sometimes she wouldn't get out of bed for two or  three days, but she was gifted enough she could get  away with it. Suffering really did appear to fuel  her creative energies; at last she'd get up  and take a shower and begin to work in a white heat.  The whole show did little to support my view that  agony, far from being the source of her creative  ideas, just delayed their arrival. She refused  to talk about those blue times, once they'd passed.  Moving the lamp closer to the edge of the bed so I can  see the page better, I back up and reread,  then move on to the next entry, where I find a  proper name I missed in my earlier, hurried  scanning: Gustavson.

    March 18, 1995.
  Reverend Gustavson's features are large,  rather thick, but his mouth is so sensual--  full-lipped and unguarded. I can make him  shift in his chair simply by looking at him  obliquely. The first time I went to Reverend  Go---- in the church office, all I did was  cry. I couldn't speak at all, I cried so  hard. I was embarrassed--too suspicious and  upset to tell him what was wrong.
  But the second time we met, I told him I  was trying to break off a relationship with a man in his  congregation--and that I'd sought out Go---- to give  me courage. I knew he was a trained  psychologist. By the time I left him that morning,  Go---- had suggested my depression might be  situational, not clinical, and assured me he  makes "pastoral calls"--I must have seemed  seriously distraught!--and suggested I try  writing down what troubled me--what I do, how  I feel, day by day--so we could discuss my  dilemma like a text--objectively. Look for  patterns and remedies. Analyze my  motives. Tell myself the truth for a change,  he might have said.
  So I watch Reverend Go----'s eyes while  he reads the pages I've written for him. When  he looks up at me over his glasses, I  find myself stroking my neck with slow hands--licking
  
my lips, turning away from him only  to glance back, sidelong--tilting my face  to meet his gaze. I observe these movements as  if I am no longer in myself but watching another  Luci repeat an old pantomime. I see the  signs of his responding, but I'm so careful--I  go slow. He cares about me. He says so.
  Lying beside Charlie at night, I dream of  Go----'s eyes caressing the words I've  written for him--see them draw him in despite  his will. Because he struggles not to move or react the  way he wants to, being a professional, a  man of God--but wants passion nonetheless, I can  tell--he's oblivious to what he's  inevitably bringing about. And because it all seems so  familiar, and I am so ashamed, confiding in him  is now impossible.
  When I come home, I shake, cold, disgusted  with myself for all my sexual failures. At  least he hasn't caught on yet. But today I  went too far. He wouldn't give back the  pages I'd written, describing the way  he'll look at me just as we're finally about  to touch. He told me he had destroyed them--  afraid of his own desires--not mine. So much  for the two of us facing my problems objectively  together! He's torn them up. Turned me down.  Denied his own preoccupation. My face burned with  remorse. I deserve this shame, for testing him.  He's seen the last of me.
  So I'm going to write this for myself--or for  someone who isn't so easily frightened, someone who  won't be ashamed of what's in my mind. If  I'm going to get myself under control, I'm going  to have to name the shocking, vulgar things that are back  there, recover from this sexual paralysis. Or  I'll lose Charlie. I can't keep on  failing him the way I do. Sometimes I come so  close to telling him everything, but I just can't.

  What follows are the exercises in physical  description Judy read to me yesterday,  unorganized phrases and lists of details  describing Peter Garvey, as if Luci were  trying to shock herself. By the dates I see she  abandoned her journal in March, then picked it up  again in May. I take another sip of coffee,  remove the sleep-sand from the inner corners of my  eyes.
  And out of all the details I recall about her
  
when we knew each other in school--at  first, I suppose, because we were older than many of the  other students, then because neither of us was as social as  most of our classmates--a few begin  to surface to contradict the Luci in the journal.  She, even more than I, was a loner--the one who  never had a steady boyfriend, the one who dropped  Life Drawing the day they brought in a male  model because she couldn't stand to stare at a naked  man. She said it made her ill. She told me  at one point, with some pride, I thought, that she  often skipped her period--because she was too thin,  according to the doctor at Student Health. Still, she  starved herself. She gossiped about men she found  attractive--but made a point of insisting she  saved her passion for her work. Years later, when  she called to tell me about Charlie, laughing about  how she'd met an entomologist at a flea  market--he was shopping for old hinges and  doorknobs to use in renovating his house--she was  so giddy, talking in the same breath about how well  her work was going and how wonderful it was loving  Charlie, I figured she'd found a good balance,  a healthy happiness.
  Reverend Gustavson is the minister of the church  I did the centennial etching for last year.  I'll pay him a visit as soon as I can  arrange it. Wide awake, I return to the  page, skipping over sketches of horses and  lizards and rabbits with Peter's head and  shoulders. And read on:

    May 5, 1995.
  Peter's eyelids are heavy, puffy. I  see him growing old over there, puttering in his  workshop, his brain dim from too much late night  drinking--but now, at thirty-three, those fleshy  lids give him a sleepy look--Peter of  Languor, I call him--out by the fence with the  horses, he slowly blinks, turning my way so
I can gaze into his eyes that reveal  intelligence, but a remarkable lack of ambition.
  I rest one foot on the lowest cross-pole  of the fence--shading my eyes as we talk--allowing  each encounter with Peter to last a few minutes  longer than the last--patiently teaching myself that I  can safely love the lean muscles that thicken when  he moves--love even more the pulsebeat in the  hollow of his throat--the freckles on those lazy  lids when his eyes are downcast, so uncertain when
  
he sees me approaching the fence--then  meets me halfway. By now I am lost,  thinking about him all the time--and he about me, I am  sure of it!
  I long to throw myself away on nobody. Why?  To prove I can give myself? To succeed at last  in staying away from But----, and forget all he  makes me remember? It was no accident, my  moving to his town. Some force must have pulled me  to where he was--so I'd be reminded of what  happened all those years ago. So that I'd have him  to talk to as I remembered how I had wronged him  then--and make things right between us.
  Could it be true that keeping But---- close and  seeing him so often is a hedge against the fear of  giving myself to Charlie? I'm still closed up with  Charlie, so afraid, so unable to feel that  desire for him, the one I want to want so much.  I fantasize about But----. I have shocking  dreams after he and I talk, where the moment he  penetrates me, I have won, and he can no  longer deny me anything. I know how much he fears  putting so much at risk for me--a wife, a  reputation. So I must be worth something.
  But Peter has nothing to lose. So what am  I doing with him?

  I've grown colder, but I have to leave the warm  bed for the bathroom, returning in a hurry to skip  ahead a bit, starting with a paragraph that catches  my eye because of the words "Peter" and "knife."

    May 15, 1995.
  Yesterday Peter took me into his workshop and  showed me a curved knife he uses for cutting  leather--for harnesses and saddles--and sliced a  narrow strip for me, tying it around my wrist--the  pungent smell of the leather heavy as musk.  Later he backed me into his bedroom--and I was  horrified that I could submit unfeelingly to a  man whose hungers are so base--so  uncomplicated. It was as if a powerful ghost had  risen up and rendered me passive as wood.  Peter didn't even notice there was something  wrong.
  Worse, I crossed the yard just as Charlie was  driving in--forcing me to spin a lie out of my  confusion, my dampish smell--pretending I was  coming down with the flu--running past him, moaning in the  bathroom--and Charlie so concerned and tender with me
  
that I was even more convincing, chilled and  shaken by self-loathing and the most terrible guilt--as  he cared for me. He placed a cool cloth across  my forehead while the smell of the leather thong on  my wrist made me physically ill.

  My finger falls on the words "and I was  horrified" and moves over to the margin, where she's  added, "Are you horrified by my telling you this?"  I lower the book for a moment. Who's this note for?  I think how gentle Charlie must have been with her that  day, how unsuspecting. The dates of these  entries remind me that during the same period of  time she was writing this, she was talking to me on the  phone about how Charlie's business was expanding, about  their plans for finishing the house renovation, about  juried shows she was planning to enter. And about which  flowers were starting to bloom in the yard.

    May 16, 1995.
  Today I took apples as far as the fence for the  horses and waited for Charlie to come home--so he  would believe that's what I was returning from  yesterday--simply feeding the horses, over the  fence, when suddenly beset by illness. I'm so  afraid of discovery. As soon as Charlie left  for work, Peter came to the kitchen. He was wearing  a clean shirt. His fingernails were clean. He  sat down--played the part of the guest--only more  familiar, calmer, as if something had been  decided. And I was the old Luci again--the good  wife, holding her breath.

    May 17, 1995.
  In my college sketchbooks I used  imagination to turn what I saw each day  into visual, waking dreams. Now it's a struggle  to make myself record the ways I hide my  actions from people around me. I have to hide even more,  now that I've done this terrible thing behind Charlie's  back. Outwardly I am loved, admired,  devoted. No one knows how devious I can be.  Or how I long to be free of pretense. I'm  the Good Luci on the outside--at war with a freak  no one knows.
  The sublime and ordinary--meet in kitchens.  So today Charlie and I made pesto--a whole  vat of it!--

  I lean to pour myself another cup of coffee before
  
facing the vat of pesto. Above the  skylight, darkness has given way to a rosy  glow. In the tree behind the building a bird has  started to sing.
  Conventional wisdom says that loving on the  rebound is foolish. The last lover is still too  much in the mind. Loving the new person may be more  a reaction to loss than an embracing of another,  unique human being. Charlie and I talked about  that in the beginning. Even conversations about the chance we  were taking to marry so soon brought us closer.
  Luci was small, vibrant, erratic, and in  a rage. She worked in color. I was the steady  one, overgrown, awkward, protective. The  Girl Scout. The one who worked in black and  white. The one who needed to be needed.
  I envied her. I wanted to be her. Charlie  loved me because I was not. Now she's telling me  what their life was like, her version. No use  putting it off any longer.

  "She said writing in her diary was like talking  to you," Peter Garvey told me in prison.
"It was you she wanted to be with." Since the moment  I pulled this book from the bookcase and  recognized it for what it was, I have tried  to imagine she meant me to read it one day. I  raise the book slightly, rushing past the  familiar words: "the sublime and ordinary--"

meet in kitchens. So today Charlie and I made  pesto--a whole vat of it!--and before we were done,  we tasted of basil head to toe. I never knew  how good pesto could be--before this. There'll be no end  to it, I said to Charlie. Cooking up one  pleasure--after another. What we consume in the  kitchen--we burn down the hall.
  But my mood rang false. Licking a touch  of pesto off his lower lip--I guess I  embarrassed him. I don't like it when you're like  this, he said, it doesn't turn me on.
  Charlie knows. Peter comes to the back door  with strawberries from his yard and I catch Charlie  looking at me with distrust, on the verge of hating  what he sees. Only in his arms do I feel  secure, small, delicate, and good. He is  big and caring, protective, telling me what is  best. It could all be so extremely simple
  
without the sex. But he moves over me like  darkness, and I can't breathe. I just want it to be  over. I want to be the one who's bigger, taking  charge. He knows he's not the only one. He just  hasn't decided what to do about it yet.
  He presses me to marry him--tells me the  plans he's got for rebuilding the garage--a  studio for me--a skylight and lots of space  to work. He wants me all set, installed. If  he admitted that I've been untrue to him,  by confronting me--he'd take other actions! I  have to settle into this life and be an artist again! I  have to let him give me space to work--the  skylight, the privacy, marriage. But living with  him, I'm helpless to work, to have any independence.  I can't control the darkness.
  I have no talent for being happy.
  Am I too much the weaver?--knowing what can go  behind and under?--unwind, then twist together?--testing how  many chances I can take before pulling back, just in the  nick of time--before he figures out the pattern, and  pushes me away? Is that what I want?
  Can I let him discover my secret without  actually telling him?

  In the bathroom I run cold water and  splash my face and neck and the insides of my  arms. The coffee's made me wide awake but  fuzzy-minded, as if my brain is overloading,  confused by what Luci's trying to say.
  The journal waits for me back in bed,  turned onto its pages, and the coffeepot is still  half full. I wish I had something to eat. But  I'm hooked by the possibility that Luci's  secret life will make sense any minute now.  I skim over some art notes on adjacent  colors and their reflections. Another page beyond  that, Russell Weber arrives on the scene.

    June 11, 1995.
  Russ is working alone today, bracing the interior  wall of the garage. He comes to the kitchen for iced  tea. The fingernails on his right hand are long for  playing the guitar. He strums the air, singing  to me, taking a long break while Charlie is  paying him by the hour. Don't give me  away, Russell sings, grinning, making me a  conspirator against The Boss, he calls him--as  if he senses I will not object. My complicity  gives him permission. His eyes linger on my
  
face after our conversation has stopped.
We just look at each other. He doesn't know  I started it, this lingering--to see how long he would  stay. He thinks it's his idea. You have to go back  to work, I tell him, and I take the glass  away. He resists letting it go, our hands  touching.

  When I try to picture Russell Weber's  face, what comes to mind is the photograph I  took of him, stretching lazily in the sun, not the  man himself. For a number of pages Luci  reflects on her artistic goals. Russell  Weber has vanished as abruptly as he  arrived. I expect him back.

    June 12, 1995.
  These are the reasons I lie: to conceal  unflattering behavior and because I'm afraid of  hurting others--Charlie, my mother, Susanna.  Because I believe in being loyal, kind, honest--and  I am not any of these things.
  How much work am I willing to do to understand myself?  According to the checklists in the books and magazine  articles, I have all the symptoms: insomnia,  hypochondria, fear of darkness, compulsive  desire for thinness, perfectionism in my work,  fixation on detail, inability to remember long  stretches of childhood, desire to be invisible,  and on and on--fifteen out of twenty. There are  eighteen books in The Little Read that hold the  theory that moments from childhood can tick in the mind  like a time bomb. But there's no story like mine in  those books.
  I've got to focus on my work--to actually  complete something--the way Russ cannot. I see him  out there working on the garage one minute--the next  he's vanished--and I find him sitting behind the  foundation, facing the ravine, smoking and lazing his  head against the wall. Seeing his inability  to concentrate has made me recognize my own  tendency to abort every good idea halfway  to completion.
  He talks openly to me--as if we are  conspirators--but I prod him--because Charlie  trusts him to work steadily while he's counting his  time. Still, my body swells, and my heart  races, like with Peter that disastrous, shameful afternoon  --wanting to run my hand along Russ's arm,  wrist to elbow, over his shoulder to the tender spot
  
behind his ear. Why do I have such thoughts?  He has a degree in agronomy, he told  me today--but can't get a job in his field, and I  laughed--causing a fury to come over him until  I calmed him down. I was surprised, that's  all, and thought he might be making it up--a bad  joke on himself. But I was sorry for my  insensitive laughter.
  I lose jobs, he says, I misplace  them. He laughs a lazy laugh. Like a good  salesman, he waits for the fertile moment when  I want to make it up to him for laughing at him--  and shows me a bag of brownish powder. Telling?  He asks. I shake my head. How did he  know I wouldn't tell? Then, standing up inside the  garage's framed-in, phantom walls--he  pulls me to him, kisses me, where anyone  driving by could see. Where Peter, beyond his horses,  could see.
  Later, back out of sight, I do a single  hit--the flush outlining each single leaf with  orange light. Half the rush comes from daring, after  so long, and half from wanting to go down in flames.  Russell takes none for himself. He's the one  laughing this time.
  Tomorrow is Saturday. Charlie and Russ will work  side by side all day--and I'll drive a few  nails myself. Perhaps Peter--running the horses  --will hear the many blows of the hammers and look over  to see who's working with such industry. And I will have  set things in motion to be thrust out of my life with  Charlie. I wonder that I ever thought I could be  what Charlie wants. I'm so ashamed, I'm  starting to enjoy seeing things go wrong--to let  catastrophes and misunderstandings accumulate,  explode. Soon it will all be out of my hands.  And I can pay the price at last.

    June 23, 1995.
  God, Linda, I loved having you visit!  You're just what I need! Your nervous excitement  over the closing on the building and lining up  contractors was terrific. The way we stayed up  talking half the night was like old times! I like the  way you take chances--deciding in a moment  to invest in that funky old wreck of a building  (god help the plumbing!) in this narrow place  where I'm the only person you know. I'm scared,  I can tell you, since it was my idea, and if  things don't work out it will be on my head. Don't
  
be unnerved--with your talent and background  you'll make a go of it--and you'll have time for your  wonderful prints, too--no one can draw like that!  --but I'll have to get back to work, or you'll put  me to shame. And your visit gave me this  idea. If I tell you all I've been up  to--if I give this to you, and you read it--it will be  real.

  I read the June 23 entry again. Suddenly  the tone of the earlier entries--stilted and oddly  formal, has shifted, as if she's pulled up a  chair, leaned close. Now she's talking to me.  The next entry is one I've already read. I  read it more slowly this time:

    June 24, 1995.
  You'll be happy to know that since I decided  to break off with Peter, I do have a greater feeling  of confidence. But Bill Allard is still a  problem. With you arriving for good in a month, I have  a new reason to take action now. In
Hy-Vee today, But---- got right behind me with his  cart and talked to me with canned goods in his hands.  Our friendship doesn't have to be over, he said,  staring at a label. What would he say if he  knew I'd put his name in the public record?
  Let's at least have one more good, long conversation,  he said, putting the cans back on the shelf,  stacking them with meticulous care (he's so like  that!). One good-bye leads to another, I told  him, but we kissed in canned fruits, and I could  feel what might happen if we were really alone.  The store was nearly empty that early in the day.  The feeling of excitement lasted until I reached  the frozen-food aisle and felt the chill.
  Outside the store I pretended not to see  Rosemary Lindstrom going in. She'd love  to think I'm about to break up a family--the worst  way for me to expose myself, especially in a town  this small. But---- admits he's been driving  by the house. He claims that yesterday he came  up out of the woods along the old path behind the  garage and saw someone hammering away on the siding  and singing at the top of his lungs.
  If there's one thing that will make me ashamed enough  to give him up, it's that I've made friends with his  wife since moving on from my curiosity about  romance novels (i bought six, read one!) to the  DEPENDENCY/RECOVERY section. The irony that
  
I'm trying to avoid loving her husband  compounds the guilt, so I have to buy an extra  book for penance! She'd never dream I've  deprived her of But----'s love, my only  atonement that I can prevent him from telling her.  By ending things with him, I'll stop him from wanting  to marry me. Marry me! She has no idea I  save her marriage every day.

  I'm reading more quickly now that I'm familiar with  Luci's handwriting. I jump over passages  dwelling on plans for her artwork, plans she  didn't have time to carry out. When I come to my own  name, I slow down again, rereading sentence after  sentence, startled by her point of view.

    June 26, 1995.
  Gradually, even before you get here, I can feel  myself transferring to you some of my great need  to depend. I love the drawings for the loft. And I  love your self-sufficiency--and crave it for  myself. I remember your ways: to choose a few  close friends and talk things over with them. Cross  you, though, and you clam up tight. (don't deny  it!) You either tell the truth or say nothing,  another kind of lie.
  But there are lies we have to tell, lies that  deform our characters but which create a necessary illusion when  we don't live up to our own ideals. Maybe  that's the worst kind of deceit, but the most  human. How do you deal with that? Telling you what  I have done will make it real. I swear I will  make you my confessor, Linda, if it's the last  thing I do.

  The irony of this book's falling into my hands  now is almost too much to bear. Underneath the glib  brightness I remember that during the last three days  she was alive, she was ashamed, desperate for me  to hear her. I blink away the tears so the words will  come back into focus:

  Sometimes I wonder if I'm still writing this for  Reverend Go----. But I'm not. I'm too  angry. He was glad enough to see me again, but  unfortunately he suggested it was something in my  childhood that started this love of flirtation.  So I told him that I remember nothing before the  age of sixteen. I think he believed me. I  like it better when he talks about leaps of faith.
  
  You were always such a paradox to me,  Linda--big, broad-shouldered, blond, striking  --missing chances because you didn't notice the way  men looked at you. I wanted to be like that! You  thought you had to wait for them to come to you, not realizing  they were daunted by your very presence!
  I got the idea for a journal before I went  to talk to Rev. Go----. I have very little income of  my own, and I didn't want Charlie to pay for a  therapist, or to guess why I needed one! So I  started reading every self-help book I could get  my hands on. One, a workbook, suggested writing  exercises as a way to deal with past events. First  you have to DECIDE TO HEAL, the book said.  So I decided to give it a try. I was  afraid I was going to lose Charlie. And lose  my self-respect besides.
  I had already read so many books, ticked off so  many checklists. Events from childhood, the  books agreed, can cause symptoms of shame.  One afternoon I tried the writing exercise in the  middle of the book. You are a child of six, and you  are all alone. Focus on the first person who  comes along. The instructions asked for details:    smells, sounds--like the sound the door made when  it went shut. Whatever comes into your mind. Don't  stop writing until the time is up.
  I started with a day when I stayed in from recess  because I had a cold, thinking of my first-grade  teacher, the red birthmark on the back of her  neck, the enlarged knuckle on her right hand, the  smell of chalk. I even remembered the dress  she was wearing that day.
  Next my uncle Marty came to mind, hiking  with me along the lane to Grandma's farmhouse--his  limping walk, the way he bent down and pulled  on his left ear because he couldn't hear so well.  And I wrote more pages. And then I thought of my  father. I set the timer for fifteen minutes and  began to write.
  By the time the timer rang, they had all done  unspeakable things to me. I wrote until my hand  cramped.
  What I'd written was all lies. I took  the pages out by the garden and burned them--burned the  book, too, with its tricky predictions:
  You may resist believing your memories.  You may wish to think it never happened.
  You may be afraid to tell.
  I went to bed for three days. The voice in that
  
workbook had peopled my darkness with  monsters and ordered me to go in there and drag them out  with a version of the worst that could have happened! It was  right after that I went to Reverend Gus the first time,  desperate to tell him it wasn't some perverted  childhood abuse that was haunting me but something  I'd been a willing party to. And he asked  me to write, too! This time I had my guard  up and wrote about the present, not the past. I  can't go back to him, Linda, but I can't go on the  way I am either.
  The truth lies in the past like a beast in the  shadows, ready to leap and strike. After years of  keeping to myself I felt like a virgin again when I  met Charlie. Even now, you're the only one I  could face with what really happened years ago.  I'm not even sure I can tell you. But I'm  working up to it. I'm going to try.

    June 30, 1995.
  Today But---- called and apologized for the  grocery-store business. Said he knew I was  right, it had to be over between us. Said, what if  someone had seen us kissing? Everything could have been  lost. I sat in the kitchen and cried for an hour.  I don't know why.

    July 2, 1995.
  I'm a prisoner here. I pace, hating this  house. Some days that's all I do.

    July 3, 1995.
  This morning I saw But----. Late this afternoon  --my mouth still tender from But----'s kisses, I  went to see Reverend Go---- to tell him that his  counseling has worked and I've given up my  married lover--a sordid, outrageous lie! I  wanted to please him, but at the same time I  wanted him to see through me. I could tell at  once that Go---- was encouraged by my unexpected  visit and, caught off guard, far more open to me  than before--believing he'd done me some good, saved  me from a dangerous situation. How easily he  swallowed the credit I offered him like bait!  It's surprising that someone trained in psychology  can be so easily fooled. Go---- has told me  all along that I won't be able to get away with  concealing my lies about But---- from Charlie much  longer, yet I deceive him so easily.
  
    July 7, 1995.
  Linda, you're my only hope, a true friend.  All that's left to finish the garage is  exterior work, so last night Charlie and I  moved my loom out there--and I've finally started the  tapestry I've been planning all these months.  It has a checkerboard border of tiny indigo and  violet squares--with a central pattern of  gold, yellow, and ivory--a complicated,  technically challenging piece.

  She's describing the weaving she finished the day  I arrived in Linden Grove for good, when my  building was almost ready for me to move in. This was  the tapestry that was on her loom when she died. The  one I asked Charlie to save for me the night he  got rid of her things.

  I'll work day and night to get enough of it done  to show you I have been a serious artist all this time!
  Today I went to Reverend Go---- to say  good-bye, but secretly to mock him, by thanking him  for his help. Finally, after all the days and hours of  subtle moves that turned him on more than he  dared admit, he gave up all pretense and  kissed me passionately--moving his large hands  over my breasts and down between my legs. He was  panting, hurried by all the weeks of talk that had  brought us to this--undoing his belt, pressing my hand  against him.
  I stopped him. I told him to wait--  kneeling by the ugly, pea-green sofa in his office  --until I returned from the bathroom--and when  I did, he hadn't moved a muscle--elbows  on the sofa--trousers down around knees still  pressed into the carpet.
  His passivity disgusted me. Don't move,
I had whispered into his ear. He had taken me  literally! He looked so foolish, all desire  left me--though I had moved toward the moment for  so long. He drew me to him again, terribly  excited. It was fast, without pleasure for me.  He mistook my shudder as a sign of  satisfaction. It was one of those times I wasn't  fully present, but outside myself.
  And to think I went to this man for help--I  swear it! He was remorseful--the final  insult!--showing a terror of what he had done,  saying that for someone in his vocation, such behavior was  unforgivable, unnatural! Unnatural. A
  
door closed in my mind.
  You see, Linda, how it is? I came  home determined to face this page and write this:  If we had not had a child together, we would never have  been ashamed. Why did I have to be to blame?  My bones are like metal, I am so cold. I  make myself sick. You see?

    July 8, 1995.
  What can be immoral about my infidelities  if the harm I've done myself is unknown to others?  How much will I dare tell Linda about  Susanna?
  I'm getting cold feet.

    July 10, 1995.
  I seek weak men--or do I make them weak  by toying with them? Can I be an artist trapped like this  in ordinary life? Today my wool came UPS,  and I meant to work all afternoon on the tapestry, but  Peter was here. I spent the afternoon with him next  door--and could hardly pull myself away.
  He didn't know it was the last time.

    July 14, 1995.
  I told Russ I'd sell him the Chevy  if he's serious. He's decided to sell his  Peugeot for cash to pay a debt, but he still  might want to trade for the Nova. I'm not  interested in what he has to offer. I want no more  of that. Angry, he did no more work. He left.  It was only ten-thirty. I should have stopped him  weeks ago from hiding stuff under that board. But I  went out to check, and it's gone. I don't  believe he'll sell his Peugeot. He  loves that car! But he doesn't seem to stay with  anything for long.

    July 15, 1995.
  Now that your arrival is approaching, it's  amazing how good I am to Charlie, and I think there  might be hope for me. He took me with him  Saturday to check some hives--and we stopped at  a junk shop where I found an antique doll in  a crocheted dress, missing its head. The  woman went to the back to rummage around, looking  for it, because of course she couldn't believe I'd  want a doll without a head. She marked it down  to one dollar instead of four, when what was missing was
  
what made the doll speak to me!
Charlie laughed like crazy when we got back to the  van. She's not used to the ways you look at  things, he said, baffled by his love for me.
  Home, I told him I was sorry I've  been so depressed this summer, so cold to him  sometimes, and that he shouldn't blame himself. And I  showed him the snapshot of my mother, afterward spending the  afternoon and half the night working up the courage  to tell him everything at last. He listened  quietly, and I was so grateful to him for holding  me when it was over. I fell immediately into a deep,  deep sleep--the sun was coming up already--so content  and happy it seemed everything would be all right.

  On the opposite page is a sketch of the  headless doll with a wide, old-fashioned, lacy  dress, arms curved forward at its sides, and  penned underneath, "The Woman Whose Voice Was in  Her Fingers." Below it is taped a  two-by-four-inch, black-and-white snapshot of  Luci and a dark-haired woman she strongly  resembles. In the picture Luci looks like  she's six or seven years old.

    July 18, 1995.
  This afternoon when I walked out for the mail, I found  a packet of sugar with its edge folded over,  Russ's name signed there in black ink, fastened  with a paper clip onto the mailbox's red flag.  For four days he doesn't show up for work, and now  what am I supposed to make of this? I licked  a few bitter grains off a wet finger, then  dumped the rest onto the gravel driveway. I  don't know when he put it there. Last night?  Early this morning?
  What if Charlie had found it first? I can hear  what Russell would say: Charlie wouldn't know  what it was. It's unbelievably  expensive, this stuff--left like a message, for the  first person on the scene. Russ is playing my  game of daring, in plain sight.

    July 28, 1995.
  This morning Russ showed up, wanting  to test-drive my car--asking me if I got the  first payment. I warned him how the Nova  hesitates before accelerating from a full stop--a  lot like him, but he didn't find that funny. He  dropped me off at Hy-Vee for a half hour so
  
I could shop for your visit, but he  didn't come back, so I had to beg a ride  home.
  When he finally did show up here, he was mad,  blaming me for some kind of noisy vibration when he  went over twenty-five--a shaking, he said, like  going over speed bumps, or a washboard road.  He had some money and demanded I give him the  title to the car--a hundred something, nowhere near  what I'd asked for. He said my price was out of  line. But the car never did that before, and I thought he  was trying to put something over on me. He pulled  out two more sugar packets--his last offer.  I'm tired of him. I told him to go, and he  did, walking toward the woods, promising to be  back with the rest of the money before the afternoon was over.
  But he didn't come back. Why doesn't that  surprise me?

    July 29, 1995.
  I'm trying so hard, Linda. I explained  to Peter that I want to spare him from my need to win  men, then push them away--and protect Charlie from  the pain of having a rival. But when I tell the  truth, Peter doesn't believe me. You're not  like that, he said. You need a lot of loving. You  wouldn't punish anyone. You're too kind, he  said. And I felt so guilty! He's so sure
I won't be able to give him up. Later, when  I wouldn't let him back into the house, he  looked at me long and steady through the screen of the  door. He wants to fix the car. He says  it's the universal joints. It's all that's  left between us. Guilty, I gave him the key.  That's all he'll get from me.
  It was hot today, and humid. I wore a  sundress and sandals and slipped down the path through  the woods to where But---- was waiting on the road for  another one of our good-byes. But this time I'll  mean it. You see? I've settled things with each  of them, Linda. And Charlie's gone silent and  patient with knowledge, and still loves me. I can talk  to him so freely now--nothing shocks him. My  sordid secret, in fact, makes him draw  me close, to feel forgiven. Tell me again,  he'll say. Tell me Tell me Tell  me. When he touches me like that, I feel  I've died and gone to heaven.
  And tomorrow--you arrive!
  
  Full sun yellows the skylight.
Lying back on the bed at last, I close my  eyes, my mind swarming with questions. Who is  Susanna? Where have I heard Reverend Gus's  phrase "leap of faith" recently? What am
I to make of the path Luci took through the  backwoods to meet Bill, the path he will have no  trouble denying because it isn't there? Among all these  questions, one thing is certain: The so-called  recovered memory Peter Garvey told me about  when I visited him in prison was a lie. There  is no entry in Luci's diary for the day she  died.
  The shrill ring of the phone erases the questions and  sets my heart thumping. The cadence of my own  voice on the answering machine at the far end of the  studio issues its invitation, and then I hear a  higher-pitched, more energetic voice, familiar in  its rhythms even at this great distance, as Judy  begins to speak.

  Judy's unintelligible voice rises from the  answering machine down below. I look at my  watch. Surely at this hour she would expect me  to be home in bed with Charlie. Maybe she  called there first and woke him up and found out--what?  that we're separated? My stomach lifts and  growls, unsettled by all the coffee. I could  hurry down there and pick up the phone, but I  don't feel like talking to Judy with Luci's  journal still in my hand, heavy with bad news.
  At last the message ends, and I drop the  book onto the bed behind me, realizing by the way my  shoulder muscles relax that I've been straining  toward my friend's voice. I hurry downstairs  to bring it back.
  Her words come fast, probably because she feared  running out of tape before she got it all said:  "Things are going pretty well here in Omaha  after all. Bill's in the shower, then we're going  for an early breakfast, a pecan waffle in my  case, to celebrate. Things are okay between us  now, maybe better than ever after last night, and  again this morning. Tess was pretty calm when we  saw her, her little game more innocent than I  thought. We see her again at ten. Tell you more when  I get back.
  "But look. I knew if I called you at
  
home I'd wake you up, so I  decided to leave this message for when you get to work.  Bill and I talked about it on the way over here  in the car yesterday, and I think I was wrong--  well, to not take you seriously. I was dismissing  your fears when there's obviously some kind of  responsibility you still feel for Luci. I  shouldn't have said anything to Weber. I won't  gossip about you anymore. I promise.
  "It's awful to think of you mad at me,  especially since you've been holding my hand so  much lately. I wanted to see your fish roll  off the press, but maybe it's more fitting for  Charlie to be the first to see it. Say happy  birthday to him for us. I'll call you Monday  morning."
  I hit the "save" button on the machine.    The studio is completely silent. Outside on  the street a car slows. The Linden Times  swishes against the front-door screen like a  broom. I open the blinds that cover the  plate-glass window and switch on LINDA  GARBO DESIGNS. The oval loops of lime  and lavender neon buzz like gnats--barely  audible, frenetic sounds. Before my mind has a  chance to counter the impulse, I pick up the  phone. After eight rings, Charlie answers. "I  woke you up," I say gently.
  "Um-hmm." There's a pause. "What time's  it?" He's getting his bearings, not only in time but  in space, too, I'm guessing, with me on this  end and not under his hand that automatically reaches for  me in the bed when he wakes up.
  "Twenty to seven. You slept, it sounds like.  I wasn't so lucky."
  "Ohhh," he says, a drawn-out indication that  he's remembering last night, and why I'm not  there. "Linda?" he begins apologetically, but it  leads to nothing more than muffled sounds of  discomposure and sliding covers, suggesting a  struggle to sit and maybe the wipe of a broad hand  over his features. "What's wrong?"
  "Everything."
  "Yeah." He sighs thickly.
  With clarity, I see how Luci tempted  fate with her own words. How was it? I try  to remember: What can be immoral about my  infidelities if the harm I've done myself is  unknown to others? Who knows how many people I'm about  to hurt, how many lives I'll disrupt? If
  
only I could snuggle up to Charlie's  rumpled body, keep her selfish secrets.  "I miss you. But it isn't your house, it's  ours, our home. I shouldn't have let you get  away with saying that, by leaving."
  "I don't think I slept either, though I must  have, just now." He clears his throat. "I thought  my life was over, too, when she died, but you  changed that. I never thought you'd walk out on me."
  "I think you did, but I shouldn't have. That's  what I just said."
  "You shot out that door like you were waiting for an  excuse."
  "It was plain you meant it, about the house. I  didn't know you felt that way."
  "Neither did I."
  "We need to talk about it. You want me to come  back?"
  "I have an idea you won't rest until you've  stirred up questions about Garvey's trial. All  you'll succeed in doing is letting what he did  to Luci become an obsession that will take over  your life. I can't live with that."
  I'm too tired to argue. Is this what's  meant by the world ending not with a bang but a whimper?  "I guess I'll stay where I am for a few  days."
  "Maybe you'd better."
  "We'll get through this, Charlie. I love you.  Get some sleep."
  I hang up the phone and step outside the  front door, where the morning air is clammy and  still. The rolled-up Times lies bound by a red  rubber band, and I recognize the source of the bands  Bender uses to hold his ponytail. From beyond the  two-story, boxy building where he lives in the  next block, a garbage truck rumbles its  way around the corner and two men in navy-blue  coveralls dismount, noisily dragging their huge  plastic containers along the concrete. Without even  trying, I can hear traffic moan on the  interstate a couple of miles away, a sound  masked during the day by more immediate sounds in the  neighborhood. In my hands, the newspaper  rolls apart, revealing the headline: DRUG  DEALER DETAILS HOW RING IN DES
MOINES UNRAVELED. I close it back up  and replace the rubber band.
  There's been no food stocked in the small  kitchen upstairs since I moved in with Charlie,
  
and right now all I can think about is  breakfast. So before I head for the loft to shower, I  call Bender and ask him to meet me at  Perkins.
  "Perkins?"
  "For breakfast. I crave a waffle.  Maybe a pecan waffle."
  "Waffle?" Surely he's heard of  waffles. "Christ, Linda, what time is it?"  He yawns extravagantly.
  "I have something to show you. It makes a connection  between Russell Weber and Luci's car."
  His breath huffs across the phone. I have his full  attention. "I'm out on a story all morning, but  I can be in my office by the middle of the afternoon.  Let's say two-thirty." The series of  clatters before he hangs up suggests he missed  the cradle the first time and has to pick up and aim  again.

  I did an etching of The United Church of  Christ a few months ago for their centennial  celebration. The cornerstone--salvaged from the  congregation's first permanent building, which burned in  the twenties--bears the date 1917. Inside,  the minister's study is an odd-shaped space no  doubt carved out of a floor plan that didn't  originally call for an office. Three  stained-glass windows grace the brick wall  to my left, bottom panels swung out on  hinges to admit a breeze. The room is  comfortable, even with the humidity, because of the thick  walls. Rev. Jonathan Gustavson is using  the computer on his desk, but as I step through the  doorway, he rises to shake my hand. He's  expecting me because I called him from Perkins.  "I'm Linda Garbo," I said then.
  "Yes. I know who you are." After all, he  knew Luci, didn't he? Quite well. And no  doubt followed the trial, in which I was an  important player. "You're the artist."
  "The engraving of the church building, yes."  "How can I help?"
  "It's about Tess Allard," I told him,  a half-truth. "The Allards are friends of mine.  I know they're in your congregation. I'm worried  about Tess."
  "Of course. We all are." He told me
I could come right over, his voice gentle, almost  conspiratorial, bordering on patronizing, which
  
allowed me to envision someone small-chested  and overly solicitous, not this robust man who  greets me now with a firm handshake, saying,  "Call me Gus."
  He moves to an oxblood leather wing chair,  gesturing me to the sofa, a sectional without arms that  I recognize from Luci's description as the  site of their sexual encounter. I flush  slightly as I feel the thin carpet under my  feet where his bare knees pressed. As I sit,  my own knees nearly touching the coffee table, an  ornate iron openwork surface about three feet  square, I stare for long moments at the date,  1923, worked in iron. I wonder what  possessed me to come here this fuzzy from lack of  sleep and without a clear strategy for questioning him.
  "The table's made from an old heat-register  grate we found when we remodeled."
  "Was that recently?"
  He nods. "We believe in recycling."
He pauses, perhaps noticing the oddness of my question.  "I share that belief." I return his smile,  and the conversation stalls.
  "Well, then ..." Barrel-chested, he  appears to be in his mid-forties, probably a  golfer or tennis player by the bronze color of  his face and forehead, which recedes slightly into the  thatch of short, steel-gray hair. It wouldn't  occur to me to call his features thick or his lower  lip sensual, as Luci did. I'm drawing a  blank, confused by my upsurge of embarrassment  over what she wrote happened here. His hands are  splayed on his sturdy thighs. I sit  straighter, which relaxes me a little. After all, just  because I'm the one with all the power doesn't mean  I have to use it.
  On the bookcase behind his chair is a  photograph of the minister with a plump blond  woman and two little girls with large hair bows.  The daughters look to be about ten or twelve.  He sees me looking and turns to smile at his  family. "Twins. I suppose you could guess  that." He pauses, turning to face me again.  "Family life can be difficult," he continues  by way of transition.
  "Yes."
  "You wanted to talk about Tess."  "That's not the real reason I'm here." Reverend  Gus's face tilts almost imperceptibly to the  side. "I've been feeling panicky," I
  
admit, "and some of my friends, including  Judy--and especially my husband--have been urging  me to talk to a professional." The minister  listens earnestly, apparently waiting to discover  what this is about before committing himself to a reaction.
  "I know you have credentials for counseling," I  continue, relieved to have covered my excuse for being  here so convincingly I almost believe it myself.  "I'm not a practicing Christian anymore, in  any formal sense, though I was raised in this  denomination and I still hold values like  loving-kindness, my favorite word from the Bible, and  honesty--though these have turned out to be more complicated  values than I ever dreamed." He is nodding  encouragement. I wonder if he thinks I've  come here to renew my faith.
  "I used to pray," I rush on, as if he'd  asked, "but I gave that up in my late teens,  when I stopped asking "Who is God?"' and  began asking "What is God?"' It made  no sense to talk to him--and that was a problem, too,  the him. So now, as a practical matter, I  guess, I test a belief by questioning what effect it  would have on my actions. Talking to God became  talking to myself which is worth doing, but hardly  constitutes religious practice."
  "Oh, I don't know."
  "When it comes to God, I neither believe nor  disbelieve."
  "That's perfectly all right, Linda." His  serious, dark eyes narrow into a merry squint as  he smiles. "That's not an admission  requirement for talking to me. But you know, you  don't want to let--"
  "I seem defensive, don't I?"
  "We can talk about anything you like. Is it something  personal?"
  "I interrupted you. Something about what I  don't want to do ...?"
  He hesitates, probably trying to recover  his place from a moment ago. "Oh, yes," he  says, "sometimes an agnostic position shuts off  a lot of questions."
  "Such as what?"
  "Are there no consequences, ultimately, of    our behavior? Other than the ones social  scientists describe? It's just a question."
  "Ultimately? You mean eternal punishments  and rewards?"
  "Not necessarily eternal. But okay, start
  
with that."
  "The afterlife question is a bit beyond me. For an  ethical person, aren't the rewards of good works  right at hand?"
  "I don't think belief in an afterlife is  ethically very important either, Linda, although I  think the lack of it tempts some people to a kind of  nihilism, the belief that there's no purpose--"
  My body stiffens. "I know what nihilism  is." It's clear my abruptness has startled  him. The train of our conversation spins away from  me.
  "Sorry, Linda. I didn't mean to  suggest--"
  "A kind of moral forgetfulness."
  He looks confused.
  "You were warning me about the dangers of not  believing."
  "Then maybe we'd better start over." He  smiles. "Unless you're ready to take a leap of  faith."
  "I'm not here to talk about God."  "I didn't think so." He leans back again,  waiting.
  "I want to talk about Luci Cole."  His hand covers his mouth, top finger against the  base of his nose--as if he's suppressing a  sneeze. He gets to his feet.
  "Charlie Carpenter is my husband, has been  since last September. I suppose you might  know that, since you knew who I was when I  called."
  "I did know that." He crosses the room,  where he sits on his large mahogany desk,  hands gripping the edge of it, legs straight and  crossed at the ankles. As a casual stance,  it's unconvincing. His shoulders are up around his  ears. "So this is about Luci."
  "Charlie's just now working through his anger over  losing her, and it's hurting our marriage. I  thought that talking with me back then helped him work  things through, but I'm beginning to suspect that being with  me so soon after losing her delayed the grieving  process." Gus takes a deep breath as I  continue. "Recently he's been disposing of her  possessions but missing her terribly in the  process, as if he suddenly realizes he still  loves her in a way that precludes his loving me  at the same time. At least that's what I'm  afraid of."
  
  Gus's shoulders have lowered a bit.
He seems relieved. "I doubt it was just being with  you that blocked the stages of grief, if that's  what's happened." The formal tone he used on the  phone is back, but this time I welcome it.  "Luci didn't die in an ordinary way, after  all. Finding out about her sexual relationship with  Peter Garvey in such a public forum must have  been very painful for Charlie."
  I nod. "I think that made it harder for him  to remember the happy times. He's told me she  needed something he didn't have to offer. He still  worries about that, with me."
  "Sometimes," says Gus, "people who grieve  most terribly over losing a spouse are those who  have suffered the most unhappiness. What they  grieve over is the lost possibility. The  person dies at a point when there's still hope that  what's going to happen any day now, with just a few  changes in behavior, will be love."
  I nod again.
  "And sometimes they feel the need to pretend, even  to themselves, that the relationship was happier than it  was, and not real and knotty, the way marriages  are at times. That denial, that pretense, blocks  the anger which is necessary in dealing with loss. With a  violent death, at the hands of a newly discovered  rival, the matter would be even more complicated,  don't you think?"
  "They weren't married."
  "I don't think that changes the dynamics of  what I'm talking about. Do you?"
  "Maybe not. But you used the word "spouse.""  "Forgive me," he says, smiling easily.  "Sooner or later, they probably would have--"  He stops, appearing to reconsider what he was  about to say.
  Which was what? Come into the fold? "What I  haven't told you," I say softly, "is that my  own need to discuss Luci's death all over again  is what has precipitated Charlie's working through  his feelings for her. And now, because he thinks I  haven't come to terms with her death, he's sometimes very  cold to me. So I really need someone to talk with.  I hear you're an effective counselor." I  gesture toward the framed credentials on the  wall above his smiling family. He shifts his    weight to uncross his legs, resting one foot  casually behind the other, a more relaxed posture than  before. "Luci told me all about you." Your
  
sensual lips, your large hands on her  breasts. "That's the real reason I'm here. I  know you're bound by rules of confidentiality not  to reveal what passed between the two of you." My  words fall slow and careful as I watch his face  for their effect. "But Luci was bound by no such  rules."
  He walks around the desk, where he pauses  for a moment with his back to me before turning to look my  way again. "What exactly did she tell you?"
  "I don't think anyone knew about your  connection with Luci. There's a chance the case will be  reopened, so there will be questions. Do you remember where  you were the afternoon she was killed?"
  "Right here, writing a sermon."
  "Alone?"
  "Alone." He sits in the desk chair, as  if to demonstrate. "Barb and the girls had gone  to Osceola to meet her parents at the train  station. Amtrak from the west is almost always late.  They didn't get home until nearly nine.
I stayed here until she called to say they were  back. What do you mean ...?"
  "You didn't eat supper?"
  "Not until late. I was upset."
  My mouth is dry. "What were you upset about?"  "Luci had planned to meet with me that afternoon, but  she didn't show up."
  We stare at each other, unblinking.
  "At the moment she was murdered," he goes  on, "I was sitting here, waiting for her. I'd  counseled her for a while, but then she'd ended the  relationship. But I expect you know that." In the  silence that tells him I'm not going to make this  any easier, I'm aware, in a way one hardly  ever notices another person's breathing, that his  chest is expanding and contracting to greater and greater  extremes. He gets himself under control. "I  didn't hear about her death until the evening  news."
  "What did she want to talk to you about?"  "I thought I had helped her. I may have  underestimated how troubled she was."
  I walk over to the wide desk, leaning forward  on my hands to look down at his face, an arm's  length from mine across the cluttered surface.  "What would you say if I told you it wasn't  Peter Garvey who killed her? That I lied when  I said he got out from under Luci's car when I  reached the yard, and spoke to me."
  
  "You lied?"
  I straighten up and return to the couch.  For a moment we're both silent. Then he  says, "I should tell you, Linda, before you go  further, that I won't honor confidentiality beyond  this point. Maybe you'd better not say any more."
  "I was confused at the time, but I pretended  to be certain. So I consider it a lie. I  hold myself responsible no matter what it's  called."
  Gus returns to the leather chair again, looking  watchful but tired. "How much did she tell you?"
  "She kept a journal."
  "And you read it just recently?"  "That's right."
  "Which is why you're here now." I nod. "In  the end," he says softly, "her hostility toward  me was immense. I had hoped to use that to help  her break through to what was really making her angry."
  "By having sex with her, right here on this very sofa?"  His eyes meet mine. "We call it  transference, what you're talking about. She liked  to write things down, Linda," he says, his  voice growing angry, "as a way of creating her  own reality. Sometimes to get a certain kind of  reaction from me. Like the reaction you're getting right  now."
  "I'm surprised you'd talk about this."  "I'm only defending myself. It's plain  you're prepared to believe the worst. That I might  have--"
  "She said you were a bad lover."
  His mouth opens with surprise, but he catches  himself and struggles to inhibit a grin. Eyes  averted, he shakes his head to relax his face  again. Hardly the reaction of a man who feels  threatened.
  Then his expression turns grave. He  looks embarrassed. "A journal, you should  remember, is imaginative, and not subject to the  same ethics as recounting events face to face."
  "She addressed the last half of the journal  to me, so I can't help feeling she wanted  to tell me something."
  "I daresay she never expected you would read  it. Be careful. You don't know what kind of  truth you're dealing with."
  On the way out, I pause at the door and  allow my gaze to focus on the unfortunate,  pea-green sofa across the room. "This conversation is
  
far from over."
  "If there's any harm to be done me now," he  says sadly, "it won't be your doing. I've  brought it on myself. Of course we need to talk  again."
  We make an appointment for my return.  Halfway down the steps I'm struck by the  tiring effects of a sleepless night. The sensation  of falling forward reminds me of Bender's  invitation to a "leap of trust," a phrase  similar to one the minister used a few minutes  ago. I stop and go back up. "One more thing. You  must be the person John Bender talks to about  leaps of faith."
  The minister smiles. "Bender's a good  example of the skeptic who insists that God is  dead, but whose every return to the argument proves the  matter is not settled."

  Later, midafternoon, I find Bender in his  cluttered office at The Linden Times. "I  just talked with Jim Howard again. The auto-mech  teacher," he reminds me. "After what you said about  Weber being under Luci's car, I had a  brainstorm. What did you want to show me?"
  When I move closer to look over his shoulder  at the computer screen, he twists in his chair  to face me squarely. "Sorry. I'm on top  of a syndication deadline." He moves to sweep  a pile of books off the only other chair in the  space.
  "I can't stay anyway."
  "You'll change your mind."
  I sit.
  He runs his long fingers over the top of his  head, through the long brown hair, giving his scalp  a quick rub, like he's been concentrating too hard  on something. "You remember Ben Petersen, that  high-school kid who died last year?"
  "The boy who had a heart attack brought on  by a drug overdose?"
  "Right. He was with a buddy when it happened. The  cops interviewed all the teachers the boys had that  term, but came up with nothing to trace the source  of the drugs. I got to wondering if Howard was one  of those teachers. Turns out he was. Both kids  were taking auto mechanics that semester. Howard  is still broken up about it."
  
  "What does this have to do with Luci's  car, or Weber? You think this teacher had something to do  with two untimely deaths?"
  "I don't know what the connection is. Maybe  there isn't any." Bender gives me a long,  distracted look, until I hand him the page I  photocopied from Luci's journal: I told  Russ I'd sell him the Chevy, if he's  serious. I tell Bender I searched through her  things again recently, but I found nothing with any  reference to her car--like repair bills or gas  receipts--except for this, something she wrote  to me once. "That car was a junker," I remind  him, "faded red with a long, rusty dent along the  driver's door. The red-and-black upholstery  leaked curds of dried-out foam rubber. Above  twenty-five it would shimmy like when you're going  over those rough speed-strips by dangerous  intersections. Why would someone like Weber want  to buy it?"
  "Maybe he was strapped for cash." Without  asking a single question, Bender folds up the page,  puts it in his pocket, and offers to walk me to the  front door. "You headed for home now?" He  looks at the clock tower on the Brenton    Bank across the street, always five minutes  slow.
  I tell him yes. Where my home is now,  he doesn't need to know.

  Monday morning I wake up early, worrying  about the path Luci mentioned in her diary. I  decide to drive out to the road that runs along the  north side of our property so I can tramp the  mosquito-infested woods at the bottom of the  ravine behind our garage. The closest thing I can  find to a path is a line of erosion that leads up  into tangled brush. The incline is so steep only  a mountain goat could scale it. When I get  back to my studio, I decide it's time to call  Hilda Clark, the county attorney. She  says she can spare about twenty minutes this afternoon,  around four.
  About three-thirty I leave my studio and  drive to Winterset, the Madison County seat.  Hilda is an attractive, dark-haired,  sinewy woman in her mid-fifties. She  seems glad to see me as she ushers me into her  cluttered office, but because I know she doesn't have  a lot of time, I ask her immediately if she's
  
received my new statement from Detective  Hansen. She hasn't, but they have talked about it.
  "What will you do when you get it?"  "I'll share it with Clifford Nichols." She  pauses. "The defense attorney?" I nod,  remembering the gleam of his scalp through shiny,  blue-black hair. "As a principle of  newly discovered evidence, any that's  exculpatory--which might contribute to a legal  defense--must be shared with him, of course. So when  I receive your new statement from Ken, I'll study  it alongside the old and reread the trial  transcript, then offer the new material  to Nichols. He may decide he has basis  for a motion."
  "And there could be a new trial?"  "Within three years of final appeal a  postconviction relief hearing is a  possibility. It's not a simple matter to think  through what implications this difference in testimony  might have had to the trial's outcome, or for our  strategies as attorneys." She stops,  tilting her face to consider mine, her eyes  narrowing as if something's occurring to her. "We are  clear, aren't we, that it's your confusion then, not  your confusion now, that is at issue."
  "Yes, we're clear on that."
  She leans forward slightly. "Panic  attacks are serious. You look thinner, Linda,  and tired."
  "No one wants this all behind me as much as I  do. I keep thinking how the trial would have gone  differently. I mean, if the defense attorney  hadn't introduced those spots--"
  "Be careful, Linda." She smiles,  raising her hand to stop me.
  "It's the blood that's the problem."  "Yes," she says. She's remembering, as  I am, that the case turned on the issue of  missing evidence. Based on my eyewitness  identification at the murder scene, the police  got a search warrant right away and found Peter  Garvey passed out in his house next door,  wearing nothing but his underwear. His blood-alcohol  level was .453, more than four times the legal  definition of intoxication in Iowa, a level that  might have killed an inexperienced drinker.
  My testimony had to fill in for the fact that  Peter's blood-stained clothing was never found.  Clifford Nichols called me as his first witness,
  
questioning me about what I had told the  police the afternoon of the murder, testimony that  placed his client at the scene of the crime. His  first challenge came when I said, "I saw  Peter Garvey come out the front door of the  house."
  "You were in your car, at the top of the hill,  looking down at the house, is that right?"
  "Yes."
  "Let's back up a little bit. Focus on  what you remember about the front door of the house.  Tell me exactly what you saw."
  I hesitated, concentrating. "There's a  small roof over the front door, over the    steps. I saw Peter Garvey come out the front  door and walk to the car."
  "The outer door to that house is a screen  door, is that right?"
  "Yes."
  "Describe it."
  "It's made of aluminum. It opens out.  Hinges are on the right."
  "And what did you observe about that door, at the  moment you first saw Peter Garvey?"
  I glanced at the judge, a blur of black  robes and white hair, then back at Clifford  Nichols. "I'm not sure I understand the question."
  "Was the door open or closed?"  "It wasn't the door that caught my  attention."
  "So you didn't notice if it was open or  closed?"
  "No."
  "But something drew your attention to the front  door, even though you don't remember it opening.  What was that?"
  "I saw Peter Garvey emerge and walk  toward the car. He got under the car, on his back,  to work on it."
  "You saw Peter Garvey emerge?"  "I saw him walk away from the front  door."
  "Then he didn't exactly emerge, did  he?"
  "He emerged from the shadows."  "Oh, there were shadows."
  "As I said, there's a roof over the front  door."
  "So maybe that's why you didn't see the door  open?"
  
  Hilda's objection on the grounds of  speculation was sustained.
  Nichols walked to the defense table, where he  stood looking down at his notes for a few  moments. Then he asked me to describe to the  court what I had observed that day about the condition  of the accused's clothing as he lay under the car. I  repeated word for word what I had said in the police  statement, that I had seen dark "drops of something"  on the legs of Peter's jeans as he lay working  on the car.
  "According to what you told the police the day of the  murder, what did you think those spots were when you  first saw them?"
  "I thought they were oil."
  "And why did you make that assumption?"  "Because he was working on a car."
  "Because he was working on a car," Nichols  repeated thoughtfully. He paused to check the jury  for attention. Hilda Clark hadn't expected  Nichols to introduce the issue of the stains on  Peter's clothing, when it would seem to have been in his  client's best interests to leave it out. Nichols  walked over and spread his arms to touch the jury  rail with his fingertips, looking at their faces, not  mine, as he said, "In your police statement,  Ms. Garbo, when you said, "at the time, I thought  it was oil," that implied, did it not, that at the  time you made the statement, the day of the murder, you  had already made a different interpretation, away from  the idea it was oil. What was that second thought you  had?"
  My stomach tightened. "After I found Luci,  I looked out that front door where Peter lay so  close by. I remembered the spots, and I  thought they must have been blood."
  "I see. But when you had first seen those stains,  a few minutes earlier, you hadn't become  alarmed, had you?"
  "No."
  "You hadn't thought, "Oh, he has blood  on his clothes"?"
  "No."
  "Because the spots on his jeans were not red, were  they?" He turned toward the jury. "The  spots on his jeans were not red, were they, Ms.  Garbo?"
  "No."
  "The spots were not red, they were merely dark,  correct?"
  
  "That's correct."
  He didn't challenge any other details of  my testimony.
  Hilda Clark had anticipated the  possibility that Nichols might question me about the    color of those blood spots. She had  submitted my Kansas City Art Institute  transcripts, along with catalog descriptions  of my courses in color theory and transparent  dyes, to the court, and I had been qualified as  an expert witness. She explained that to the jury  and then picked up on the color issue in her  redirect: "Ms. Garbo, it's been  established that right after you found Luci Cole's  body, you changed your interpretation of what you had  seen, those drops of "something dark." Defense  counsel seems to believe that fresh blood on a  pair of blue jeans would appear red,  definitely red. What was it in your experience that  made it so easy for you to believe that what you had  seen could have been blood?"
  I took a sip of water from the glass that had  been placed to my right, on the rail of the witness  box. "When I was a student at the Art  Institute in Kansas City, there was an  accident one day in one of the painting studios. A  classmate was using a utility knife, and it  slipped. She sliced into her left hand, through the  fleshy, webbed part between her thumb and first finger.  There was a lot of blood. I was the closest  person at hand, to help her. She had on a  man's white shirt, as a smock to protect her  clothes. I had her take that off so I could use  it to make a pressure bandage. She was wearing  cutoff jeans and a bright yellow T-shirt." I  paused, swallowing. "Afterward, I found I  remembered the bright red soaked into the white  fabric; the orange spatter across the front of  her yellow T-shirt; the dull, mahogany  stains on her denim shorts. It's an experience  I have always remembered in vivid color."
  "You were observing the way one color absorbed  into another becomes a third color. You have  studied the various ways colors mix and change,  haven't you?"
  "Yes."
  "Mr. Nichols has established that in the  late afternoon the house where Luci Cole died  casts a shadow over the front drive. were  Peter Garvey's legs sticking out of the side of the
  
car that was toward the road or toward the  house?"
  "Toward the road."
  "So he was in the shadow of the car, which was in the  shadow of the house, is that right?"
  "Yes."
  "How would those conditions affect color  perception?"
  "The gray-green light in shadows like that would  dull color even more."
  "So it would come as no surprise to you that fresh  blood on blue jeans would look dark, not red."
  "That's right."
  "What if the jeans had been especially worn  and faded?"
  "The effect wouldn't be much different,  especially in that kind of light. The color on the  lighter threads of the fabric's weave would look  redder at very close range. But I was standing over  him, and anyway a brighter red woven through dark  magenta would be mixed by the eye to a duller  color, the way colors in a weaving are blended  by the eye."
  "Is there any way that drops of fresh blood  on denim blue jeans, under the conditions we've  described, could possibly be red?"
  "No possibility at all."
  In the end, during his final argument, Clifford  Nichols attempted to persuade the jury that I  had not seen his client emerge from the house, through that  front door, but from the shadows in front of the  door. Peter Garvey, Nichols insisted, had  not been coming from inside the house at all. And as  for the blood, "Linda Garbo did not merely see  what was literally before her. She participated in the  art of seeing and added much on her own. Her  reinterpretation of those dark stains, that they were  actually drops of Luci Cole's blood,  does not amount to evidence. She was eager  to believe her own speculation, just as she was eager  to believe that Peter Garvey had just killed  Luci Cole and then emerged from the house and  immediately gone to work repairing the victim's car.  Don't be as gullible as she," he admonished the  jury.
  He nearly had me convinced. I was worried.  The moment he finished addressing the jury might have  been the moment my self-doubts began. But  Hilda Clark's appeal to common sense, along  with the fingerprint evidence and the presence of motive,
  
reassured me. Peter had admitted  being in the kitchen earlier in the day, she reminded the  jury, so fibers didn't matter, or hair.
It was blood the case needed, to link Peter with the  crime scene. The testimony that I'd seen  blood there, on the legs of jeans that were never  found, had to overcome the lack of actual forensic  evidence. Hilda's final words were these: "Linda  is an artist. She knows how colors interact.  She had no trouble recognizing that the "something  dark" she had seen on his jeans was blood."
  Apparently the jury didn't have any trouble  believing it either.
  "If those weren't Peter Garvey's legs, his  jeans," I say now, "then your "something dark"  argument might have proved an innocent man  guilty."
  Hilda closes her eyes for a moment, then  meets my gaze again. "Hansen's told me you  have some other concerns, about a couple of break-ins.  I'll tell him to send me what he has right  away. I just wish the case wasn't so long  ago, the trails so cold." She looks at me  steadily. "You were a very convincing witness."
  That's because I knew he was guilty is  what I can't bring myself to say.

  I was right that day at the trestle when it dawned  on me that anger was the best antidote for my  anxiety. I haven't suffered a panic  attack since. Instead, there's a nervous tremble  in my stomach, and I've lost my appetite.  At night, when I stand naked before the mirror in  the loft, I can count my ribs as I run my  hands over my flat abdomen, my narrowing thighs.  When I call Charlie, I no longer detect  anger in his tone but indifference, the opposite of  love. I need to talk to Rosemary again--in  person and alone this time, so we can't be interrupted  before I've gotten answers. I invite her  to supper. "I'm lonesome, and I want to be with  someone who sees Charlie every day."
  "I'll be there." Her voice is oddly  melodic, with intimations of pity.
  "I have to confess, I want something from you."  "How about a couple pieces of Baker's  Square pie?"
  I laugh. "I could use the fattening up. But  that's not what I meant. When Charlie gave  Russell Weber money recently, he must have
  
paid him by check from the business account. I  want you to bring me the canceled check. Put it in  an envelope, or a plastic Baggie. Touch it  by the edges, okay?"
  "Linda--"
  "You can do that, can't you?" I say, interrupting  her before she can start singing with pity again.
  "I'd rather not."
  "That and a couple pieces of pie."  "Nothing good will come of this, Linda. I know what  you're thinking."
  She doesn't. "Chocolate French
Silk's my favorite," I say.

  Since her treatment in Omaha, Tess  seems unnaturally subdued. All Judy has  said is that Tess didn't mean anything by her  vague accusation of some deep, terrible family  secret. The suggestion that her dad knew something  her mother didn't was a misunderstanding. I don't  buy that, especially now that I've read Luci's  journal. Today I'm going to find out.
  Tess's flattop haircut has grown an  inch and fallen limp. I liked the punk look  on her. Now she's at my back door, her  mouth drooping, almost triangular, like a small  child's in its musculature. She looks hot and  bored. Her assignment for today's drawing lesson  was to bring items that have personal meaning to her and will  fit into a standard grocery bag.
  She's taken this last limitation literally, I  see, as she places the bag on the worktable,  shifting it to line up the edge of the bag parallel  to the edge of the table. She's become obsessively  obedient. "Doesn't that make her an ideal  student?" Judy asked, after Tess's first  lesson, when I expressed concern about her  docile behavior.
  "Just the opposite. It's hard to teach drawing  to someone who's afraid to be spontaneous, and  Tess won't be taking any risks if she's this  determined to please me."
  "I thought this was what you wanted," Tess is  saying now. She's pulled a teddy bear from the  bag. I must be frowning.
  I'm wearing a cotton gauze dress, and so  is Tess. Hers is sky blue with short  sleeves and a high yoke. "There are no wrong  answers in an exercise like this," I say, though  that's not what I'm thinking. "Let's see what
  
else you've got."
  I had made only one other stipulation for this  assignment: nothing with hearts on it. I guess  I set myself up for this bear. It's certainly no  well-loved artifact. The red ribbon around its  neck is sharp at the edges and wrinkle-free.  Next out of the bag come cosmetics, a school  yearbook, a dried corsage. Any of her  classmates could have come up with this collection. I  asked for objects that would define her character.
  I guess I've forgotten what it was like to be  her age. What did I expect, a Trick  or Treat for UNICEF bag and one of the Great  Books? I can't very well take exception to the  way she sees herself. She is, after all, wearing  gold circle hoops in her ears, just like mine.
  "You just wanted ordinary stuff, to draw, right?  So what's the problem?" Tess pulls a white  price tag off one of the bear's brassy paws.  The sticker's on the tip of her pointing finger, which  she holds away from her body as if the spot of  white were something disgusting. A hardness tightens her  eyes as she rolls the price tag in her  fingertips, prolonging the tiny gesture as she  considers me.
  Her shift in mood has firmed the soft  droop of her mouth, to which she begins applying bright  orange lipstick, pouting into the mirror of an  onyx compact. I know she'll wipe off the  orange before she arrives back home, engaging in  the kind of dual personality teenage girls  resort to when out of favor with their parents. She's  inviting me to conspire with her.
  The UPS delivery at the back door is a  welcome interruption. As I sign for the box of  heavy inks, I hear the sound of paper tearing behind  me. With a, "Thanks, Max," I hand the  computerized clipboard back to the driver. "Would  you rather just talk than draw today?" She has her  back to me.
  Tess has the gangly, all-limbs look  of a young girl whose bones are still growing. Under the thin    gauze of her dress, her shoulder blades jut  like budding wings. Her right hand rests on the  tabletop, elbow elevated awkwardly, head  slightly bowed, as if she's been told to stand there    for punishment. Her confidence appears shot. This  is not the posture of that pissy girl with the orange  mouth.
  "My folks don't care if I learn how
  
to draw. They just want to know where I am.  I still don't appreciate your spying on me, and  I know you and my mom tell each other everything."  I wait. "Some things you can't."
  "I can't what, Tess?"
  "Tell her." She pulls the boxy grocery  bag toward her and folds it flat.
  For a clue, I look at the table, at what  she's arranged for her drawing.
  She's looking at the bear, too. "At first  I thought about what I'm supposed to be like, my  personality. But then I was starting to see things, like  they really are, you know? In some ways I'm not like  my friends."
  "Tess, turn around."
  She does. She's trying not to cry. Her  face looks stretched. And we both take a  deep breath, like I'm leading her, like John  Bender coached me under the railroad trestle,  helping me calm myself breathing in deeply,  breathing out. She's angry and tense enough to run out the  door.
  "I think it's time I showed you the picture I  took of you and Russ Weber the day you ran off."  At this she freezes, turns away. "No,  Tess. Stay and hear this." I move quickly to the  desk at the front of the room and return with one  of the snapshots. "There can be only one reason you  haven't brought this up again, after being so mad that  night in the van, mad that I would take a  picture you didn't know about."
  "And what is that?"
  "You didn't want to risk my asking what the  picture might reveal."
  "We were just talking."
  "He wasn't passing something to you?"  "That detective already asked me all these  questions." She looks at the snapshot again. "We  were exchanging a few words." She hands it back  to me. "That cop wanted me to say it was drugs."
  "I thought you might tell me something you wouldn't  tell him."
  "You never have a right to know everything going on  inside a person. I bet you have your secrets,  too."
  "Maybe I'd be willing to share one with you."  "I wish you and Charlie weren't separated."  Shuddering, she lets me close the distance between us and  hold her, lets me take her thin arms and move  them around me like a belt, lets me caress her
  
shoulders. When the tears are over, it  takes her a while to relax. I get her a  drink of water.
  On the table the teddy bear sits atop the  flat, open high-school yearbook, the bright red  ribbon retied around its mouth like a gag. Pinned  to its right foot is a picture of Bill, torn  from a page of teachers. As a composition, this  arrangement shows an unsophisticated teenager's  penchant for clich`e and melodrama. Something  closer to art makes that beside the point.
  Though Tess isn't in a mood to draw, I  crank up the height of one of the stools, adjust  a tabletop easel for her drawing paper, and put  a stick of vine charcoal into her hand. To know the world  she must construct it for herself, but she's wrong about  why Judy and Bill arranged this. Tess has  talent, and I'm going to make her try some contour  drawings, today's lesson, even if she doesn't  want to right now, help her walk a line around this  bear--a line that separates the object from everything  around it, "a line that wraps around the visible form,  suggesting even the part of the bear you can't see but know  is there." As she gives it a try, the drag of  charcoal against the rough tooth of the newsprint is the  only sound.
  Tess's dried prom corsage is pinned to the  bear's chest with a long pin that looks to be piercing  its very heart. Subtlety would not have forced the  issue of whatever she has on her mind. She  wants me to ask.
  Next I have her try a blind contour. Keeping  her eye on the bear, she lowers the charcoal and  slowly defines, with one continuous line, the bear  she sees, not looking at what she's drawn  until she's lifted her hand. The second  attempt--a line hopelessly sprung apart--  makes her laugh, and again she turns the page.  Without looking up from the bear, with her hand moving more  quickly this time, she says, "Mrs. Lindstrom--you  know, who works for Charlie?--came to our speech  class last year and talked about superstition and  sensitivity. We all had to bring a favorite  object to class. But she only wanted one  small thing. Mine was a whistle my grandpa made  for me out of a willow twig--and she could tell us  things about ourselves. Sort of like fortune-telling. It  was neat."
  "How did your teacher tie that in to giving  speeches?"
  
  "You think it was a waste of time?"
  "No, I just--"
  "When a willow twig is green, the bark  slides right off in a tube, it's so slippery  inside. And then Grandpa carved into the wood and  slid the bark back on. You'd move the bark  back and forth when you played it, like a tiny  trombone. Grandpa made them for all the kids."  Lines of charcoal uncoil onto the page as she  speaks. "The one who lives in Illinois."
  "Rosemary could tell all that by holding your  whistle in her hand?"
  Tess pauses in her work to give me a dark  look.
  Artists are notorious collectors.  Picasso, I tell her, felt he had  to possess the objects that inspired his art. It  wasn't enough to draw tiny pre-Columbian  figures, he had to handle them, to receive something  magical from them. When he was finished, he  reburied them, in a way, with other junk, in the  back of a cupboard. "We're all  collectors. Some people believe that our magic  rubs off on things we wear or love or make  ourselves." I think of Luci's possessions,  carried off into the night. "I don't think much  has rubbed off on this bear. It doesn't look  like you've had it long."
  "Mrs. Lindstrom told us how she does  it," she says seriously. "She learned a lot  about me from that whistle. It starts out like a trick,  but it's really just skillful interpersonal  communication."
  "And not just another example of showbiz  masquerading as education?"
  She actually smiles. "My dad's one of the  best teachers at the high school. Everyone says  so."
  "Everyone's right about that."
  Tess has stopped drawing and is studying my  face. "Charlie stayed with us the night Luci was  killed."
  "I remember."
  She puts the charcoal on the table. "That  night, when he came over, my mom told me  someone had killed Luci and that Charlie didn't  want to stay in his own house because he was so upset.  I tried for a long time to go to sleep, but I  couldn't. I just lay in bed wondering if my mother  died if I'd have to sleep somewhere else. I  didn't know that Luci was murdered in their  own kitchen. I kept getting up and walking into the  hallway to listen to them talking. Once my dad  called my name up the stairway and told me to go  to sleep. But I was too scared." She turns  back to her drawing. "If I showed this to someone,  they wouldn't know what it was."
  "The point isn't for it to look like the bear, not  yet." She raises her eyebrows. "A contour  line suggests what it conceals, if you think about it.  The point is to communicate some aspect of the  object back to the viewer."
  "Aspect of bear," she pronounces.  "Who'd ever guess?"
  "It takes time. You have a good eye. And a  scary sense of metaphor." She tries not  to look pleased. "I won't tell your mom  anything that you want kept private. I expect  the same from you."
  "What makes you think I have something to tell  you?"
  I unpin the small, torn picture of
Bill from the paw of the bear. "This isn't  exactly subtle."
  She picks up the charcoal again, rolling it in  her fingers, even drawing it across her palm to see  the mark it makes. "Finally," she begins slowly,  "that night, you know?" I nod. "Everybody went  to bed. Once I heard the phone ring. After that I  almost went to sleep, but I heard Daddy walk  down the hall and go back downstairs."
  Her feet dangle a good four inches from the  floor. She's hooked one sandaled foot on the  top rung of the stool, tucking the other behind it, and  she swivels back and forth a couple of times.  "Charlie was sleeping down there, in the den, and I  went out onto the stairs. My dad was in the  kitchen, and then Charlie came out, and they sat in  the living room where I could see them. I walked  down the hall to my folks' room, but the door was  shut, and I didn't think I should wake my mom  up. When I got back to the landing, Charlie was  crying. I don't think my dad knew what to do.  He just sat there and cried, too. It was awful."
  She turns another page and begins another  contour. "I'm going to look at what I'm doing  this time," she announces, as if the rules must be  stated. Her concentration precludes any more talk  for a few moments. "You guys are a neat  couple."
  "You think so?"
  She shrugs, picking up the yearbook  picture of Bill I've left on the table  near her easel. "They had a terrible fight.  Charlie was mad at my dad." She swallows.  "Charlie kept saying, "You did that to her, you  did that to her," over and over, calling my dad a  son of a bitch. They were standing up, circling each  other. My dad kept saying, "Keep your  voice down." And then Charlie got real loud,  yelling, in fact, and then he said, "I know it was  you." I remember the exact words. "Why  don't you just admit it?"' My dad hit him,  right in the face, but Charlie is so much bigger it  hardly fazed him, and they grabbed each other and  kind of rocked back and forth together, standing up. Then  they just pushed each other away. And I hurried  back to my room."
  Tess was barely thirteen then.
  "I knew my dad had killed her."
  I hold my breath.
  "I should have known he could never do such a thing.  When that Peter Garvey person was arrested, I was  so ashamed of what I'd been thinking, I couldn't  tell anyone. I never did."
  I start to breathe again.
  "My mom and dad had lots of arguments after  that, but they were careful. I could never quite hear. I  figured she must have found out what Daddy had done  to Luci to make Charlie that mad. I started  watching them very closely, all the time. That  Susan Ginger-Banning person, in Omaha,  kept asking me, "Does your father touch you in  inappropriate ways?"' I hated her for that, and  I hated them for sending me there. I didn't care  if we all finally had to talk about what Luci and  my dad did, but the minute I started it, I was  sorry. I could have ruined everything. Now I know for  sure Mom doesn't know about Luci. She almost  made me blow it, that Ginger-Banning woman. People  shouldn't meddle in other people's lives."
  "You were there because of the drinking, Tess, and maybe  drugs, too. You needed help."
  "You can't say anything about this. But if I  didn't tell someone, I was going to take off  again. I could feel it. Next time I might not be  able to keep my mouth shut. And anyway--" She  pauses. "I don't have anyplace to go."
  I hand her a Kleenex. "You think you're the  one who keeps your family together, by protecting  your dad?"
  "They started arguing about what to do with me, blaming  each other for the way I was turning out. I was what  made them mad at each other."
  "So you ran away."
  "I think Luci and my dad were having sex.  Sometimes I wish my mom knew. Then I  wouldn't have to worry every time he goes somewhere at  night or is late coming home. I just want  to finish high school and leave. When I go off  to college, then they'll have to take care of themselves.  And one more thing. Please don't keep asking about  Russ Weber. I'm not about to get him in trouble.  I'm not that kind of a person."
  She stuffs the yearbook, the bear, and the torn  picture back into the grocery bag. Then, the  object of her attention out of sight, she  returns to her drawing. Her hand moves quickly,  the way I instructed her, drawing a circuitous  line, a remarkably good version of the bear she  remembers, spiky with cheap plush, potbellied,  heavy of limb--a contour line suggestive of  jagged energy and unmistakable anger. She's  left off the ribbon that was tied around its mouth.  She's unburdened herself and I'm proud of her.  Aspect of bear. "Maybe I'll major  in art," she says.

  While we finish our chocolate pie,  Rosemary and I sip our decaf in silence.  She enjoyed the salad, garlic bread, and  simple pasta dish--fresh Roma tomatoes,  ripe olives, and mushrooms, saut`eed in  olive oil with onion and garlic. Now her frown  as she lowers her fork fills me with an uneasy  feeling of expectancy. Since the day I saw  her gesturing angrily in the driveway out at the  house, I've asked her twice what she and  Charlie were talking about. She's been as evasive  as he, so I'm going to have to play it just right in the  next few minutes if I'm going to get a  straight answer this time. Weber's canceled check  lies on the far edge of the table.
  It's Rosemary who breaks the silence, asking  me for the spare key to this building so she can give it  to Charlie. The request surprises me, but without  a word I walk the few steps to my dresser and  find the key, on a key chain that features a  red, Iowa-shaped plastic ad for Wayne's  Locks, in a box in the top drawer. I  place the key beside her plate. "You sure you  want him to have this?" she asks.
  "Of course."
  Behind her the railing divides the light around the  table from the murky shadows of the studio below. Her  complexion is sallow except for strokes of  mauve under the eyes. Devoid of her usual  bright makeup and bosomy layers of beads, she  seems small. "He doesn't need the grief  you'll cause if Peter Garvey gets away with  murder." She sets down her cup so fast it  clatters against the saucer. "Charlie doesn't  deserve to be pushed around." Her shift in mood  suggests she's the one with the agenda.
  "Who's pushing Charlie around?"
  "Luci certainly had him by the balls, pardon  my French." Rosemary's face deepens to the  next shade of pink. Maybe I shouldn't have  offered that second glass of wine. "She did have  something, though, a kind of spirit that could light up a  room. She misused her attractiveness, if you  ask me."
  "You mean by being unfaithful to Charlie?"  "By charming him, then withholding her affection."
  
  "He told you that?"
  "I deduced it."
  "You deduced it from what?"
  "I don't remember, exactly. His  changeable moods, I suppose. He's gotten  to be that way again in recent weeks."
  "You think I'm a bad wife? That I'm  letting him down?"
  "I'm sure it's not my place to think that."  "That's not exactly a denial."
  To my surprise she looks sorry. I  drain the final drop from my wineglass, open my  eyes wider to stare at Rosemary's  immaculate hairline, her smooth forehead.  "Something had you so upset the other day that you closed  up the office and went looking for Charlie at  home. That's very much out of character for you, Rosemary."
  Her unconvincing smile is tight at the  center. "Not so much as you might think."
  I reach for the Ziploc bag containing the canceled  check. "You don't think Charlie should have given this  to Weber, do you?"
  "If you already know, why ask?"
  "I don't know. I'm trying to find out.  Charlie says you were angry he's been out of the  shop too much, not taking care of business. That you  end up taking the heat when customers are kept  waiting. But I think you've disagreed about other  things lately, too. I get the feeling he's  protecting me from something."
  At the edge of my vision a spot of red  disappears as Rosemary covers the key chain with  her hand. "Weber had a nerve showing up for back  pay, after so much time, after walking off with no  notice." She sips her coffee, licks her  lips elaborately to slow down the conversation.  "This is nice, Linda. Such a good meal."
  "Here," I say quietly, turning her hand  over to press the key lightly into her palm.  It's time to engage her in the game she's known for.  "Tell me something about myself." Her eyelids  lower, and she strokes the key. "I understand you have a  gift for interpersonal communication, dressed up  with some fancy finger work."
  Her thumb stops its circle of movement.  "Ummm, a skeptic." She sounds relieved the  confrontation is over. "The key tells me you  changed the locks to this place."
  "Well, you do have a gift," I tease her.  "But I want something mystical here, some convincing
  
clairvoyance. Some view of the  future."
  "To keep someone out."
  "What?"
  "The locks. You changed them to keep someone  out."
  I look at her with skepticism. "I hope  this gets better, Rosemary."
  She smiles at that. "You were still living at  home with Charlie when you had the locks here  replaced."
  "Yes."
  "You were afraid whoever damaged your artwork would  come back."
  "Of course."
  "Charlie still had his key. He hadn't lost it  or anything?"
  "It was in his pocket that day, like always."  "You asked him?"
  "I asked him."
  "From the time you took possession of the building,  you and Charlie have been the only two people who've had  keys."
  "And your point is ...?"
  "What do you suppose he thought, when you changed  the locks?"
  "I know what he thought. We discussed it.  Locking the door is something I do  automatically. I was sure I had locked it that  morning because I always do. But I couldn't remember  doing it."
  Her eyes are still closed. "You let Charlie  know, by keeping both keys, that you mistrusted him."
  "That's ridiculous."
  The Iowa shape on the key ring is made of  flexible quarter-inch plastic, transparent as  Jell-o and slippery-smooth. She's curved it  around her middle finger and is rubbing it. Her  expression is trancelike, embarrassing. I have    to look away. "I suggested to Charlie you could have  scratched that etching plate yourself, Linda," she  says, "and that you made up the story about someone  breaking in here to convince him someone was after you. He  said you were too honest to do that, and then it struck him  that maybe you thought he could have committed the  vandalism, and that's why you changed the locks,  to keep him out."
  "If he thought that, he would have said so."  "And then he said, "Women are  inscrutable.""
  
  Two realizations crowd my  consciousness in rapid succession: that Charlie would  never use the word inscrutable and that Rosemary is  lying. The key clinks against the edge of her plate  as I pull it from her hand and slip it back into my  pocket. I'm on my feet, gathering up  wineglasses in one hand, silverware and dessert  plates with the other. The sink is three short  steps from the table, and I turn on water to rinse  the dishes, letting it run until it's hot.
  "I could never doubt Charlie, not for a moment,"  she says, raising her voice over the noise  I'm making. Shaking a fi/l of silverware in  the rushing water, I hear her say something else,  but I can't understand the words. I escalate the sound  by increasing the faucet's blast, which brings her to my  side. She touches my arm. "Linda, turn that  off for a second. Just listen."
  I dry my hands as she retreats to her place  at the table, facing me calmly. For a moment  there's no sound except for the last gargle of the  drain. "Don't you see how I might have thought  you'd turned against him? He didn't ask for a  key. It was my idea to ask for it. I was  afraid you wouldn't give it to me."
  "Rosemary, what are you talking about?"  "When I saw you the other day in the office, I  had no idea there was the chance of a new trial.  Now he tells me that's what you want. I'm  afraid you may have gotten the idea I wasn't  positive he was there all the time, that terrible  afternoon."
  "You made yourself very clear, Rosemary."  "After he came back from lunch that day, he  didn't leave again until late afternoon." She  pauses, looking down at the key chain. "I had  to find out what you think he's capable of."
  "Certainly not murder. It would make as much  sense to accuse me of killing her."
  "When Charlie told me you'd changed the  locks here, I asked him if you'd thought to give  him a key. It didn't seem to bother him that you  hadn't, but it's been bothering me."
  At the door, purse over her arm, she  hesitates as I turn on the outside light.  "Don't be too quick to dismiss my act as a  parlor trick," she says. "It's a simple  matter of using a token object as a way of  disarming people. It always surprises me what people are  eager to tell me about themselves." She looks
  
tired.
  Now that I've seen how inscrutable, even  devious, she can be, I see Rosemary  Lindstrom in a new light. I may have gotten  her to confirm my hunch that her argument with Charlie  was about giving this check to Weber, but she got her  answer, too, without even asking the question. She has  indeed revealed something to me about myself: I  probably didn't want Charlie to have this key,  or I would have remembered to give it to him. Reaching  into my pocket, I realize how glad I am  to have it back. But if I don't send it to him  now, she'll tell him I refused, and I'll  drive him further away. "You weren't sorry  to see Luci go, were you?"
  The question shocks me as I ask it, but  Rosemary doesn't even blink. "Her death was  an awful business, but I didn't shed any  tears. There's a name for what she was: a  Can-O-Can-Knowledge tease."
  I might have known she'd be a speller. I  pull the key out of my pocket and hand it over.

  When I go downstairs to start working the next  morning, I discover a message on my machine  from Ken Hansen, asking me to come to his office as  soon as I can. I try calling to see what's  on his mind, but he's on another line. Then I  call directory assistance for Darlington,  Missouri, Luci's hometown, and find there is  no listing for anyone named Cole. And next I  phone the Gentry County Recorder to request a  search of birth records for someone named Cole,  possible first name Susanna. The clerk tells  me she is not allowed by law to do a search for me,  that I'll have to come to Missouri myself and look through  the records.
  The small town of Darlington has only one  law officer, who answers the phone himself. He  listens to my request as if he'd been hoping for  something to do besides issue traffic citations. I  talk him into going to the courthouse to look for proof  that Luci had a child when she was very young. He  remembers Luci's mother, a local teacher. He  thinks she moved to California a few years  back.
  The moment I arrive in Ken Hansen's  office, he picks up the phone and presses a  single button. "Dennis," he says  cryptically, "can you bring that now?" Dennis
  
Johnson is the young police officer in  training for fingerprint certification. He turns out  to be in his mid-twenties, balding already, very tan.  Hansen introduces me to him as the eyewitness in  the Luci Cole case. I offer my hand  to Dennis, and he stares for a couple of beats before  shaking it, revealing a shy, too-earnest wariness  he'll have to get over if he's going to make a  career of police work. He has a file folder  in his left hand. I know that the fingerprints on the  metal plate vandalized in my studio have been  sent to a lab, but I'll bet anything Dennis  practiced on them first.
  Dennis hands the folder to Hansen, and we all  sit down. Hansen opens the file, studies the  top page.
  "Okay," he says. "Let's see what  we've got." He places a finger on the  page. "Flashlight. We used the prints  collected for elimination purposes during the  Cole murder case: Charlie Carpenter's,  Bill Allard's, Judy Allard's. Yours."
He glances at me. "We also checked against  John Bender's."
  "Bender's?"
  "Just bear with me." He clears his throat.  "We found Charlie's prints on the flashlight,  just as we expected. There were two other readable  prints, but no other match."
  "There were clear prints on the flashlight besides  Charlie's, but you couldn't identify them?"
  "That's what I just said."
  "And you checked for John Bender's."  "I'll explain. After the break-in in your  garage, and then the vandalism at your workplace the  very next day, I decided to check the prints at  both scenes against the entire list I just gave you.  In light of your admission of doubt about your  testimony, I was hoping we'd rule out any  connection between these two recent, disturbing events  and the murder scene." Hansen clears his throat and  turns to the next page of the report. "Now for the  etching plate. We were surprised your prints  weren't on that."
  "A fastidious cleaning is part of the  process," I tell him. "I thought you found a  thumbprint on it?"
  "I did. A clear thumbprint, and we got  a match on that one. Bill Allard."
  I stare at him. "How long have you known this?"
  
  "Dennis here called me first thing this  morning." Hansen gives me a long look.  "I'll be talking to Bill Allard right away.  He and Bender were the only two people seen close  to your workplace that morning. Oh, and Charlie, of  course. I decided that because there might be a  pattern of harassment forming, I'd rethink the  seriousness of your request to check prints on that  flashlight, and I threw Bender in for good  measure on that one. I know there was a time you thought  even he was against you."
  "I was beginning to see a threat behind every face I  saw, but I wasn't entirely wrong, was I?"
I pause. "Bill Allard," I say,  picturing the crude X slashed across my  picture of the house. "It's hard to imagine him  doing something like that."
  "Random violence, or vandalism, doesn't have  to make sense," says Hansen. "But the damage  to your artwork does seem to me to be a very personal  kind of surrogate violence. In order  to imagine why Bill Allard would do such a thing,  we have to wonder what he was trying to achieve by this  action. To instill fear, that's the only motive  I can come up with. Do you have any other ideas?"
  We talk for a while longer, but "to instill  fear" is the best we can do.

  I drive straight home from the police station  and park by my back door. For a minute I just  sit there, trying to reconcile the idea of  Bill's indirect violence against me with what I  know about his character. I shiver even as I stand up in the  warm sunlight and stare at the locked door of the  studio for long seconds before letting myself in.
  Inside, I listen to the two messages on  my machine. One is a customer. The second  is John Bender: "Call me as soon as you  get in." I enter his number, and he answers  on the second ring. "I'm tied up here for the rest  of the afternoon," he says, "so I thought, if you could  come over to my place about six. ... I've got  a pile of research to show you. The thing is, I  set something up for tomorrow. Remember Ben  Petersen?"
  "The one who was in Jim Howard's auto-mech  class."
  "Right. I couldn't remember the name of the  second kid involved in that, so I looked it  up. Name's Michael Lassell. The two
  
boys got their hands on some crank, and  Petersen died. The autopsy revealed a  congenital heart condition. When the  methamphetamine got into his system, it  elevated his blood pressure, and his heart  virtually exploded."
  "Yeah, I remember reading about it at the  time."
  "This Michael Lassell was the one who called  the emergency room. They were best friends. It  happened at Lassell's house one night when his  parents were out. These were kids who'd never gotten  into trouble, good grades. Since then we've seen  more and more crank in the county. We never did find  out where these kids got it. Anyway,  Lassell's a sophomore at Iowa State  now, and he's on campus already for the fall  semester. He's agreed to meet us there tomorrow  morning."
  "Us?"
  "He doesn't remember what I look like.  I guess you know from personal experience how  forgettable I am." He pauses, in case I  missed the sarcasm. "For identification  purposes, I told him I'd be with a tall,  great-looking woman with long blond hair wearing  a short orange dress. He'll be looking for  you."
  "What if I can't make it?"
  "This won't work unless we do it together. I had  to do some fast talking just to get him to agree to this.  I promised him it would be off the record.  Keeping drugs away from this town is a kind of  crusade of mine. Just now I told him we were  working on cracking a drug ring here in town and that  we needed his help. His friend's death really  devastated him. I could tell it still hurt when I  brought it up. I want you there to help convince him  he has to talk to us, that he owes it to Ben. I have  an idea, but I need you to make it work."
  "Why my orange dress?"
  "You were wearing it that day we had lunch at the  Grubstake. He'll notice you right off."
  "You remember what I was wearing?"  "I'm a reporter, remember? I'm trained  to notice things."
  In a heartbeat of silence I realize I can  ease off on the suspicions I've harbored  against Bender for so long--that he could have been the one  who brushed against me in the garage that night and who
  
made that awful X on the etching  plate. Detective Hansen has ruled him out  of both incidents. "Why would Michael  Lassell talk now, if he wouldn't a year  ago?"
  "He's older, more mature. I got his  number from his mom. She remembered me. At first  Michael refused to discuss a meeting, so I  told him we've figured out where he and Ben got  the drugs. The fact that he agreed right away  makes it a sure thing he didn't tell the  truth before. He'll meet us at the fountain by the  student union at four o'clock."
  "You didn't think I'd go along with this, did  you, unless you set it up so Michael would be  looking for me? What connection could he have with  Luci?"
  "Since you showed me that note she wrote about  selling her car to Weber, I've been doing some  archival work at the paper. If we forge this a  link at a time, we may be able to connect Weber  to your friend's death."
  "I talked to Hansen this morning."  "What?" he asks. The one-word question tells  me my very tone of voice has communicated the  seriousness of what I'm about to say.
  "He ran a check of your prints against the  thumbprint on the copper plate. He also  checked that thumbprint against all the elimination  prints from Luci's murder case. That time he  turned up a match. Bill Allard apparently  came in here that day and left his mark on that etching  plate."
  Bender is silent. "Well," he says.  "Has Hansen talked to him yet?"
  "He may be talking to him right now. Hansen just  got the report this morning."
  Right after I hang up, I lock the doors  before going upstairs, where I pull the orange  dress out of the closet and hold it in front of  my body. It's an inexpensive cotton  knit, but I've worn it only twice. The  color's still bright. Because of my height, it's  shorter than it would be on most women, a good  hand-span above my knees. Too short, according  to Charlie. Maybe that explains why it was one of the  garments I brought from the house; the dress pleases  me, but it doesn't please Charlie. Now,  pulling off my loose, gauzy dress, I  drop the orange fabric over my head and
  
smooth it over my breasts, belly, and  thighs. In my jewelry box I find earrings the  same color, bursts of tiny beads strung on  wires, like fireworks. Judy gave them to me for  my birthday last year, but I've never worn  them. I remember opening the gift, wishing I were  the type.
  Absentmindedly brushing one of the earrings against the  palm of my left hand, I feel a dozen  touches sending a tactile message to my brain,  and I begin to undress, tossing bra and panties  onto the bed. In the floor-length mirror my  hands pass down over corrugated ribs, barely  visible beneath the smooth flesh, cup my full  breasts briefly, then move down past the  heavy-lidded eye of my navel to the sudden sharpness  of pelvic bones. Feelings stir that haven't  arisen since Charlie's last touch--a touch  I've stopped yearning for when I lie down at  night, I realize. Maybe that explains my not  wanting him to have a key to this place. I've  withdrawn from him.
  I find my hand mirror in the top drawer of the  dresser. I turn my back on the full-length  reflection to hold the small mirror high,  reaching upward with my left hand and stretching to alter  the serpentine alignment of shoulders, torso, and  buttocks--the classic female nude, almost  beautiful. It's a good body when caught  by surprise like this, mercifully free of scale,  the indirect light carving shallows, gilding the  curves. I'm smiling. Where did this nervy  agitation come from? Last time I felt like this, I was  getting ready for a date.
  I don't look half bad. Am I usually  blind to my own body, afraid of where it wants  to take me? Maybe I should be. I'm a  reporter. I'm trained to notice.
  No matter how confused I feel, I could  never betray Charlie, the way Luci did. I  stare at the crumple of orange on the bed.

  Dinner turns out to be pizza delivered from  Mona's and a six-pack of Michelob. After we  eat, Bender disposes of the cardboard pizza box  and brings two more beers poured into fresh mugs from his  freezer. His apartment is actually rather classy:  hardwood floors, old oak furniture, two  huge paintings--swirls of bright colors,  gestural as Kandinsky's--Bender's own efforts
  
from when he minored in art. Not bad for being  so derivative. Books line two walls of the  living room and are stacked everywhere, even on the  fireplace mantel and on the hearth.
  He scoops up a bulky file folder from the  cluttered desk at the far side of the room. "I  keep thinking about the way the house was slashed on the  intaglio plate, how the act echoes the way  Luci died." He pulls a newspaper  clipping from the folder. Some are microfiche  copies, some originals. All I can think about  is Bill, with a sharp object in his hand. I  shudder, but Bender doesn't notice. I lean  back against the corner of the couch and take a sip of  beer.
  "I want to go over some things with you, Linda,"  he says, sitting beside me, "and while I do,  keep in mind the question that led me to this research: what  could possibly explain why anyone other than  Garvey would have been lying under Luci's car that  day?"
  "If it was someone else," I say, "he had  to look enough like Garvey that I could have made the  mistake." We look at each other. "Someone  tall and blond, who ties bandannas around his  head. Like Russell Weber."
  "Right. And this is what I've come up with: About  three years ago there was a fatality out on the  interstate involving a Des Moines man bringing  drugs from the south, from Kansas City." Bender  hands me a wire photo of an auto crash.
"The guy was involved in a high-speed chase with the  police south of here out on I-Thirty-five and  was killed when he rolled his car. The cops used  a drug dog. In the frame they found tubes of  pure cocaine, with a street value of seventy  thousand dollars. The guy probably thought he'd  be safe, crossing the state line with it stashed below  board like that." Bender points to the grainy photo  of a car lying wheels up against a tree. "In his  pocket was an address book, with encoded  records. Russell Weber's name was in it.  That's what brought him to my attention, but I've  never caught him in anything illegal."
  I hand the clipping back to Bender, and he  slips it to the bottom of the pile on his knee.  "Let's say Weber was offered a chance for a good  drug deal if he'd go after the stuff himself, and he  borrowed the idea of stashing it in the frame of a  car. If he could come up with the money, Weber would
  
take this kind of risk. He really  hates to work."
  "How much money?"
  "Usually guys are pulled into dealing with a  promise they can double or even triple their  money, but they have to come up with a round sum, say ten  thousand--"
  "Where would he have gotten that kind of cash?"  "Luci was your friend. What do you think? It was  her car. Maybe it was her money."
  "She didn't have money, and if there were drugs  under her car, she didn't know about it." I  struggle to remember: This morning Russell  showed up, wanting to test-drive my car--asking  me if I got the first payment. "He once  gave her a packet of a bitter, brownish  powder," I say quietly, "but that only made  her angry." When he finally did show up  here, he was mad, blaming me for some kind of  noisy vibration when he went over twenty-five  --a shaking, he said, like going over speed bumps,  or a washboard road. "He borrowed her car.  There was something wrong with the universal joint."
  "How do you know he offered her drugs, or  borrowed her car?"
  Bender gazes at me without interrupting while  I tell him about finding Luci's diary. I  report on every entry I can remember that had to do  with Russell Weber, or with the Nova. "Luci  doesn't say how long he was gone the day he  borrowed her car. He could have covered a lot of  miles, to Missouri and back, or even  Nebraska, between midmorning and late afternoon.  Let's say something between them gave him a motive  to kill her. Afterward he dived under the car  to retrieve the drugs he'd stashed there, just as I  came along. I tapped his boot and said,  "Hi, Peter." Weber had to get out of there  before I came back out of the house and saw that he  wasn't Garvey. So he took off before he'd  gotten the goods, and Peter Garvey got the  blame. And then this summer, Weber came back  to look for the car, thinking the stuff would still be under there.  He could have been the one in my garage that night."
  Bender nods. "Thinking Charlie still had the car.  He couldn't have known that after the murder the car ended  up at the highschool auto lab. I'm hoping  Michael Lassell will tell us tomorrow that he found  the methamphetamine in the frame of that car."
  For long moments we sit in silence. Finally
  
I say, "At best, all we're doing  is constructing a theory, with no evidence to back it  up. Even if we manage to connect Weber  to drugs, drugs to Luci's car, we still don't  know what his motive would have been to kill her."
  "If my speculation holds together tomorrow, we'll  give it to the police, Linda. It's their job  to get concrete evidence."
  "What makes you think your friend Hansen will be  any more concerned about doing that now than he was a  couple of years ago?" I'm on my feet,  picking up empty Michelob bottles by their  necks, heading for the kitchen. "It gives me a  real boost, though," I call out toward the living  room, "to know there could be a rational explanation for  someone other than Peter Garvey being under her car.  Until tonight even I thought I might be crazy."
  In the silence that follows, I'm aware of  Bender's presence behind me in the doorway, and I  turn around. I'm not about to cry; I just need  to hide my confusion behind my hands. He offers his  handkerchief, a wrinkled ball. "It's clean,"  he says. "I just don't fold."
  When I return his handkerchief I observe his  face as he considers the damp cloth in his hand.  This is the first time I've noticed the scatter of  freckles across his lowered lids, the laugh lines  traced in white at the tanned outer edge of each  eye, the unconscious way he covers his high  forehead with one long-fingered hand whenever he's  concentrating on thought, like now. He catches me  looking at him intently and his breathing deepens, as  if shoving his handkerchief into his back pocket were  an act of extreme exertion. "I think I should  go," I say quickly. "I'm really exhausted."
  I rush into the living room and gather up the  notes and clippings on the couch and the floor,  stacking them on the coffee table, avoiding  Bender's gaze again the way I used to, just a  few short weeks ago, when I'd sense him  staring at me on the street, or in line at the  automatic teller machine, or in Ace
Hardware. "I'll walk with you to the corner," he  says, "and watch till you're inside. After  you've checked things out, I want you to flash your  neon sign to let me know everything's okay."
  "I'm not the kind of woman who needs  protection."
  "Being a woman has nothing to do with it."  "Yes, well ..." I lose my train of
  
thought as I pause before stepping past him  into the kitchen. After I've rinsed forks while  he's stuffed the pizza box into a trash can in the  corner of the kitchen, we turn to face each other,  and quickly turn away.
  I've remembered the Ziploc bag in my  purse, and I show him the canceled check Charlie  made out a few weeks ago for the work on our  garage, endorsed by Weber. "On paper, a  fingerprint can last forever. On paper, someone's  touch--" I pause, remembering that during the days  following Luci's death Hansen told me about  how the fingerprints of Egyptian scribes can be  detected on ancient papyrus by a modern  chemical test.
  "Only unglazed paper can hold a print like  that, and anyway, a canceled check has been handled  by lots of people." Bender sounds distracted. I'm  staring at Charlie's signature, at the C,  big as a nickel, the other letters trailing off, not  his usual confident signature. When Bender's  silence makes me look up, it's plain he's  no longer thinking of fingerprints.
  "You're staring at me again," I say with a  smile.
  He shrugs. "I guess I never could keep  my eyes off you," he says.

  It's a pitch-dark night--new moon--and the  breeze out on the street is chilly. We walk  fast. At the corner Bender touches my arm.  "I'll come to your back door at two tomorrow afternoon.  I figure it's about an hour and a half  to Ames. Lassell's meeting us at four, but  I want to be early. I'm nervous he won't  show, or see us and lose his nerve. We'll have  to be careful how we handle him. We can discuss that  on the drive up." Under the streetlight  Bender's forehead is high and pale in contrast to the  dark wash of whiskers down his jawline and across his  chin this late in the day.
  I left the green-shaded desk lamp in my  studio on, so I wouldn't have to come home  to complete darkness. Stepping inside, I see I  left the light on by the bed upstairs, too, the  one I'd used while I was trying on my  orange dress earlier. The answering machine is  blinking. I'll listen to the messages tomorrow. Now  I'm too sleepy, and starting up the stairs to the  loft, my body's heavy, like I'm hauling myself
  
up out of a swimming pool. Pausing,  left hand on the iron banister, I hear something  from above, a tight composition of sounds I can't  identify.
  Holding my breath, I sag against the wall,  mouth open with an instinct to hear better that way.  Adrenaline thickens my heartbeat. I'm  unwilling to move until I hear the intrusive  sounds again.
  Then I remember: I promised to flash the  neon sign to let Bender know everything's okay.  Looking down toward the front window, I gain  courage from the mirror-written silhouette of  script against the light from the streetlamp. He's  out there, looking this way.
  Heart slowed to almost normal, I move up  onto the next riser, then the next, pausing again  only when my line of vision comes up to floor  level. From this odd perspective, furniture  legs--the table in the foreground with its graceful,  turned supports; the curve-legged bentwood  chairs; the unmade bed, its Hollywood  frame on casters off to my right--touch down onto  the plane of dimly lit polished floor. The  bathroom door is ajar, and the light's on in  there, too. My mouth opens with the effort of standing my  ground, and suddenly the dryness closes my  throat, making me swallow. I knead my  tongue against itself to wring forth what little saliva I  can.
  The moment the phone rings downstairs behind me, the  sound shooting a dart of pain clear through me, I  duck down below floor level again. The second  ring is worse. With the third ring my eyes are  glued to the line where the top step meets the floor  above me. I'm afraid to blink as I feel my  face rising slightly, drawn by curiosity and  anger. The fourth time, before the answering machine  clicks on, the caller gives up mid-ring.  Slowly I begin to ease myself back down,  keeping my face tilted up into the pale shadows  above, every muscle straining backward to step once  again onto a level surface.
  And then the toilet flushes up there, and I  hear footsteps and my own groan of surprise.
  "Linda?"
  It's Charlie. "It's me," he says, and  then goes on saying something I don't quite get.  From this sharp angle and in this light, his  impressive stature is foreshortened to bulges
  
of thigh, stomach, and chin. My hand lets  go of the banister as he pulls the chain hanging from the  ceiling fixture so that the loft is flooded with  light. "Where the hell have you been?" he wants  to know.
  "You scared me to death." My mouth is open.  I'm breathing hard, as in a moment he's down the  stairs, embracing me. He takes my head in  his hands, pulls back to study my face as my  heart slows. "You're coming home with me. We  can't let this happen. I should never have let you  leave."
  Behind me there's one loud rap at the front  door, and in an instant I open it and Bender  steps inside.
  "Linda won't be needing your help  anymore," Charlie says. "I want you to stay  away from her."
  The two men stare at each other, and then Bender  looks at me. "You want me to go now?"
  Yes. I tell him to go.
  There's something about being rigid with fear, then  feeling the adrenaline subside, that leaves the  body limp. Charlie and I go upstairs. The  quilt on the bed is rumpled, where he lay all  evening, waiting for me. I begin to tremble, and he  smooths my hair with his hands, pulls me against  him, so warm. "What were the two of you doing all  night?"
  "Eating pizza. Talking about the  methamphetamine problem in rural Iowa."
  "Like a date."
  "No. Not like a date."
  Thankfully, he doesn't need to hear more.  My mind gives up on everything but the slow lines  his fingers trace on my body. He told me  once he has the strongest orgasms after touching like  this for a while. He's like a woman, he said,  liking to hold back for a long time so that when he  comes he nearly passes out. Now he kisses  me long and deep and enters me at last. Ending the  kiss by speaking against my lips, he slows his  rhythm and says, "You wanted to kiss him tonight,  didn't you? Say yes." I admit to nothing  of the kind. We make love until we sink into a  stupor of exhaustion.
  No, my mind tells me once, as I jerk  awake. I must have spoken out loud, because Charlie  presses against me again.
  
                 16

  I wake up the next morning to the smell of  bacon frying. When I prop myself up on an  elbow, I can see Charlie standing at the stove.  "I went home to shower and change," he says,  "and brought back some food." He sits on the  edge of the bed, smoothing hair out of my eyes. His  hand moves under the sheet to caress my stomach.  "Your little kitchen isn't very well stocked." I  open my legs so he can cup the rise of pelvic  bone with his broad hand.
  I close my eyes again. "I didn't hear  you leave."
  "You were dead to the world." He touches a nipple  with his mouth, so fast I murmur with complaint when  he stops. "I guess we've gotten Bender out  of your system," he says, smoothing the sheet  back over me, up to my chin. "He's a  menace." Charlie bends down again and kisses the  backs of my hands. One, then the other. "I'll  cook your eggs just the way you like them."
  In a few minutes he has breakfast ready,  and I've taken a shower and put my nightgown  back on. Joining him at the table, I pick up  a strip of bacon. Jealousy, I'm thinking, is  what drove Charlie's prolonged passion last  night, while mine arose from relief, maybe  even gratitude that I hadn't ruined everything.
  "Try to eat." He cuts into the yolk of his  over-easy egg.
  He wants me to come home. His staying here  last night was a concession to my reluctance, his  lovemaking an act of persuasion, I suppose.  "Give me one more day, Charlie. I'm scheduled  to go to Ames this afternoon, on business. I won't be  back till late." I lick my lips.
"I'm just not able to deal with so much all at once.  I can't face the house right now."
  I stand up and walk around to hug him from behind,  pressing my lips into his neck just below the beard.  He stands into my embrace. "Bender's a  freak," he says, "using your fears to get  close."
  Charlie's jealousy is so confusing, I'm not    sure what's happening, why I'm yielding to him  as if I have no power to refuse, why I can't  simply say, You're the only one who holds  me close. I know he'd believe me, because  it's true. By the time we tangle on the bed,
  
I'm outside myself, observing how much  my panting sounds like exhausted pleasure. The  same shudder of release. For the first time with  Charlie, I'm a fake. "I need more time," I  tell him again. "I can't go home just yet."
  As soon as Charlie leaves for work, I call  Bender, all business: "You said Michael  Lassell won't talk to anyone but us, right?  If we put him off, we'll lose him. If  we lose him, we lose Weber."
  "We're still on for today?"
  "Yes, John." I pause for a deep  breath. "They store bodies at just above freezing  in the morgue, did you know that? The cold rises  up off the table. They let me see Luci while  they were setting up for the autopsy. I wanted  to see if I remembered how she looked, what  he had done to her, and I had. Objects I have  no trouble recalling. It's people who keep changing  shape the more I try and know them. A body with no  life in it is nobody's friend. I was  remarkably unmoved."
  "Don't do this, Linda."
  "The circles of blood on the kitchen floor  were twisted, as if someone had used a sponge, or  a mop, to obliterate footprints. The only  shoe prints in Luci's case were mine."
  "Linda ...?"
  "I walked out of my sandals, left them in the  house. When I talked to you that afternoon, my feet were  bare. I remembered that, even if I didn't  remember you."
  "You don't have to go with me."
  "Why would Charlie say you're a freak?"  "You had a bad time after I left last night,  didn't you?"
  "Some women cry," I say firmly,  remembering Luci, her damp face against me,  my fingers on the small of her back, "so someone  will come to the rescue. I'm not a crier. I have  broad shoulders. I'll go with you, just like we  planned. Charlie's jealous, so I didn't  tell him about our plans. I should have."
  "Ken has made it clear this is his case from  now on, but Michael Lassell would never open  up to anyone but me--or maybe you, I'm thinking.  For one afternoon you and I will have to be unaccounted for.  Your being an artist, not a detective, will be  useful with Michael."
  I'm not sure what Bender means by that, but
  
I'll ask him when I see him. We  make plans to have lunch in Des Moines on the  way. I figure by then I'll be hungry.  While I'm getting dressed, I remember the  one-o'clock appointment I made the other day,  allegedly to discuss my irrational fears, and I  call Reverend Gustavson to cancel. We set a  time for tomorrow.

  By four o'clock in the afternoon, I'm sitting on a  cement bench by the Four Seasons fountain on the  Iowa State Campus. The four statues of  Native American women have their backs to each  other at the center of a round basin catching plumes  of water. Whenever the breeze shifts, I feel  a faint, cooling mist on my face and arms.  Spring faces me, head bowed, holding an  infant on her broad thighs. She cradles the  baby in hands larger than her own face. The  artist added volume to every aspect of the limestone  figures so that from a distance, or covered with  autumn leaves or driven snow, detail would not  be lost. From this close, the woman appears  bloated, too substantial to be admired. I  know how that feels.
  But right now I am enjoying the knowledge that someone  nearby, a young man in a red golf shirt and  white shorts--handsome, with close-cropped blond  hair, broad shoulders, narrow waist--is eyeing  me with favor, me and my orange dress, which  slides up my thigh another inch as I cross  my legs. Dressing sexy for this college boy  seemed vulgar this morning, given the way my day  began, but I managed. Another triumph of  sheer will. And here I am, the decoy Bender  wanted me to be.
  The weather is lovely. Bender is off in the  distance, out on the grassy, parklike sweep of  central campus, near the campanile. He  decided Michael Lassell would be less  likely to get cold feet if he spotted me  here alone. I turn my face toward the guy in  the red shirt and smile, stand, walk over the  flagstones toward him. "Michael?"
  He returns my smile uncertainly.
"Sorry. Wish I were." For a split  second he doesn't move, until a friend  hails him. He looks back as he walks  toward a break in the evergreen shrubs that ring the  plaza, and his gaze drops down the line of my
  
body. He looks eighteen. Half  my age.
  It's after four. Maybe Michael  Lassell's not coming. Off in the distance Bender  has started walking this way, and I tip back my  chin in acknowledgment, not wanting to wave. When I  turn around to reclaim my place on the bench,  there's no mistake about who's standing there waiting,  because he says, "Are you Mr. Bender's friend?"
  He's not as good-looking as the first one: lanky,  narrow-shouldered, eyes shifting restlessly in deep  sockets. Still, his short brown hair is cut  well, feathered over forehead and ears. His smooth  skin is clear. His teeth are even and very white.  His handshake, an unexpected formality from a  college kid, is firm. "I thought so, by the  dress," he says, ears pinkening. His eyes are  bloodshot.
  I glance down at myself. "I'm glad you found  me."
  "I'm kind of in a hurry. I have to go see  my adviser. What's this about?"
  Propping my large purse on the bench, I  pull out Luci's journal, the gray-and-aqua  patterned cover bent at one corner. I brought  it as a prop, to help me carry this off. Bluffing  isn't my forte. "I found this." I lift it between  us.
  "What is it?"
  "It contains the name of a drug dealer."  Michael stares at the book, then looks past  me, over my shoulder, then glances around the fountain  area, an oval flagstone terrace ringed with low  evergreens. The fountain whispers and flings another  cooling net of mist our way.
  "In reading this," I say softly, "I  figured out where you and your friend Ben got the drugs  that killed him."
  Michael's casual demeanor changes. He  fills his mouth with air, exhales with exasperation.  "I don't think so." He continues to stare at the  journal. He swallows. "What is that  anyway? Where'd you get it?"
  I wish Bender would hurry up. "It's my  friend's diary. Luci Cole."
  "The lady back home who was murdered?"  I nod. Another nervous drift of  Michael's glance over my shoulder gives me a  hint that Bender's approaching, so I turn, but  he's still thirty feet away. "She tells about
  
a friend of hers who was in on a drug  deal. He thought he'd make himself a pile of  money, without a lot of trouble."
  "Good for him," says Michael. "I don't  think I need to hear this." And he walks around  me, right toward Bender.
  As they approach each other, I see Bender  do a sidestep to block Michael's way, put  his arm out to grip his shoulder, shake hands,  reintroduce himself. And then it's the three of us  standing in sunlight blown with mist from the fountain.  "Linda tell you what she has?" he asks  Michael.
  "I'm not interested." He turns a dark  look on me and makes another move to walk  away.
  But Bender has a hold of his upper arm,  blocking his way again. "You won't be in any  trouble if you talk to us off the record," Bender  says, voice deliberately slow and quiet.  "If you don't, I can't promise anything.  Keeping evidence from the police the way you did,  that's a serious matter."
  "I don't see what this has to do with me." The  kid's both scared and curious, that's clear. In  the car on the way up here, Bender and I decided  the only reason Michael would show up would be  to find out what Bender knew, if anything.  Apparently we've hooked him, because now he  walks with us into the Memorial Union, passing  through the revolving door into a hushed, darkened,    stained-glass-windowed memorial to the dead of  American wars, their names listed in perfect letters  on the limestone walls. Beyond this cool  passageway we go downstairs, through a crowded  hallway into the brightly lit, noisy Commons, a  huge, low-ceilinged room full of square oak  tables, crowded with students and faculty.
  The room's a hash of aromas made up of the  smells of tacos, french fries, and  meat-and-potato dishes served in the cafeteria  line. Bender goes after Cokes while Michael  and I wait at the table, my nervous fingertips  tracing initials carved on the surface. This was  part of our plan: that Michael's conversation with me  would not include Bender at this point. "Luci was  my best friend." I place the journal in the center  of the table, moving salt and pepper shakers aside.  "I could have prevented her being killed."
  Michael avoids looking at the journal, or
  
at me, but raises his hand to wave toward  the far wall. A dark-haired young woman waves  back, and Michael sits up straighter.
  "Wouldn't you like to know how?"
  "How what?" He seems annoyed, or  embarrassed.
  "How I could have prevented her being killed?"  "I still don't see what this has to do with me."
  "Ben Petersen was your friend for years, the way  Luci was mine. We have something in common."
  He shifts his body in the straight-backed  chair. Before my nerve can fail me, I reach out  and put my hand gently over his on the tabletop,  only to feel his fingers tense under mine as he  braces himself forward to rise from his chair. The touch  was too much, a mistake. "We can solve the  mysteries around why they died," I say, and to my  surprise he simply leans back in his chair  again. "But only if we help each other. That's  all we have left. If we trust each other, it  will help us both. And lots of other people who were  affected by their deaths."
  Michael's eyes roll with disgust as he  looks away. "You want to get to the point?"
  I lean toward him as though I have a confidence  to share. "I know you wouldn't tell where you got the  stuff because you didn't want the cops to find out there  was lots more of it, and you didn't want to have to turn  it over to them," I say as John approaches.  I straighten my back.
  Now it's Bender's turn. "So," he says,  placing tall red paper cups in front of us.  He sits across from Michael. "Let's get  started." He leans forward so what he says,  too, in a lowered voice, will be taken as a  confidence: "You and Ben Petersen had a class  together the semester he died."
  Michael stares at his Coke.  "Remember?"
  "I might." He refuses to look up.  "What was it?"
  "This a quiz?"
  "The class. What was it?"
  He sighs. "Auto-mech lab."
  "Right. Do you remember the car you were working on?"  Michael looks at Bender, his forehead  furrowed. "Car?"
  "It was an auto lab. You remember what you  did to that car?"
  "We rebuilt the engine, tore down the
  
carburetor, lots of things." He  chuckles. "There wasn't much left of that car when  we finished with it. But then it wasn't much when we  started either."
  "What do you mean?"
  "People don't give valuable cars to schools for  students to practice on," he says, crunching  ice. He swallows. "It was a 'seventy-seven  Chevy Nova. Rusted out. Red plaid  interior. A real toad."
  "Where did you get the drugs?"
  "In a Copenhagen can in the parking lot,"  says Michael, not missing a beat. "Like I said  before." He sniffs. "When Ben died."
  "I remember what you said. I didn't  believe you. I knew that Ben was your buddy, that you  were pretty upset." They look away from each  other, then back. "More than upset, Michael.  I know that your folks were worried about your blaming  yourself."
  Michael swallows a sip of Coke, eyes  narrowing. "You think someone was selling to us, don't  you? Well, you won't hear it from me. It had  nothing to do with Ben. It was an accident, with him."
  "You're still using, aren't you?"  "Yeah, sure. Right in front of your eyes."
  "And dealing. I called the registrar's  office," says Bender. "Your mom thinks you're  registered for the fall semester, but it turns out  you're not. Still, here you are, looking for all the world  like a student. I'm guessing you're no great  shakes in that department, but what better place  to deal crank than here where thousands of people, most of  them under twenty-five, live in one place, a  lot of them stressed out, money in their accounts."  Michael glares at him. I glance around, but no  one nearby seems to be noticing this little drama.  "By now I'll bet you're close to the big  money, right?"
  Michael looks at me. "Is he about  done?"
  "Just about," says Bender. "I think you know  what the penalties are. I can guess how many  eight balls you got out of what you and Ben found.  And I can guess how much you're pulling down these  days. The name Cooper Van Meter mean anything  to you?"
  Michael looks bored.
  "Convicted last month of conspiracy and drug  trafficking. Life in prison without parole.
  
Gary Luloff?"
  Michael bites his lower lip.  "Probably'll get the same sentence.  Harris Simon? Fifteen years. Jim  Sullivan, ten to forty. Brian Cooper got  fifteen to eighteen. Tony Williams got  seventeen. Names familiar to dozens of  small-town dealers. Methamphetamine's  exploding in Iowa, isn't it, Michael? It's  everywhere. I bet you have a hit in your shoe right  now. Or in your jock."
  Michael tries to laugh, but it comes out on his  face like pain. He shifts in his seat. "This is  making no sense to me."
  "You're just an errand boy, but I'm here to tell  you, you are known. You come clean about Ben, I'll  help you out of this."
  "I don't know any of those guys."
  "But you know about Ben, and the car in the auto-mech  class."
  Michael's on his feet. Now it's up to me.  Halfway across the Commons, I catch up to him.  "Look, Michael," I say, falling into step  beside him, "there's no way you can get hurt by this,  honestly. You guys had Luci's car up on the  rack, right?"
  "Luci's car?" He stops so fast I bump  into him. We're surrounded, in a crowd. Time  approaches for the ten-minute break between classes,  which explains the sudden upsurge in activity.  Moving a couple of steps to the wall, we get out  of everyone's way.
  "The Chevy you and Ben worked on in high school  was Luci Cole's car. After she was murdered, the  car was donated to the high school. I think the  murderer had hidden drugs in the frame of that car.  He was under the car, trying to retrieve the drugs,  right after he killed Luci. But then I came  along and walked right by the car, and as soon as I was  out of sight, he ran off. He was afraid I'd  see him and he'd be convicted of killing her. He  left town. If I'm right, you found those drugs  when you had the car up on the rack, to work on the  underside, months later. You or someone you know."
  Michael looks with envy at the stream of  students, but he's stuck against the wall. I'm in  his way. He's probably trying to make the  connection between what I want from him and what Bender  wants, confused by Bender's antagonistic,  confrontational attitude and my pleading tone.
  
  I'm taller than he is, and he  has to tilt his head back slightly to look at  me. "It was her car?" he wonders. "But then  what ...?" Half spoken, his thought dies in  confusion as we resume walking into the wide  hallway. He moves forward slowly, preceding  me up the hollow-worn steps that lead back up  to the War Memorial Hall. There, where a dim,    bluish light comes from the high stained-glass  windows, and where the air is cooler, I manage  to bring him to a full stop by saying, "If you did  find the drugs in the car, then it will help me  prove that the man who really killed Luci  Cole was not Peter Garvey, who was convicted, but  someone else."
  He stares at me, his expression transient  with thought. "He's wrong about me."
  "Bender?"
  "Yeah. The worst thing I've done lately  is flunk out of school."
  "Either you didn't find drugs in the car or  you're not willing to tell me because Bender's got you  scared. Which is it? Can't you at least tell me  that?"
  "Huh." He laughs. "You really don't know  the answer, do you? You and Bender both let on you  knew something for sure, but you don't."
  So much for our well-planned interrogation.  "You tell him for me that I'll try real hard  to remember if I found anything on that car that  wasn't standard equipment. But if he tells my  mom I'm not in school, then he can kiss off  any idea of my remembering anything. You keep  my folks out of this."
  "We need you."
  "Well, I sure as hell don't need you."  He heads for the revolving glass doors that lead  outside.
  Defeated, I consider the wall of names, the  long dead from World War I: Edgar Grant  Collins, Robert William Chapman,  Hortense Elizabeth Wind, James Rupert  Ellis. There's just enough light in here to read the  three-inch letters. I lower myself to sit on one of the  benches lining the hall and lean back, allowing the  stone cold to penetrate my shoulders. I shiver  as nausea makes me swallow two, three times  in rapid succession. People pass in front of me,  only shapes, movement. I blew it, said the  wrong thing to Michael Lassell, let him get
  
away without telling me what I need so  desperately to know.
  When he reappears, sitting beside me, I  hardly react. "Just listen," he says, though  I haven't said a word. "It wasn't just Ben and  me at my house that night. The two other guys  left when Ben got sick. They took the stuff  with them, all of it, one of the guys did. When I  called an ambulance, this guy said the stuff  shouldn't be there or we'd go to jail, so I gave  it to him.
  "He was the one who'd known what it was right off.  I'd never seen crank, only heard about it.  I'd smoked pot before, but mixed together like that it was  really something. In a few minutes I found out  what the big deal was."
  He licks his lips, wipes his mouth with the  back of his right hand. "I told Benny to take his  turn. After a while we tried some from the one bag  that wasn't as brown as the others. The powder was more  of a yellowish color, not as lumpy. Maybe  purer stuff." He looks at me sidelong.  "This guy, I guess he knew. We mixed it  with grass and put it in the pipe and passed it  to Ben. It gave him a heart attack."
  Michael stops for breath. When he goes on,  his voice is hoarse. "These guys, the ones who  got out of there right away and took the stuff with them,  never even intended to give it back. A few days  later this one guy said he'd give me a hundred  bucks if I promised not to tell anyone about  it, ever. He already knew I hadn't told, but  when I took the money, it was like I could never  change my mind. I was in on something. At the end  of the summer he bragged he'd already made over ten  thousand dollars off it and had half of it left, and  I started to see what I'd done. He was selling  it an eighth of an ounce at a time, like Bender  said. He'd made a real ass out of me. It was  bad enough that I had to be wrong. I had to be  stupid, too."
  Michael leans forward, resting his arms on his  knees, head down. Off to the right, Bender  appears in the archway by the stairs. But when he  sees us, he turns and leaves the way he  came, guessing that his timing is bad. Michael  didn't see him.
  He straightens up, then leans back against the  wall, matching his posture to mine. We've been  sharing confidences in this solemn near-darkness as if
  
it's a confessional. "What made you come  back just now?" I ask.
  "It ruined my life, seeing Benny die like  that. If it wasn't for me he would still be alive.  For a long time I told myself it was his weak heart  that killed him, but I knew I was lying to myself.  He didn't want to do it. He was afraid of  drugs. Bender didn't scare me. You were the one  who scared me."
  "I scared you?"
  "It was like you knew, not what happened,  exactly, but how I had something to feel guilty  about. I walked outside just now, and I couldn't  stand not telling someone at last, right now, before I  lost my nerve. Bender's got me all wrong.  I wouldn't use now, not after what happened.  I've done enough damage, by what happened  to Benny. Maybe that's why I keep messing up  everything I do."
  "What you've told me will help set things  right. Sometimes that's the only way to forgive yourself."
  "I'll never be able to do that," he says,  sitting up straight. "I told Benny it felt  great, awesome, and he'd be a fool to miss it.  Pretty soon he was strutting around like crazy,  jumping up on the furniture. We were best friends  since first grade. He was down in the dumps a  lot, a really serious person. When he took that  last hit, it got to him fast. I'd never seen  him so happy, like he'd just gotten the best news  in the world."
  For a few moments of silence it seems like  we're honoring the dead. Then I have to ask the question  I feel sure he will answer at last.  "Michael, you didn't find that big a stash in a  Copenhagen can in a parking lot. Tell me where  you got the drugs."
  "Like you thought. It was stashed in the frame of that  old Chevy Nova. I didn't know exactly  what it was at first, but of course I knew it was  some kind of drugs. I showed it to Ben, and then to the  other guys." He licks his lips. "They were  big Ziploc bags, rolled up and tied like  sausages. There were six of them."

  Heading for home, Bender pulls the Bronco  into the automatic car wash at Arnie's Petro  Palace near campus, possibly a delayed  response to my earlier comment that his car was so  dirty I had to be careful not to brush against it.
  
Now my orange dress is the last thing  on my mind. We've said little since our conversation  by the fountain when he hurried up behind me, shoes  crunching the loose stones on the flagstone  terrace, greeting me with a cautious "Well?"  Our eyes were on Michael, across the street  already, headed across the grass. "What happened?"
  "He denied everything. Then he came back and  told me the whole story."
  Now, watching the dripping, fringed roller of the  car wash drag down the windshield, I raise  my voice over the roar. "When Michael first  met me this afternoon, he said he had to see his  adviser. Why would he say that if he's not  enrolled?"
  "To convince you his brush with drugs was a onetime  thing." I frown. "Okay, think what you like. He  could hardly sit still, he was so wired. His student  persona is part of a sales pitch. The adviser  line was part of that. He's not dumb."
  Pulling out of the car wash with the wipers on, we  drive to I-35 and head south toward home.  Neither of us says anything for a while. On the way  up to Ames we talked nonstop, planning our  strategy. Now all I can think about is what  I'm going to tell Charlie when I get back,  and why I'm so immobilized by his jealousy I  couldn't even tell him how wrong he was.
  Finally I bring my mind back to something Bender  said back on campus. "Michael told me  he'd never do drugs again after seeing his friend die."
  "He's thin as a rail, jumpy. His nose  runs. His eyes--the conjunctiva--were red. His  breath's like rotting fruit." We're in rush  hour commuter traffic now, approaching Des  Moines, and Bender doesn't take his eyes off  the road.
  "You made me jumpy, naming all those drug  dealers. Anyway, it's hay-fever season." I  turn in the seat to face straight ahead as Bender  switches lanes to pass. I'm still feeling  pumped that it was my strategy of empathy and  guilt that turned Michael around, not Bender's  tough approach. His hands, on the steering wheel,  are long-fingered, ropy. A man's hands, large,  like mine, but with a white line running from pinkie  knuckle to wrist. Without thinking, I reach over and  trace the thin scar, like a cord running just under the  skin.
  "I take it Charlie's been asking around about
  
me."
  I withdraw my touch. "Why do you say that?"  "You said he called me a freak."
  "He feels threatened by you."
  "His using the word "freak" tells me  he's been asking someone about me. Ever hear of  polydactyly?" I shake my head. "Means  extra fingers. A sixth digit on each hand.  You can imagine how the other kids teased me. I  can still be kind of solitary because of it, I  suppose."
  "When did you have surgery?"
  "When I was ten."
  "That's late."
  "It's usually done at birth. I don't know  why they waited. Operations cost money, I  guess. Changed my life, though. I hated being  monstrous."
  "You weren't monstrous."
  "You didn't know me then. I'm nicer with  only ten digits. Trust me." He smiles.  "If we despise ourselves, Linda, we're  lost."
  I've noticed he doesn't use the side  mirrors. He stretches to eyeball the right  lane before moving over. I'm silent for a few  minutes, and then I say, "You think Michael's  dealing drugs. What if you're wrong?"
  "There's too much at stake for me to worry about  offending him. The cops raided a meth lab in a  motel room right here in Des Moines just last  week. Crank is the drug of choice with Iowa  kids. People in sleepy little towns like ours are in  denial."
  "Those names you used with Michael, to scare him  about their long prison sentences, they were real?"
  "Very real. Meth addicts make up ninety  percent of all mental health commitments in this  county. Even doctors can't always tell the  difference between a mether and a paranoid  schizophrenic. And Ben Petersen isn't the  only kid who's died of it. So no, I'm not  afraid of accusing Michael wrongly. If  he's clean, my suspicions won't hurt  him, believe me." As traffic slows for the  I-80 exit up ahead, Bender moves to the  left to go on through the city. "If he's not dealing,  I bet he knows more than one person who is. I  could kick myself for not following up on this sooner."
  "So what do we do now? Before Luci died,
  
Weber had the opportunity to stash the  crank under her car, and we figure he left  town immediately after the murder because he was so afraid  I would realize that was him I saw outside the  house that day, and he'd be accused of killing her.  Then Charlie gave the car to the high school, and  Michael and Ben found the drugs under the car in  auto-mech class. It all fits, but we can't  prove that Weber had anything to do with all this. So  what have we gained?"
  "We know we're a good team," says Bender.  He pulls out to pass a faded red pickup    loaded with furniture, an upended rocker tied  onto the top of the heap. A cigarette hangs from  the driver's mouth. He returns my stare,  eyes slitty from the smoke.
  As we pull ahead, I watch the battered  pickup grow smaller in the side mirror.  "I'm glad you quit smoking."
  "I bought a pack last night, after leaving your  place," he says.
  For twenty minutes or so there's no more talk,  until Bender signals for our exit. My mind  wanders back to last night, to Charlie, and then I  realize Bender's talking again--about flying too  high, of all things. "A kind of euphoria,"  he says. "Above it all. They have to be trained  to avoid the seduction so they don't get too far  out, away from gravity's pull."
  "Sorry, I wasn't listening. What are you  talking about?"
  "Test pilots. I had some heady  fantasies last night, trying to sleep. About  what we might be able to make happen with Weber.  That he might be so blown away by our cleverness  he'll confess everything."
  "I think he'd be most likely to confess  to me. I had such luck with Michael." I  smile. "But we can't count on Weber to have a  conscience. I've had the same fantasies of  confession."
  We need proof. Off to the left lies a  field of soybeans, green singed with gold and  rust. Before long these plants will be brown,  mature pods rattling on the breeze. Harvest  isn't many weeks away. We're silent  until we pull up to the back door of my  studio. "Well, we got what we went after,"  he says, "but I'm not--" He stops  midsentence. "Well ..." It's an awkward
  
moment, both of us staring at the  windshield.
  Inside, I'm drawn to the front desk by the  blinking red light of the answering machine. I  simply sit, staring at it. I pull Luci's  journal out of my purse, and it falls open to the  picture of Luci and her mother. Idly I peel  fragments of tape from the corners of the snapshot and  lift it from the page. I read a few words,  turn the page, then another, more discouraged than  ever. Bill, who came in here and vandalized my  work to scare me off, may turn out to have had more  reason to hate Luci than Weber did. So  may Reverend Gus, whose marriage and career she  might have jeopardized by accusing him of sexual  harassment. The man lying under her car that day might  not have come from inside the house at all. Maybe  Luci never let him through the front door, and I  saw him give up trying. Or maybe Peter  Garvey was the last person to see Luci alive  in that kitchen after all. The only evidence  connected to any of this is that Bill's prints  match those on the etching plate.
  I reach for the machine. The first message is from  Craig Murdock, deputy sheriff,
Darlington, Missouri: "Susanna Cole was  born to Lucinda Marie Cole twenty years  ago." His message includes the date of birth  and the name of the father: William Scott Allard.  If I'll return his call, he'll tell me  how to order a copy of the birth certificate.
  The second message is from Charlie. "I  stopped by and saw your car. I guess you didn't  go to Ames, or wherever you went, by yourself. I  wonder who you could be with. I guess that's why you  wanted to wait till tomorrow to come home." His  voice is heavy with sarcasm. "Call me when you  get back."
  I call, but he doesn't answer. I let  it ring for a long time.

  I call the house many times during the evening, but  Charlie's not home. About nine-thirty I call  the Allards. Bill answers. He tells me  he'll have Judy call me in the morning. Now  isn't a good time. She's gone to bed already.  "You're the one I want to talk to," I tell  him.
  
  "About what?"
  "Your act of vandalism, for starters." He's  silent. "A vicious act, and hardly the way  to make me stop asking questions, if that's what you were  trying to do. I thought you were smarter than that. I  don't know you at all."
  "Yes you do," he says calmly.
  "I wonder." My tone is bitter. "One  thumbprint and you become a man of some mystery.  And then there's the baby Luci Cole had the year  you were both freshmen at Carleton."
  The sound of the dial tone brings me to my feet.  In ten minutes I'm in the Allards'  driveway. The upstairs of the white colonial  house is dark. Before I can ring the bell, the  front-hallway light goes on, and Bill  opens the door without a smile. "Judy's  asleep. I don't want her disturbed."
  "Tess is here?"
  "She's at her grandmother's."
  I look at my watch. Bill stands just  inside the door, but I step forward anyway.  He follows me past the stairway and through the dim  living room into the family room at the back,  where the television flickers. He's put a  video on pause. The Moo-Vies rental  box is open on the floor.
  He remains standing while I sit on the red  sofa. The room is overdecorated, ruffled  skirts on sofa and chairs, ruffled  lampshades, lots of red plaid and tulip  prints. He needs a shave. Brushstrokes of  darker yellow curve up from the armpits of his  yellow shirt, suggesting he's been exerting himself,  though the house is air-conditioned. "Tess seems  to think it's my fault you and Charlie are having  trouble," he says, eager to start the conversation on  his terms.
  "Kids jump to conclusions whenever a couple  argues. She likes Charlie. You can tell her  I'm moving back home tomorrow."
  "We can't have this affecting Tess."  "We can't have what affecting Tess?"
  He moves a hand over his broad forehead.  "What have you been telling her?"
  "I'm not the one who's done her harm."  He hunkers down to eject the tape from the  VCR. The snap-snap as he squeezes the  plastic movie box shut startles me, and I  stand. Still crouched in front of the TV, he looks
  
up as if I've cornered him. I could  so easily knock him off balance, step on  ankle and leg bones. I've never had such thoughts  before. He shows me the palms of his hands, a  passive gesture that only increases my urge  to hurt him. "It's just that Tessie came home  late," he says, "this morning, actually,  nearly three. She smelled strongly of  booze." He pauses to swallow. "Judy  wants her to go back to Omaha, and Tess was  screaming about how Luci Cole poisoned our  family."
  "The night Charlie stayed here, Tess heard  you and Charlie arguing, in this very room."
  He glances at the ceiling. "She was  asleep."
  "Like Judy's asleep right now?" I lower my  voice. "Your daughter heard Charlie accuse you  of killing Luci."
  "That's not what he was accusing me of."  "Tess figured that out, after Peter Garvey was  arrested. She knows you slept with Luci."
  Bill touches the carpet to push himself to his  feet. He's at least four inches shorter than  I am. I take a step closer. "That's what  Charlie thought, too. But no, I didn't."  He shakes his head. "Those last months it had  been harder to refuse her when she wanted to see  me. Every time I tried to pull away, she would up  the ante."
  "What do you mean?"
  "As long as no one knew we were such close  friends, there was always the chance I might give in.  Maybe that's why I always felt so guilty,  even though we never did anything wrong."
  "She had a baby girl when she was eighteen.  Your child. Your name's on the official record of  birth."
  A shrill, distant chirp pierces the  silence. Startled, we look at each other, but the  sound doesn't repeat itself. "We had a class  together freshman year," he goes on. "Before I  got up the nerve to ask her out, she would start  telling me about some guy or other, like I was her  buddy." He walks around the sofa to place both  hands on its pillowed back. He waits until  I sit. "She was very pretty," he goes on,  looking down at me. "I was trying to figure how  to get her to see me as something other than the brother  she'd always wanted, and then one day she blurted out
  
that she was pregnant and was going to leave  school as soon as she could figure out where to go."  Bill's looking across the room now, eyes  unfocused, remembering. Or maybe repeating a  story he's been saving until he needed it.  He makes the mistake of the guilty, giving me  the long version.
  "It turned out Humanities was the only  class she was still attending. She'd been working up  the nerve to confide in me, all the while studying  those Greek plays with a vengeance, even though she  was about to take off. She figured she'd lost her  chance for college, and I didn't have the sense  to disagree with her. Even after she told me about the  pregnancy, we'd sit under a tree and discuss  Medea instead of what was really wrong. I thought  it would be bad manners to ask her who the father was,  or why he wasn't helping her. I even thought  about marrying her myself.
  "Then one night she showed up at my dorm.  Her father had come to see her, and he had told her  she'd get no help from him. He was furious with  her. We lay on my bed, and I held her.
When it came right down to it, I couldn't offer her  any more than that.
  "When we ran into each other here in Linden  Grove years later, she told me I was there  when she had most needed a friend. We met for  coffee a few times. It was summer, so I  wasn't teaching. But when I wanted her to meet  Judy--" His gaze moves to the ceiling. "By the  end of the summer I realized that secrecy was an  essential element of Luci's attachment to me.  That should have been a red flag. I told her I was  uncomfortable meeting her where no one would see us.  When I finally told her I wouldn't see her again  under those conditions, she broke down and told me  she had used me unfairly all those years before,  back in college. She had to see me one more  time, to apologize."
  "That's what you meant by upping the ante?"  "Only if I forgave her would she let go,  leave me alone."
  "What did she need forgiveness for?"
  "She had convinced herself that ending up in the same  town with me was some preordained kind of payback,  not just a coincidence. All those times we had  talked back in college, she made sure she  found out my middle name, my birth date, where I  was born, so she could name me as father on the birth
  
certificate. Telling me about it at  last seemed to drive her off the deep end, make  her face the loss of that child for the first time. The baby  was half grown, a teenager, by that time, and Luci  imagined that the girl might turn up on my  doorstep and announce she was mine. She looks  just like Luci."
  "You've seen her?"
  "No, of course not. She'd left the baby with  her mother to raise. She told me that years after the  child was born she had some kind of breakdown and  convinced herself she was pregnant again. That was when you  knew her so well, in art school, right?"
  "Not so well."
  "She went home to see her mother, for the first time in  a decade, and to see the girl."
  "And she took a picture of the two of them?"  He nods.
  "Susanna."
  He nods again. "I tried to convince Luci it  wasn't too late to go back, make amends, that  she'd given up too much, that she didn't need  to be ashamed. She said she was seeing a  psychologist."
  Another penetrating chirp interrupts him, and  this time we both look upward. "Must be a  cricket," he says, "against one of the screens  upstairs." He clears his throat and looks me  full in the face. "By the time Luci died,  Charlie had seen the birth certificate. So  what Tess overheard that night was Charlie  accusing me of being the father of her child, and of being her  lover again when she moved here, and right up to the end.  He was in shock. It took a while to calm him  down. I owe him a lot for protecting me and my  family. He and I have never spoken of it since.
  "I want you to know, Linda, that when Luci  tried one final time to insist she had one more thing  to tell me, another final secret, I told  her she should be talking to Charlie. Sharing her  confidences with me was leading to such--"
  "Intimacy?"
  "I was going to say temptation."
  I remember what Luci wrote in her  diary, that he kissed her in the grocery store.
  "I told her to tell Charlie her stories,  not me, not anymore. It was our last conversation.  Be careful what you say to Tess. She's  unstable, like her mother. You must see what a tenuous  grip Judy has on reality at times, trying
  
to blame me for Tess's problems.
Luci was even more unreliable. I can see my  daughter headed toward more trouble than all of you."
  "All of us?"
  "She's too emotional, too excitable. Her  moods swing too widely for anyone to be sure  what she'll do next. Spending time with you gets  her even more agitated."
  "I left my door unlocked that day,  didn't I?"
  "Yes, you did. If you had just left town after  the trial, we would all have gotten back  to normal. Ruining a piece of artwork is nothing  compared to the harm you're doing to the rest of us."
  The cricket tweets brightly overhead.  Bill turns on the stairway light. "There's  no need for you to come up," he insists, but I'm not  letting him out of my sight. Someone who would do the  violence he did to that piece of copper might do  as much to me, despite his apparent meekness, if  he could get his hands on something sharp and gain the  element of surprise. On the top riser he  stops. The sound is much louder up here. He stands  completely still, mouth open. "The smoke alarm."
  The high-pitched signal is coming from the ceiling  at the end of the hall, near the door to the master  bedroom, which is closed. He stretches up  to reach the alarm before it sounds again but falls a few  inches short. I'm the one who can reach it easily  and twist off the cover. I pull the battery  free and turn to hand it to him.
  But he's gone back downstairs. I consider  the bedroom door. Judy wouldn't have slept through  that shrill, penetrating sound, a sound meant to be  impossible to ignore. My skin goes cold.
  Bill and I are alone in the house. I get  to the bottom of the stairs before I say his name. He  doesn't answer. For a second I just wait, but  then the light in the family room goes off, and  I hear his footfalls, hear a scraping sound,  like a drawer opening. Too emotional?  Unreliable? Headed for more trouble than all of  you? Who knew he had such opinions? I wait  for the next sound.
  Bill's a mild man with the kind of anger that  never raises its voice, a meek man whose  anger stays hidden until it strikes. He  wants to protect Tess from me. How does he  plan to do that? I step into the hallway. There's a  light on under the kitchen door.
  
  When it opens, a loud gasp  escapes me. My heart hammers. This close,  Bill smells of stale perspiration and beer.  He's got something in his hand. "Where is Judy?"  I manage to say.
  "She hasn't been sleeping well. The  doctor gave her something to knock her out." He  hands me a new battery. "What did you think,  that I'd done away with her?"
  I'm glad for the excuse to go back upstairs,  where I turn the doorknob silently and open the  door to the master bedroom. I stand there for a few  moments, listening to Judy's slow breathing,  mechanical as a cat's, then close the door  again and replace the battery in the smoke alarm.  When I go back down to the front hall, Bill  is out of sight. I leave quickly, without saying  good-bye.

  Back in my loft, about midnight, I  decide I should try to sleep. I bring the  upstairs phone into bed with me. The pillow and  sheets still bear Charlie's scent, or so I  imagine as I curl up, remembering how we  held each other last night. I try calling him  one more time. I let it ring. The purring in my ear  goes on and on, until finally the repetition  dulls the senses and lets me drift.
  In the morning a pulsating two-note warning  drags me from a deep sleep. After a moment of  confusion, I realize I've knocked the receiver  off the hook, and I slap at the tangled sheets  to find the phone and end the sound. The faint light in  the room tells me it's early, so I lie still  to let my heart slow. I sleep till nine and  wake up to the memory of Charlie's angry,  sarcastic message. I wonder who you could be  with. After showering and hauling a few clothes and  toiletries out to my car, I head for home, my  mood an edgy mix of anticipation and dread.  He has every right to be jealous; I've been so  evasive.
  Approaching the house, I see with relief that  Charlie's van is in the drive. Bees are  buzzing among the fringed blossoms of coral  zinnias by the back steps as I rap on the  door, which is locked. It's so quiet here,  except for the tick of insects and chattering of  birds from the woods behind the house. Tomato  plants at the edge of the garden are heavy with
  
fruit. I pinch off a leaf and inhale  the pungent tomato smell. Twenty feet  back from the garden the woods begin, and I walk the  width of the lot, searching for a way down to the  bottom of the steep ravine. Behind the garage, where  Luci wrote that there was a path, it's so shady  there's no grass, just gravel and sparse, low  plants. Behind one of the posts supporting the  studio above, I find a tangle of brush. By the  dead leaves among the green, it's plain Charlie  has been using this as a place to toss pruned  tree limbs, weeds from the garden, and grass  clipped from the lawn. This must be the top end of the  eroded crevice I found the other day, from below,  when I was searching for a path. As I step closer  to the top of the incline, my foot slides, so I  reach out instinctively for balance. Looking up,  I see something in the branches above. A rope.  It appears to be knotted every foot or so. It's  frayed, weathered gray, too high to reach.
  At the front door of the house I knock  again, but not too loudly. Key in hand, I  hesitate before I let myself in. Inside the  living room, the blinds are down. The ceiling fan  stirs the air. Newspapers clutter the floor  around the recliner, and Mackerel Sky leans  against the wall over the mantel. "Charlie?"
  I hear his answer, and then he appears, a  white towel slung around his middle. His hair and  beard are curly from the shower, chest and belly  hair scribbled against his skin. He watches me  watch him, no sign of anger.
  "When you go to the woods to collect honey from the  hives down there, you drive around to the back  road, right?"
  "Right."
  "Didn't there used to be a path behind the  garage?"
  "It wasn't exactly a path. We called  it The Chute."
  "We?"
  "You know how kids like secret passages.  We thought we were clever. One person could go, but  no one else could make it down until the one at  the bottom had come back up."
  "With the rope for balance?"
  He looks at me steadily. "It was  supposed to be a one-way, one-person-at-a-time  arrangement. A few of us had a pact, when we  were kids. A long time ago. I started filling it
  
with brush after the night we saw someone in  the garage. He ran around to the back, as if he  knew the way. I was afraid someone would break his  neck." He chuckles. "I was afraid it would  be me. I'm a little old to rappel down an  embankment."
  "Bill Allard knew about the way up from the  woods."
  Charlie's smile fades.
  "Luci must have told him about it. Weber would have  seen the path, too, when he was working on the  garage. I was at the Allards' last night,  talking to Bill. I kept calling you, till  nearly one."
  "I wasn't answering the phone."
  "To punish me?"
  He frowns, securing the towel around his  midsection with a single abrupt tuck. "To let you  know how it feels."
  "John Bender and I went to Ames together  yesterday, to talk with someone who might connect  Russell Weber with Luci's death. Is that  what you want to hear?"
  "What I want to hear is why you didn't  tell me that in the first place." He heads for the  kitchen. Standing by the sink, coffee mug in hand, he  raises his shoulders as if they're hurting.  "Don't forget. Bender's the man you were so  afraid offor so many weeks, since way last  spring. All I heard about was "that man who's  staring at me."" Charlie turns his head to check  my response. "Now you're thick as thieves."
  "Not exactly."
  "Then what, exactly?"
  "If I'd told you what we were planning to do  yesterday, you'd have tried to talk me out of it."
  "Well, I didn't talk you out of it. So  tell me more." He sips his coffee.
  "I'm not sure it was Peter Garvey I saw  here that day. I think it could have been Russell  Weber."
  "Rosemary told me you wanted his canceled  check. Bender put you up to that?"
  "No. That was my idea. I'm going to explain  it all to you, if you'll listen."
  "You don't think it's strange that a guy  who's been skulking around for months without saying a  word to you suddenly wants to be your best friend? But  then fear is what turns you on, isn't it?"  He inhales deeply. "I didn't think you'd
  
do this to me. You said you'd come back."
  "I am back."
  "Not the way I mean. I think a lot more  happened after I went to work yesterday morning than  you're likely to tell me." He starts to sip his  coffee again, then changes his mind, thunking the  heavy mug on the table.
  I sit across from him, my hands flat on the  table. For long minutes neither of us moves or  speaks. Finally I start. "That night you cleared  out Luci's studio, I assumed you took her  things to the county landfill. She was just starting to work  again those last weeks of her life. The tapestry  was beautiful." I remember him bent over in the  gloom of Luci's studio that night, banging  away at the splintering wood. "You didn't  save it for me, the way you said you would."
  Returning to the window over the sink and its view  of the yard, he raises his hand to protect his eyes  from the glare of sunlight.
  "When I saw you breaking the loom," I say  softly, "I should have stopped you, but I thought you were  grieving, that you needed to be left alone, since  that's what you wanted. Did you really trash all  her things, the way I thought?"
  "I put a few of the boxes in that storage shed  I rent. You know. You've been there. Where we  found your kitchen sink." He looks at me with  such sadness that I take a step toward him. "I  wanted her things where I didn't have to look at  them, but I couldn't bring myself to destroy everything.  I loved her once, you know." He looks away  again. "I did go to the dump that night, but I  couldn't let go of some things."
  "Was the tapestry one of them? I asked you  to save it for me that night, leave it in the garage.  But it's not there."
  "What tapestry?"
  "The weaving. The work that was on her loom."  He clears his throat. "I can't say I  remember it, but if you asked me to save it for you,  I'm sure I left it in the garage."
  "If you did, that means whoever broke into the  garage that night took it. Give me the key to the  storage shed, so I can see if the weaving is  there." He straightens his shoulders. A curly  path of dark hair swirls down from his broad  chest to his deep navel, then crosses his tan  line to disappear under the white towel. I look  away. "The tapestry is a treasure,
  
Charlie. Think of what people remember her  for, cheating on you and getting killed for it. Is that  what you want?"
  "What I want never had anything to do with it."  He leaves the room, and I hear window shades  slap open in the bedroom. Dresser drawers  slam open, shut.
  When I step into the bedroom, he turns  to face me, and he seems caught off guard, his  expression open, expectant, which moves me  to feel affection for him, sorry for all the  difficult moments he's been through in this house.  "I found Luci's diary," I tell him. "It  won't be easy for you to read. You'll see a  version of Luci I daresay even you never saw."  He simply stares at me. Finally he blinks,  and looks away. "I'll bring it home tonight, the  diary. We'll talk. I'm sorry I've  been secretive. I had the idea I was  protecting you from worry until I'd satisfied  myself I was right about seeing Peter that day after all.  But it hasn't turned out that way. I think I  made a terrible mistake."
  He's visibly shaken, and I tell him
I'm going out to my car for my things while he  gets dressed and collects his thoughts. I'll be  right back. Outside the front door I pause  to study the break in the bushes along the road where  I stopped three years ago to look down at this  very spot.
  If this were that moment, and I were Russell  Weber, and I had just killed her, I'd be  scrambling to get those six sausage-long bags  out from under Luci's Chevy and running for my life  before someone discovered her body behind me in the  kitchen. And if I were Russell Weber now,  I'd be figuring out how to get my hands on that car  because I'd believe the stuff was still under there, and  I'd be sure that when I found it, I'd be a  rich man.
  Despite the fact that the temperature is in  the high seventies, I shiver. Whatever Weber  is doing to find that car, Bender and I need to be  right behind him. The simplicity of that knowledge propels  me onto the narrow strip of grass between the steps  and the gravel of the circular drive. I reach out  my hand, as I did that day. I step forward, as  I did then, to place my hand on the warm fender  of the car. I say his name, "Peter." I had no  doubt then whose boots had left those two
  
crescent-shaped marks in the dust.
Unnerved, I see the flash of movement and feel  the stumbling touch on my forehead and hear the buzz.
  Panting, I make it back inside the screen  door--pointing, speechless, at the honeysuckle  bush just outside. "Bees," I say stupidly.
  Charlie brushes past me wearing only a  pair of the loose boxer shorts he wears in the  summer, white with a thin blue stripe, flapping  above strong thigh muscles. Quickly he steps  outside, the wood-framed screen door closing  behind him with a gentle slap--then returns to open his  fist slowly, touching my shoulder to keep me  close. "It's a flower fly. Perfectly  harmless. See?" The amber-and-black insect  drags itself across his palm. "A look-alike to the  honeybee." He nods as I bravely pinch the  creature up in finger and thumb. Gently rotating  my hand, he points at the thinly striped abdomen  for my inspection. "Not a stinger in sight. It's not  a bee at all." He speaks with the calm tone  he used the night he told Tess the  praying-mantis story. It's all I can do  to keep my fingers closed. My skin crawls as  the fake bee struggles to escape.
  Charlie opens the screen door a slit so I  can reach through and let the insect go. The chill  leaves my skin. "I know I can't tell you what  to do," he says, "but I wish you'd stay away from  Bender." Charlie's skin smells like soap. His  voice is husky. My hand finds the small of  his back, where his skin is still damp to the touch.

  On the way to my studio I overshoot the  center of town and drive to the east side, to where  Russ Weber lives, on Railroad
Street. I'm relieved to see his car in the  driveway. I'm worried he'll leave town  again. The strip of lawn this side of the sidewalk  is browned out, but the yard is lush, as if it's  been watered. I pull onto the shoulder of the  unpaved street and look at my watch. I have a  few minutes before Tess's drawing lesson.  Two basement windows in the house's front  foundation are curtained in red-and-white fabric,  backlit and vividly floral.
  The basement lights were on the last time I  drove by here, too. The trunk of Weber's
  
dusty green car is open, revealing a  fringe of fanned-out wire coat hangers. By the  time I'm halfway up the front walk, I'm  as winded as if I've been running. What will I  say if he appears? Maybe he's watching me  from behind the blinds that line the windows like notebook  paper. I back up two steps, then hurry  back to the car. All I can think is, If he  takes off, where does that leave us?
  I reach my studio at five to eleven and  turn on the LINDA GARBO DESIGNS  sign. The first answering-machine message is a  callback from Detective Hansen, agreeing  to meet me at four-thirty. After a tone,  another voice says, "Weber was booked during  the night for trespassing and possession of  burglary tools." Bender's diction is slow,  deliberate. "Jim Howard is meeting me in a  few minutes to check the records on where  Luci's car went when the high school was done with  it. My hunch is it's at Carney's
Salvage Yard, which is where Weber was arrested.  He's seeing a judge this morning. I think we  should think about getting you some kind of protection.  From now on, if you have to go anywhere after work hours,  leave your sign on till you get home."
  My gaze fixed on the loft as soon as I  heard the word "protection," and I continue to stare  upward for long seconds after the message ends.  There's no sound in the building, none at all.  I sit quietly and let time pass until it's  clear Tess is not going to show up for her  lesson. No surprise, given that Bill said  she was staying with her grandmother last night. I call  the Allards, but there's no answer. There's no  answer at Bill's mother's farmhouse west of  town either. I call a few of Judy's friends, but  none of them has heard from her in the past couple of  days.
  I hurry across the parking lot to the back door  of The Little Read. It's locked, so I run through  the alley and around to the street entrance. Taped to the  front door is a card bearing the words CLOSED  UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. The neat,  teacherly penmanship is Bill's.

  Ever since I told Charlie this morning that  I'd bring Luci's diary home at the end of the  afternoon, I've been worried about how her words will  hurt him. Now, driving toward the church to meet
  
Reverend Gustavson, I remember his  warning that Luci's journal is a record of  thoughts, impressions, and wishes, not reality.  You don't know what kind of truth you're dealing  with. When he hears me knock on the frame of  his open door, the minister looks up from his desk  and waves me in. He looks awful. The skin  under his eyes is loose, eyelids pink along the  lashes. He works his mouth as if he's  dehydrated, but I don't ask what's bothering  him. I tell him I can't reach Judy, or  Tess. "If she's drinking again," he says,  "Judy's probably taken her back  to Omaha."
  Maybe he's right, but I can't help  remembering Judy's slow breathing and the piercing  chirp, penetrating enough to rouse someone from a deep  sleep. Right now I need to concentrate on what  I wanted to find out when I made this appointment.  Gus resigns his shoulders backward against the  maroon leather of his chair as I describe  Luci's collection of shoes, each toe stuffed  tight with tissue paper, size eights and nines  --except for the gold ones, which are twelves, my  size. "Luci wore a seven," I say, as  if this were the punch line.
  Gus looks puzzled.
  "I didn't know what to make of the shoes,  unless they were irregulars from her father's company,  or styles that didn't sell." Opening my  wallet, I slip out the picture of the child I had  assumed until last night was Luci, with her  mother. I want the shoes to mean something, but what?
  "You're hoping I can tell you something about  Luci's background?"
  I tap the image of the little girl in the  snapshot, Susanna. "Have you seen this before?"  He shakes his head, and I decide not to press.  "Luci angered a number of people during her last  months," I say, "mostly men."
  "Yes." Gus closes his eyes. His lips  twitch, and I realize he's trying to appear  relaxed. He unclenches his fists. "You mentioned  something last time you were here," he says, "about what  she said about me--" He pauses for so long I  think he's about to admit having sex with Luci,  or deny it more elaborately than before. "She  told you I believe in the powers of the intellect  to correct defects in character," he goes on.  ""Defects in character" would have been her words, not
  
mine. She had an overwhelming sense of  being defective. She insisted she had forgotten  long stretches of time when she was a child."
  "Didn't that make you suspect that something  terrible had happened to her?"
  "I wanted to help her identify consequences  of her behavior, rather than causes. I thought  childhood stories would surface naturally as  she gained control over her life."
  "You concentrated on her most urgent problem."  "She was able to remove herself from a destructive  relationship."
  "With a married man."
  He doesn't respond, and I place the  snapshot on the coffee table. Silently, I  remember Luci's version from her journal: I  went to see Reverend Go---- to tell him that his  counseling has worked and I've given up my  married lover--a sordid, outrageous lie! I  could tell at once that Go---- was caught off  guard, far more open to me than before, believing he'd  done me some good, saved me from a dangerous  situation. How easily he takes the credit I  offer him like bait!
  "The Luci I remember from school was good at  putting painful events behind her," I say, "as  if they had never happened. One semester she  told me she was pregnant. She had a  miscarriage and then never mentioned that whole  experience again. In her journal she makes it  clear there was something she longed to tell someone but  couldn't, something that had left a mark on her."
  He smiles sadly. "If she were here, she'd  accuse you of going for the "sick story."" He  rises to his feet. "She hated the idea that if  there's pain in the present, there has to have been a  childhood event that caused it. Luci was  relieved to discover I had no interest in  pressuring her to dig up key memories. She  mistrusted the subconscious mind. She was leery  of stimulating her imagination by projecting feelings  about herself back into the past."
  He's becoming agitated, his voice rising,  words coming more quickly. "In the beginning I thought I  was someone she could work with. I don't subscribe  either to the theory that it is our life's work to locate  a particular harm that's shaped us. I find that  premise Calvinistic, destructive, and all  too often a self-fulfilling prophecy."  Abruptly he stops pacing and faces one of the
  
stained-glass windows, staring as if he  could see through the opaque glass.
  Finally he walks over to shove some papers out  of the way and sit on the edge of his cluttered  desk, body braced by his hands that grip the  wood so hard his knuckles tense in a white  row. "Don't be unfair to me," he says.  "Luci was very bright."
  "I know that."
  "And very destructive. She seemed happier  after the first few talks we had. She applied to the  Iowa Arts Council for a grant to do a  project in the schools. She had me convinced she  was calmer, less self-absorbed."
  "She praised your emphasis on the will and the  intellect."
  He nods. "She refused to believe that all  her achievements and mistakes were unfolding according  to a predetermined pattern that she'd never be able  to stop."
  "She was obsessed with that possibility even as  she rejected it?"
  He ignores my question. "I wanted her  to believe she was a child of God, and worthy of  loving-kindness, to use your word."
  "Then she stopped coming here. There was a  breaking-off."
  He bites his lower lip.
  "At a certain point in the journal," I  tell him, "her tone changed, and she began  addressing me by name, revealing things she had never  told me in person. I don't understand what she  was trying to say." I pause. "There is a  significant difference between the sexual encounter  she says she had with you and those she describes with  other men. You told me her feelings for you were a  matter of transference, that those feelings were really  for someone else. If that's true, and she made  up the incident involving the two of you on this sofa,  she must have provided me with that story for a reason.  What could it be?"
  "She wanted to hurt me, which is exactly  what making that journal public knowledge will achieve."  His gaze intensifies. "Instead of helping her,  I had become part of the problem." He averts his  eyes, looks at his fingernails. "The root of  moral inconsistency is shame, Linda. A  woman can have sex with many men without feeling she  shares love, or loyalty, with any of them."  He runs his tongue over his teeth. "She thought
  
the world of you, but your moving to town  provided conditions for an upheaval in her  personality."
  "So had reuniting with Bill Allard here, after  so many years. You knew it was Bill? Her  married friend?"
  Gus's fleeting glance tells me he hadn't  figured that out. "I wanted to suggest she talk  to someone else, but I knew she'd take that as  abandonment on my part, and we'd lose what  progress we'd made."
  "Luci and Bill may have had a child together,  years ago. This child." I point to the little girl in  the photograph.
  Gus studies the image. His face is ashen.  "Luci told you that?"
  "I no longer believe it was Peter Garvey  who killed her. You told me she was supposed  to meet with you here that afternoon but didn't show up. It  seems to me that under those circumstances you wouldn't just  sit here and wait for her. I think you'd have been  concerned enough to call, or even go looking for her.  I'm guessing that you did call her the afternoon she  died, but got no answer. So you went to see her.  Am I right?"
  The phone rings, and Gus crosses to his  desk to take the call, swiveling back and forth in  his desk chair as he talks. I tilt the shiny  photograph to avoid the glare and stare at the  tiny face of Luci's daughter. When he  hangs up the phone, I hand him the snapshot.  "Luci wrote about showing a picture to Charlie  one night and telling him something that drew them very  close. I think this might be the one. I'm going  to ask him about it tonight, when I give him the  journal."
  Gus's eyes jerk to mine with alarm.
  "He insists on reading it, even though I've  warned him it will be painful."
  Gus hands the photo back to me. "What are  you really looking for, Linda? With all these questions?"
  "I'm trying to find out who killed her."  "Yes, but it seems to be more than that. You  feel you let her down, a failure you can't get  out of your mind. My guess is you have great  difficulty resisting people who need you. Let her  go, or you'll be haunted by an unanswerable question  forever."
  "At the end of her journal she talked about  ending things with Peter, breaking off with Bill.
  
Making things right, tying things up. She  finished her final weaving the day I arrived. It  seems she was putting things in order the way a  suicide takes care of business and gives  away favorite possessions before committing the  final act." I pause to swallow. "I moved  here thinking she was happily settled into a good  life, but the minute I got here, she let me  know she was in trouble." I hesitate before trying  one last time to get the information I came for. "She  provided me with that seduction story about you for a  reason, and that reason had to do with the difference between you  and Bill, or Peter." Or Russell
Weber, I'm thinking. "She had to be more clever,  more powerful, to get you to touch her, and when she  succeeded, she could be the victim."
  "I didn't touch her."
  "She knew I'd see your giving in as your  fault, because you were a minister, a licensed  psychologist. A strong sense of professional  ethics should have restrained you."
  "My strong sense of ethics did restrain  me."
  "She was supposed to meet you here the afternoon she  died. You were waiting for her. You hadn't seen her  for weeks. She was both a temptation and a threat,  so when she didn't show up, you found it impossible  to simply sit here and wait. She knew that would be  the case. I think she was waiting for you."
  "What are you suggesting?"
  "You were at the house that afternoon."  The minister takes a deep breath. "I did  drive out there, but I didn't see her. I was  behind you. When you turned in at her driveway, I  went on by and turned around in the drive next  door. I saw you walk around Luci's car and go  in the front door, and I saw Garvey get up  and run around the side of the house. Murder  didn't occur to me. Why would it? I kept on  going, came back here."
  "He ran around the side of the house?"  "Yes."
  "Toward the horses or along the driveway,  toward the garage?"
  "Toward the house next door. I don't  remember any horses."
  I feel myself grow very still. "You're sure it was  Peter Garvey you saw?"
  "At the time I had never seen you before, or him  either. He stood up the minute the front door
  
closed behind you. He was plenty angry."
  "How could you tell?"
  "I suppose it was his body language. I  don't think I saw his face."
  "So you realized it was Garvey later, after I  identified him?"
  "After his picture was in the paper." He  nods. "It was the same man. I knew who you  were, that you were staying there. Luci had told me you  were unusually tall, a striking blonde. He  got out from under the car and stood with his fists on his  hips. He had his back to me, facing the door  you'd just walked through."
  "You had followed me from town?"
  "Not all the way from town. I caught up with  you. As I approached the top of the hill, I  saw you parked there. I thought maybe there was something  wrong with your car, but when you started moving, I  wondered what you'd been waiting for. I still wonder  that. I followed you down but kept my distance. I  knew it was you, from the Minnesota plates. When  you turned in at Luci's, I was sure."
  "You're positive it was Peter Garvey you  saw?"
  "I'd swear to it."

  Before going to meet Hansen, I take  Luci's diary across the street to Kinko's and stand  at a machine to copy every page. It takes longer  than I expect. I return to my studio  to lock the photocopy in one of my print  cabinets. About five I arrive at the  Grubstake, where I find Detective Hansen  sitting with John Bender at a back table. I  didn't expect Bender to be here.
  The last thing my nervous stomach wants is  coffee. As I slide the menu across the slick  oilcloth--patterned with palm trees and  tropical flowers--Hansen, who is sitting  across from me, tells me Weber is out on bail.  Bender slips a packet of sugar from the basket  in the center of the table and inspects it, turning it  over in his long fingers.
  Hansen's gray eyes meet my own steady  gaze. "Now that we have Weber's prints, we'll  check for a match with the Luci Cole case and with the  flashlight you brought in." The detective rubs  the tiny, reddened dents on either side of the bridge  of his nose, raising the glasses to check for  smudges before replacing them on his face.
  
  I asked him to meet me so I could  offer information, to convince him to pursue the case with  urgency, and now he's opened the conversation on his  own terms. "We made mistakes," I remind  him. "An artist's first lesson is that the mind  confounds the eye. We see what we expect  to see. Knowing that should have made me a smarter  witness."
  "Let's hear what you've got on Bill  Allard. Then I want you to leave the investigation  to us."
  Is this what he and Bender were discussing before  I arrived? Bender is still fiddling with that flimsy  pack of sugar. He has told me more than  once that cops and reporters are natural  adversaries who in some matters have no one else  to talk with, and that I was wrong in assuming that because  he and Hansen share information, they are buddies.  Now Bender's silence implies he, too,  thinks I should turn over what I have and get out of  their way. "There was another eyewitness who saw  Peter Garvey in front of the house that afternoon,"  I tell them. "He's even more unreliable than  I was, and he may be lying to protect himself."  I turn to John. "The man you debate the  existence of God with."
  "Gus?"
  "Isn't the Bible full of murderers who  believe in God? Isn't the whole point--"
  "Tell us what you're talking about," the  detective says.
  I explain my suspicions about Reverend  Gustavson, reporting on our two conversations.  I give them the snapshot of the little girl who  looks so much like Luci. I tell them about my  visit with Bill last night, and about the birth  records in Missouri that name him as the father of  Susanna. Bender continues fiddling with the sugar as  I talk, and I finally take it away from him to still  his hand. Right away I regret the gesture for its  implication of intimacy. "You're practically  dancing, you're so wired," I tell him. He  hasn't looked at me once since I got  here.
  "I need a cigarette." He pauses. "You  need to listen to us."
  "From what John tells me about Luci's  journal," Hansen says, "we should expect a  match of Weber's prints to the murder scene.  Apparently he was in her kitchen around the time of the
  
murder the same as you were, the same as  Charlie, the same as--"
  "Garvey," I say.
  Hansen sips his coffee, then replaces the  white mug onto the bright tablecloth, adjusting it  dead center in the middle of a purple hibiscus.  "It was my job to be suspicious of anyone who  could have had opportunity and motive, and that still  includes Garvey. Bender and I have two  concerns. First, you are placing yourself in danger by being  so emotionally involved. You have certain blind spots.  You were part of whatever happened in that house up to the  moment your friend died."
  My lips part, but he holds up a hand so  I'll let him finish. "If we find Luci's  car at Carney's Salvage Yard, we can  make the case that Russell was after the stash when  he broke in there last night. But even if the  drugs were still under the car, the way Weber might  think, there would be no proof he put the stuff there,  or that he killed anyone. With the trail cold and the  evidence in dispute, there's no case against him.  So the rule of the investigation is not to let him know  what we suspect, not yet. Don't play  hero. Luci Cole didn't die from a bump  on the head, you know." Hansen's slate-blue  irises are magnified by the shiny lenses of his  glasses. "We can't make the same mistake  twice and fix our attention on one suspect to the  exclusion of others. I'll have another talk with  Bill Allard tonight," he says, "and I'll  see the minister, too."
  The detective leaves the table to go after a  refill on his coffee, and Bender clears his  throat. "What would happen to methamphetamine,"  I wonder, "sealed in plastic in the frame of a  car, out in the elements for a couple of Iowa winters  and summers? Twenty, thirty below in the winter,  over a hundred in the summer, to say nothing of--"
  "Rats."
  "Dampness."
  "Imagine dozens of rats buzzed up on  crank," says Bender.
  "Wouldn't the stuff deteriorate? Smell?  Lose its potency?"
  "I'd say doubting the power of plastic  to preserve any substance is un-American."  He smiles, but he still won't look at me.
  I pluck a packet of sugar from the basket  in the middle of the table. The paper's the same
  
brown color as a grocery bag.
SUGAR IN THE RAW. Tearing off an edge  and flexing it open, I peer inside at the blond  granules, shaking it back and forth for its sandy  sound. "How could we find out?"
  Bender leans back in his chair, straightening his  long legs, his right leg brushing against mine in the  process--a touch from which, by reflex, he  withdraws. "You heard what Ken said."
  "I suppose there are things you've told  Hansen that you haven't told me?"
  "Nothing concrete. Only theories. This  business with Weber has convinced him we're onto  something, and with what you've just told him, he'll be  hard at work on this case until it's solved,  Linda. He's going to ask you for Luci's  diary. He'll redeem himself whether he  strengthens the case against Garvey or frees an  innocent man and finds the real killer. He's  got even more at stake this time than he did before,  when proving a murder case got him a  promotion. He had a very convincing eyewitness."  Bender looks at me gravely. "We all  believed you."
  Moving my chair back, I turn slightly  away from him so I can look over my right shoulder,  my attention drawn by the ring of the tiny bell that  signals the arrival of Sylvie, Doug Le's  assistant, through the front door. Her  black-and-white dress, slit up the left  thigh, is patterned in stripes that follow the  curves of her body. Heads turn. Walking  toward the counter, she orders, "The usual."
  Bender has gone on talking. "Even if it  occurred to Weber to worry about the chemistry of  crank deteriorating--"
  I turn back to him, not remembering what we  were talking about.
  "--who's he going to ask?"
  I rise and walk over to Sylvie. "Your  hair looks great." She smiles, her dark  eyes haloed by almond-shaped black lines.  Her own shiny black hair is cut in a  chin-length bob, a comma of curl angling along  each jaw. "Stop down soon. You're about due  for a cut, aren't you?" She turns to pay  Angela and to manage lifting a Styrofoam  cup in each hand with a straight-fingered grip. Her  long nails are painted mahogany, a dot of  vermilion at each tip. She sees me
  
looking, sets one of the cups back down  on the high counter, extends a flexed hand for my  inspection. "You like?"
  "It's a wicked look." She regains her  grip on the cup. "Have you seen Russ Weber in  the last couple days?" I ask her.
  Her answer is to turn her eyes toward the  table I came from, where the detective has  rejoined Bender. Her eyes meet mine again.
  "I have something that's his," I say.  Momentarily the whites of her eyes expand, then  quickly shrink within their sooty borders--a reaction  that jolts me as if I've just caught a  glimpse of my own surprise in a mirror.  "Something I need to give him before he leaves."
  "Well, I'm sure it's not my business."  Her gaze falters, lifts again to mine. "He's  leaving?"
  "His car is in his driveway, loaded with  clothes."
  For a moment she doesn't blink. Then, catching  herself, she lowers her tarnished lids. "I have  to get back," she says quickly.
  After she's gone, her sharp citrus perfume  stays with me all the way back to the table. Bender  looks up at me as I pull out my chair  to sit. "Doesn't she work for Doug Le,  downstairs?"
  I nod.
  "She looks like a raccoon."
  "I'm impressed it's her eyes you  noticed."
  He shrugs. "I'm trained--"
  "To be observant. Right."
  Hoisting his thick body out of his chair,  Detective Hansen gives his navy plaid  shirt an unnecessary all-around tuck into his jeans.  He places a few coins on the table. Then,  apparently as an afterthought, he sits again, leaning  against the edge of the table and speaking low. "Don't  get me wrong. I appreciate all you two have  done." He glances at Bender, then back at  me. "I'm going with you right now to get that book,  Linda, so I can look it over and put it in a  safe place."
  I pull the diary from my shoulder bag and  place it on the table. The detective opens it  about in the middle, fans a few pages with a  ticking sound. "We have to be cautious about anything  Luci Cole wrote," he says. "From what
  
Bender here tells me, you two have given  her the upper hand as far as this journal is  concerned."
  "What do you mean?"
  "A diary isn't sworn testimony."
  All three of us stare at the closed book.  Then Hansen says, "I'll get a statement  from the Lassell kid. And as soon as the report  shows up on Weber's prints, I'll talk  to Hilda. When Garvey's defense attorney  gets wind of this, things will move fast. Until  then, don't do anything foolish."
  I've ripped open a brown sugar packet,  licked my right index finger, and suddenly I'm  remembering Michael Lassell, sitting with me  in a darkened hallway, telling me about the first time  he tried crank. Sticking my finger in my mouth,  I let the sweetness dissolve across my tongue.  On the back of the packet I'm reading that the  natural molasses remains in the first pressing  of raw cane, giving Sugar in the Raw its  golden color. In a few minutes, he  said, I knew what the big deal was.

  Before I head home to Charlie, the photocopy  of Luci's journal in hand, I look for certain  sentences and reread them two or three times:

  This afternoon when I walked out for the mail, I found  a packet of sugar with its edge folded over,  Russ's name signed there in black ink, fastened  with a paper clip onto the mailbox's red flag.  ... What if Charlie had found it first? I can  hear what Russell would say: Charlie wouldn't  know what it was. It's unbelievably  expensive, this stuff--left like a message, for the  first person on the scene. Russ is playing my  game of daring, in plain sight.

  Fingering the three small envelopes of sugar in  my pocket, I hurry upstairs to get
Weber's canceled check, then bolt for the door.  All day I've been running late, and Charlie  will wonder what happened to me.
  I find him in the backyard, happily setting  fire to a pyramid of charcoal briquettes.  He shows me the potato salad and baked beans
  
in the refrigerator, and the chocolate  pie. "Not a single homemade item on the  menu," he says, grinning. "A cholesterol  pig-out." He kisses me and sends me off to the  bedroom to change into shorts.
  After we eat, I explain that I have turned the  journal over to the police, but I have made him a  copy and I want him to read it tonight so he won't  be hearing certain things secondhand. "I have to tell  you that even now she can hurt you," I say to him.  He appears shaken by my warning. After I've  cleaned up the dishes, I stand in the kitchen  doorway and observe him as he turns a page,  the tightness of his features showing how hurtful her  words are. I'm going to the studio to give him time  to read it all. When I get back, we can  talk. I'm much too nervous to hang around the  house, suffering his reactions. He doesn't  look up, even to say good-bye.
  On my way back into town, I decide  to drive out to Perkins, by the interstate, and sit in  a front booth for a while, drinking decaffeinated  coffee and watching the American flag unfurl  over the parking lot in immense slow motion.  Finally I get back into my car and head for  Railroad Street, but halfway there I double  back toward the north side of town, where Judy  and Bill live. The lights by the front door  are on, though it won't be dark for another hour.  But no one answers the bell. I don't want  to go home yet, on the chance that Charlie's in the  midst of his reading, so I decide to drive past  Weber's house after all.
  To my relief, his car is still in the driveway.  The trunk lid's down now, but otherwise the car  appears not to have moved, and I park behind it. The  house is dark, except for the basement window  adjacent to the cracked, concrete drive. This  window, like those on the front of the house, is  curtained, glowing faintly from the inside.
  For a few minutes I sit in the car. Every  natural impulse is to leave before anyone sees  me. The street behind me is deserted. The house  to the right of the driveway is dark. Nothing says  Weber can't go somewhere without his car. Maybe  something's wrong with this one, too, given his bad  luck with automobiles.
  Finally I get out and walk around to the front  door and knock, heart thudding as the wooden  screen-door frame rattles from my timid
  
effort. If someone comes, I'll say
I'm looking for Sylvie. When I open the  screen to rap on the gray inside door, today's  paper slides out of the space between the doors onto  the top of my sandal-clad feet. I nudge it  out of the way.
  Around the left side of the house, away from the  streetlight, it's cooler and darker, and I can  feel the dampness of the grass on my bare toes.  The basement window is curtained with a flat  piece of cloth, but the hem is hitched up a  bit, and I kneel in the long, itchy grass.  All I can see is the top of a washing machine,  lid up. Thank God I'm in shadow here, with  my butt in the air and my head in the window  well, fingers gripping the curved, corrugated  metal surrounding it.
  The possibility of Weber's leaving town has  affected me more as the evening has worn on, like the  onset of flu: light-headedness, bone aches, a  growing dread that he could take with him all hope of  our knowing for sure who killed Luci. For the first  time in a long time I think of how easily Brad  Tripplehorn stepped off ahead of me through the  airplane hatch into the open air over  Minnesota for another death-defying thrill--  while I shrank back in panic behind him, in  deadly fear that if I parachuted out of that plane  I'd be risking the loss of an important part  of my character. Perhaps it took another kind of  courage to watch him fall away from me and not  follow. Backing away was the right instinct.
  But this is different. This is no sporting  risk. It's only the attraction and repulsion of  fear that feels the same. And Detective  Hansen has forbidden me to do anything about it.
  Lifting my long hair away from the nape of  my neck, I admit a slight breeze against  my damp skin. It's a warm evening. Rounding the  back corner of the house, I stop. An  egg-yolk-yellow bug light suspended from the  miniature peaked roof sheltering the cement stoop--  three steps up, no railing--casts a pool of  turquoise onto the thick, new-mown grass.  Someone has simply turned off the electric  mower and walked away, leaving the grass beyond the  business end taller by half than the grass on this  side. An orange cord snakes its way  to an outlet near my right ankle. This sign of  such an ordinary task interrupted gives me an
  
odd kind of courage, and I step up the  three steps, open the back screen door, and  rap my knuckles against the single pane of  uncurtained glass that covers the top half of the  inside door, moving my face through the negative  exposure of my own reflection until the  outlines of a refrigerator and stove come  into focus in the pale sepia interior. Knocking  again, I grip the doorknob, turn it, and feel  the door yield inward.
  Stepping through the door is the hard part. My  heart's in my mouth. "Russ?" I call out.  Then louder, "Hey? Anybody home?" The  air-conditioning is colder than I like. I barely  breathe as the door closes behind me, a defiant  hip-thrust finishing the job of pushing it into the  frame until the latch clicks. Hearing the  sound, I twist the doorknob and pull hard  to open the door again, trying the knob from the  outside. Locked. I close it again, pushing  until I hear the click. I can feel my  heart beat. The room smells of bacon  grease. There's a cardboard carton on the table,  heaped with pots and pans.
  The sun will drop below the horizon any moment,  so I seek the only light I'm sure of,  opening the door by the stove. I see I've  guessed right by the lavender glow down there. "Hey,  anybody here?" I call out again before I close  the basement door behind me and begin my slow,  careful way down the gray-painted steps. "Am  I alone here? Anyone?" Oddly, it's warmer as  I descend. Halfway down I sit,  surveying the scene, my mouth opening into a foolish  smile.
  The loamy smell of damp soil drifts up  from rows of long wooden containers of high, leafy  plants. Fluorescent grow-lights are  suspended from the ceiling, and arrayed across the floor  at the base of the stairs are plastic gallon  jugs of Windex-blue liquid, which I  recognize from my own gardening as  Miracle-Gro. I'm still grinning, as if what  I survey is a garden of earthly delights.  My coming here without a plan might have been  impulsive and foolish, but what I'm looking  at will give me the upper hand if Weber shows  up.
  There's no mistaking the long, toothy leaves  and the tough stems. The stuff's so easy to grow that
  
even Weber, known for never finishing what  he starts, is managing a fine crop. A few  of the plants do look a bit bedraggled, and before  I know it I'm lifting a jugful of the sky-blue  fertilizer, unscrewing the cap, and giving the row  of smaller plants a good soaking. There are  hundreds of plants, some of them staked two  feet high in round drums, some growing in flats  on a long table, just tiny seedlings. All he  needed was seed, soil, light, and heat. Passing  under bundles of the weed hanging from the rafters into the  room with the washing machine, I find eight bricks  of marijuana, each wrapped in Saran Wrap and  brown paper, next to the Surf and the Stain Ou.  Each brick feels like it weighs a couple of  pounds. The street value I can only guess,  but this is worth a fortune.
  The sudden click and hum of an electric  heater suspended against the far wall of the larger  room don't keep me from hearing the scrape of a  door and footfalls overhead. That I manage  to reach the darkness under the stairs without making much  sound of my own, crouching there with a cool jug of  Miracle-Gro pressed between my knees, is  pure luck. For long moments I expect the  owner of the footsteps to come looking for me. My  car, after all, is in the driveway. Gradually  my heart slows, and I realize that whoever's up  there came home to a locked, dark house. I  place my hand over my face, pressing against the  base of my nose to stop a sneeze. Where there's  a basement, there's dust. And spiders. And after  all that decaf, my bladder is painfully full.
  I shudder as the door overhead opens and the  basement light goes on, bands of pale yellow  light falling between the open steps so that, looking  down, I can see the high points of my body  reflected: breasts, knees, toenails of  light in my open sandals. The bare, masculine  ankles on the open risers of the stairs a few  inches from my face are no doubt attached to someone  who's coming to water the plants and is about to find out  someone's beaten him to it.
  "There's no one down here," he shouts upward,  stepping into full view. Weber is wearing the  ubiquitous red bandanna around his head. "You  sure it's Garbo's car?" Overhead there's  another knock against the kitchen floor, another  creak of the door.
  "Maybe she took a walk till you came
  
back," I hear a woman's voice  say from the top of the stairs. It's Sylvie.  "She told me she had something to give you."
  "Like what?"
  "She didn't say. But she knew you were  leaving. And there was a cop at the table with her."
  "I should have parked in the street." He sounds  mad. "Now her car's got me blocked in. Go  outside. See if you can find her."
  "You might as well take care of things while  you're down there. You're not leaving me with a bunch of  dead plants." I think I hear enough footfalls  overhead to account for someone else besides Sylvie,  and another female voice--muffled, but vaguely  familiar--mingling with hers.
  "The best grass is dead," Weber is  saying, his chuckle receding up the stairs as he  goes. "The only good grass is up in--"
  "Smoke," I hiss, risking the sound. The  door has clattered shut above my head, taking  his final word away. Hunkered down, the cement  floor cold where I sit, I settle myself for a  long, long wait.

  Physical distress makes me bigger, more  ungainly. The knobby bones of my ankles  press painfully against the floor as I sit  cross-legged and watch the glow from the windows  fade, leaving me in gray, undependable darkness.  I've outsmarted myself, and little wonder. I've  always been better at minding my own business than  at insinuating myself into others' confidence. My  judgments are more often visceral than logical.  A desperate leap of intuition has landed me  here, in the dark. I was probably right the first time  after all. Gus saw him: Peter Garvey,  running off as soon as I disappeared into the house,  where I would discover what he had done to Luci.  Reverend Gustavson, who lacked the courage  to come forward, convinced himself his testimony wasn't  needed, because mine was so compelling.
  I close my eyes and notice the sounds of  birds in the trees behind the house, and I begin  to envision, with my mind's eye, what Bender saw  the day he looked at Mackerel Sky.  Metamorphosis, fish to bird. Left to right,  bottom to top, white to black, patterns of  white fish-shapes recede as birds emerge in the  negative spaces. I shift my stiff legs  and grow even larger with discomfort.
  
  Artists see ideas. One of my  teachers told me once that the validity of an  idea is tested each time it takes physical  shape, and as long as new shapes form, the idea  has not yet reached fulfillment. Outside the  house the birds are settling down now, their  calls infrequent, and I open my eyes and mouth  wide, the kind of reflex that comes with revelation.
  Peter made up his story about standing outside the  front door at noon, talking with Luci, who  would not come outside because she hated the hoarse  cries of the crows. The raucous birds, big as  chickens, arrived at the end of every afternoon that summer,  thickening the trees with pointy silhouettes of  wings, beaks, claws, their cries raspy as  kazoos. Embedded in his story was an inadvertent  truth. Peter may well have heard a commotion that  day, but not at noon.
  A loud, unexpected noise can send birds  up like fire, a conflagration of wings and scattering  cries. Hundreds of crows went up with a  whoosh. Wheeling and cawing, they darkened the sky  over the woods, settling back down as I pounded  on the hood of Luci's car. When we talked  at the prison, Peter remembered the horses  bolting. It was the birds that spooked them. Someone  crashing down the ravine behind the house had startled the  birds.
  A creaking of the floor overhead makes me  move my legs and lean forward as the door at the  top of the stairs opens. The overhead light goes  on. Footsteps descend, and I watch Weber  open a jug and water a row of buckets containing  some of the largest plants on the far side of the  room.
  He is thinner than I remember, but then  I've never seen him without a shirt. His arm and  shoulder muscles are braided, muscular, his  movements quick, jerky. Because it's the jutting bones  of his pelvis that hold up his jeans, there's a  gap between the beltless waistband and the pale flesh of  his torso. Water slaps onto the cement  floor, and when he tosses aside the empty  jug, I flinch with every bounce of the plastic  container. One by one he turns off the four long  fluorescent lights.
  My back and knees are stiff from sitting in the  same position for so long, and all the water sounds  have made me really have to pee, but Weber has other  chores down here, so I press my thighs together and
  
keep still. He approaches the wooden  cupboard against the far wall, a green-painted  freestanding cupboard about eight feet tall with  two doors that open from the center when not held shut  by a primitive tab of wood that he turns on  a single screw. After some noisy rearranging of  things, he pulls a duffel bag off a low  shelf. Turning this way for the light, he's  unzipping it, plunging his hand into the bag, shaking the  cloth to make the opening gape more widely. His  face jerks up suddenly, eyes alert to the  stairs, as if he's heard something up there,  clutching the bag protectively against his chest.  Then he zips it back up and takes it with him  upstairs. He turns off the basement light and  closes the door.
  Leaving me in the dark, afraid of him again.  My eyes are wide open, straining to see,  finding only curly red scribbles of heater  filaments, tiny with distance across the room. With my  right hand I grip the edge of the stairway and step out  from under at last. Working my shoulders to ease the  stiffness, I can make out no sound but the heater's  tick until a torrent of water drops through a  soil pipe nearby as a toilet is flushed  overhead. A few steps, guided by my  outstretched hands, take me into the laundry  room, where I pull down my shorts and crouch  over the drain to relieve myself.
  Weber can't use his car because mine is parked behind  his. I've lost all sense of time, but surely  by now Charlie, with Luci's voice ringing in his  ears, is wondering why I'm not home yet. I  don't remember turning off the neon sign when  I left the studio in such a hurry. If it's  on, maybe Bender will notice. Placing my right  foot on the far edge of the first riser, I shift  my weight carefully onto the lowest step, so it  won't creak under my weight. With each step up  toward the line of light under the door at the top,  I pause to listen, hands touching walls for  balance. I hear running water on the other side  of the door, and the clatter of dishes. The phone  rings a couple of rings, and footsteps come  close, Weber's low voice muffled by the door.  And then water runs again.
  Finally there's silence. For long minutes, I  consider the possibility that he's left the  kitchen, and I even grip the doorknob with my  right hand, but then I hear the rubbery slap of the
  
refrigerator door going shut, and  chair legs scraping on the floor, and the snap  of a can's pop-top. I struggle to remember  something Gus suggested the other day, that if Luci  had been able to name the thing most missing from her  life, she'd have had the key to gaining control of her  sense of shame. What could Weber need so badly  he'd kill for it? In the darkness below, the  air-conditioner blower goes on with a thunk. In the  quiet kitchen, Weber sneezes.
  Like an echo, I sneeze, too.

  The sneeze brings my hand to my face. I    don't breathe until the basement door opens to a  blinding brightness.
  "What the hell."
  I squint up at Weber. His narrow body  looms, right hand out of sight, left hand gripping  the doorframe. He's put on a faded green  shirt. I see his mind working, brows drawn  forward over deeply shadowed eyes. He looks  past me into the darkness. Just when I think I'll  faint from the suspense, there's a pounding on the  back door, Weber closes the basement door  on me, and I'm in the dark again.
  Pushing the door ajar a couple of inches, I  hear him say, "No she's not. Do you think you could  move her car?" The rest is muffled.
  "I'd like to see for myself." It's Charlie's  voice, loud and clear. In a moment I'm up and  into the room, where Weber can look from one of us to the  other, my mind swimming with all Charlie has  spent the evening reading: wanting to run my hand  along Russ's arm, wrist to elbow, over his  shoulder to the tender spot behind his ear. "You all  right?" Charlie wants to know.
  "Yes," I tell him. "Now I am."
  Weber's skin reflects the green of his  shirt. "You guys want to tell me what you're  doing here?"
  "Her car's behind yours," Charlie says.  "Mine's behind hers. You're not going anyplace  until we're ready."
  "You were right about the marijuana, Charlie," I  say quickly, watching his reaction, nodding to praise  his lack of surprise. "He's got a huge  crop downstairs."
  Charlie's lips tighten at the corners,
  
playing along as if he expected this.  It's Weber who looks confused, turning away  into the living room to check out the driveway through a  side window. "We don't have to prove anything  else tonight," I say to Charlie, quietly as I  can. "If we report what's down there, he  won't be leaving town for a while." I shove my  hand into my pocket just as Weber comes back from the  living room. My car key is warm against my  fingers.
  "Maybe you guys want in on this," he  says.
  "What have you got in mind?" asks Charlie.  "Hundreds of plants," I say quickly.  "Grow-lights, heaters, fertilizer. I saw  processed bricks, too. Quite an operation." I  look at Weber. "But we're a bit put off  by your poor success rate in business ventures  and your lack of reliability in general, aren't  we, Charlie?" Beneath the swath of a red bandanna,  Weber's features are modeled by the strong  ceiling light, the slope of his nose and the line of  his jaw white as milk in contrast to the contours of his  face. He stares at what I'm offering in my  open palm. "You remember this?" I lift it  toward him. "Here. Take it."
  It's Sugar in the Raw. He picks up the  packet, turns it over, examining his own  signature in black ink, the signature I  copied off the canceled check at Perkins, with the  idea of turning Hansen's warning--Don't  play hero--into a dare. Weber fingers the paper  clip holding the torn edge shut. "What's this  supposed to be?"
  "You recognize it, don't you, Charlie?"  Taking the small envelope back from Weber, I  hand it to Charlie, whose dull stare, first at the  object, then at me, makes my hand tremble.  It isn't going to work. No one speaks.
  Then Charlie says, "Yes. I can tell you  what this is." His sly glance in Weber's  direction gives me hope that Charlie read  Luci's journal carefully, all the way to the  end, and that every word of it is still fresh in his mind.  He pauses for another long moment. "It was  stuck to the flag of our mailbox." His eyes  meet mine, andwitha singular look that promises the  spontaneity we'll need to keep on  improvising like this, we're in sync, better than  ever. My heart swells.
  
  "You left it for Luci," I say  to Weber, "to remind her of what you had to offer.  To hint at the success you were about to make of yourself,  now that she'd taught you a few things about taking  chances. She should have known not to trifle with you. I  think she meant more to you than just a good deal on a  used car." Weber swallows, his Adam's  apple struggling inside the tendons of his slender  neck. "You liked her. She gave you nerve."
  "I got to the mailbox first that day," says  Charlie. "You didn't think I'd recognize  what this was worth, or even what it was."
  "This is making no sense to me." Weber  crosses the room to lean against the counter by the sink,  beside a red drainer rack full of dishes.  "You're going to have to tell me what you want."
  "It has your signature on it." Charlie  hands the sugar back to Weber.
  "Yeah, well, I don't know anything about  this." He gives it one final glance before putting  his hand in his pocket. With a chill, I wonder if  Luci made up the whole sugar episode:
No one dreams how good a liar I am. He  rests a hand on the duffel bag next to the carton  full of pots and pans on the table as he says,  "My only concern right now is keeping your wife  from telling anyone else what she saw  downstairs."
  "I'm right here, Russell. Don't talk  about me like I'm not here."
  "I'm not flattered," says Charlie  to Weber, "that you thought I wouldn't know what was up  that day. I mean, it says sugar, and why wouldn't  you leave sugar on our fucking mailbox flag?"  Charlie's gripping the back of a chair with both  fists. "I knew right away that if you signed it,  it must be a message. And that Luci would know what  it meant."
  Weber looks bored, but a rising flush  reddens his neck, his ears.
  "Someone offered you a deal," I say, "a chance  to double your money."
  "You took good care of that Peugeot of yours,"  says Charlie, without missing a beat. "A sharp  car like that is like money in the bank, which is something you  didn't have, right?"
  I can guess by the falter in Weber's confidence  and his quick blink to recover that we have finally struck  a nerve. I stare at Charlie's profile.
Of course. Weber sold his own car. How
  
else could he have raised the thousands of  dollars he needed to invest in a stash of  methamphetamine? It figures. I step  closer to Weber, so close I can smell the  bitter, stale smell of cigarette smoke.  "For once you had a chance to be a success, finish  something you started, get into something really big.  Luci's car was the sort no one would notice on  the road, unless it started shimmying from bad  U-joints. I guess you thought she should have warned  you about that."
  Weber shifts his gaze from my face to the  basement door behind me. He's blinking a lot,  the ridge of his nose and the bowl of his forehead shiny  with sweat.
  "I'm the one who discovered her body. You know  that, don't you?"
  He swallows.
  "Did you think I lied, told them I was  positive it was Peter under the car, to protect  him?" I gesture toward Charlie.
  A flicker of confusion affects Weber's  eyes. "You mean you knew it wasn't Garvey?"
  "I wasn't as sure as you seem to be."  Leaning closer, I lower my voice. "You must have  been there."
  I rear back and raise my hand against the blur  of Weber's arm to deflect a blow, but I've  misread his sudden move to pull the red bandanna  off his head to wipe his face, and my mouth opens  with a gasping laugh. Stunned by the whiteness of his  scalp, paler than his face, with only a drift  of ash-colored stubble over the top of his head, my  impulse for laughter is stopped by the way his  eyes glint and his nostrils flare. In one  continuous motion Weber steps to the table and lifts  up a utility knife from behind the cardboard box  full of pots and pans, extending the slanted  blade to its full length with his thumb and twisting  me around with my back against him so he can press the  blade against my throat.
  Charlie's hands rise slowly, as if he's  under arrest, assuming a defensive stance: legs  firmly apart, hands shoulder high, palms forward.  Weber's fist clenches under my chin, where I  feel more pressure than pain. Specks of  light drift across my vision. His breathing is  all I hear.
  He speaks softly: "She let Garvey  rack up the fucking car, when all I wanted was
  
to take it and leave, get out of her  sight. And now all I want is to get out of  yours." He presses the flat of the blade against  my throat. "I don't know what you guys are  trying to do to me. I'm the one who really got  screwed. Now, give Charlie your keys."
  As carefully as I can without moving my head,  I reach into my pocket while Weber instructs  Charlie to get both our cars out of the driveway.  "Don't attract any attention and she'll be  okay. I'll be out of here, and this will be over."
  With Charlie gone, my consciousness shrinks  to contain only Russell Weber and me, his  agitation establishing the rhythm for both our  bodies, pressed together as we are, a proximity  that repels me to the point of inertia. From outside  I can hear the familiar roar of Charlie's van  starting up, going into gear. Weber's right forearm  relaxes a little, easing the pressure of the blade  against my throat as I listen hard for the energetic  whir of my own little car's engine.
  Gently, he's backing me against the wall by the  door, the tip of the sharp X-acto knife  blade poking my midsection. The blue duffel  hangs from his shoulder now, slung around onto his  back. I raise my right hand to my throat, which  stings as I touch it, and examine the single thread of  blood on my fingers.
  "Sorry," he says. "It's just a  scratch."
  "I didn't mean to laugh." I try not  to glance at his shaven head.
  "I don't like being laughed at."
  "I see that." I remember Luci's words:
He has a degree in agronomy, he told  me today--but can't get a job in his field, and I  laughed--causing a fury to come over him until  I calmed him down. Weber is stretching his  neck to gaze out the window of the back door, then  flinches away from the glass, hitting the light  switch to throw the room into darkness, turning me  toward the light of the living room, managing to hold  the knife against the hollow of my throat as he  drives me forward with jerky steps because of the  awkward embrace. The room has a couch facing  the big window, a scarred coffee table, a drum  set shoved against the wall to the right, an upright  piano piled high with what I assume is sheet  music. A single floor lamp, turned low.
A scatter of folding chairs.
  
  Parting a slit in the blinds with his fingers,  he looks out, then lets the blinds snap shut.  He glares at me. "The cops are out there," he  says. "When were you planning to tell me that?"  Suddenly his arm swings, and the gray blur of the  knife flies off to the side to cause a crashing  of cymbals, followed by a two-strike and  rattle of snare drum. My heart is thumping  wildly as the brassy sounds die on the air.  Where is Charlie? He should be back by now.
  Weber's face is shiny in the low light.  "She knew I cared about what she did," he  says, in a voice so low I'm unsure of what  I'm hearing, "the weaving, and all." I wonder  if he means her last weaving, and if Charlie  left it in Luci's studio by mistake, and if  Weber found it there and took it when he was in the  garage that night. He's sweating profusely  now, darker green staining his shirt under his arms.  "Just tell me what you were doing in my basement.  Tell me what that sugar business was all about.  What was Charlie trying to prove?"
  I take a shallow, shaky breath. "It was you  I saw coming out of the house that day, the day she was  killed." Now I've done it, what Hansen  warned me against, tipped our hand. Oddly, declaring  myself gives me courage. "Luci had told you  to leave, a few days before that. Told you not to come  back without the money for the car. She wouldn't even  let you drive it again, until you'd paid for it. It  was you I saw under the car, not Peter Garvey.  We have the proof. From under the car."
  Weber licks his lips.
  "She didn't know what you'd stashed under there,  did she?"
  "When did you plan to tell me the cops are  outside?"
  I stare at the shut blinds. There's not a sound from  out on the street. I look at Weber, at the  terrible, cornered look on his face. Now he's  in a trap, with a basement full of evidence and  nowhere to go. So maybe if I really push him,  he'll be desperate enough to break down, admit  what he did to Luci. My hand goes into my  pocket, and my fingers close around the canceled  check for a thousand dollars, an amount that didn't  register until tonight, at Perkins. A lot of  money. I wonder if he still thinks it was worth  facing Charlie to collect it.
  Before I can think of what to say next, Weber
  
says, "You're right. I was at the house  that day. I saw your car coming around the ridge on the  other side of the cornfield."
  I can feel adrenaline pump into my  bloodstream, feel my heart beat. A car  door goes shut outside on the street. "I was  standing at the front door," he says. "He  told me Luci was expecting me, but when I  tried to pull the door open, it was locked, and he  kept me standing outside, talking through the screen."
  "Who, Russell? Who are you talking about?"  "Charlie, of course. He kept me talking  until I figure he saw your car up on the  road, then told me to get lost, leave her  alone. He must have known you'd be coming along about that  time. He wanted you to see me." Weber wipes  beads of sweat from his upper lip. "He couldn't have  known I'd get under the car. He couldn't have  foreseen that, or that you'd say it was Pete Garvey  you saw." He pauses to get himself back under  control. "It's you I can't figure."
  I don't believe a word he's telling me.
We stare at each other.
  "Charlie knew I wanted the title to the  car," Weber goes on. "He kept me  outside the door, making me think he was about  to let me in. He was fucking me over in the  worst kind of way, by making me part of it. The thing  that should have tipped me off, when he walked up to the  door he was wearing paper bags over his feet, for  Chrissakes." Weber's shoulders rise up and  draw together as he swallows tightly again.
  Behind me I hear the back door open. Before  I know it, Charlie is standing beside me. He steps  close to Weber. "The cops were out there when I  went out, and that reporter"--he glances at me,  then back at Weber--"but I told them you'd  pulled a knife and taken Linda away in a  black pickup. Even gave them part of a  license number, to buy you some time. I suggest you  take off while you have the chance. There's enough stuff  downstairs to put you away for fifty years."
  Weber leaves by the back door, and Charlie and  I gaze at each other silently as we hear the  car start in the driveway and the slide of gravel  as Weber takes off down Railroad Street.  "Why a black pickup?" I ask.
  "Seeing that knife against your throat, I had  to get rid of him in a hurry," says Charlie.  "To do that, I had to get the cops to leave." Now
  
we have to call someone right away, so they can  go after Weber, arrest him for what he's got  downstairs, but Charlie puts his warm fingers on  the sides of my face, a touch so familiar  I'm ashamed of my confusion. "Let's give him  a head start," he says.
  For a moment I'm so disoriented that when I make  a move to head for the kitchen phone, I allow  Charlie to hold me back. It's as if time will  wait while I try to understand what's happening.  "I can imagine what he told you," he says,  "while I was outside. It's not what you deserve  to hear." His hands move up to cover my ears.  "The guy's a complete loser, the kind she  liked." His voice is low. "Luci," he  says, "was not like you."
  He puts his arms around me and holds me  close, and in a flash I see her blood on the  floor. The memory colors everything, and I know  that the only way I can find out if there's any  truth to what Weber said about Charlie is to stay this  close and make him believe I'm with him no  matter what happened to Luci, no matter how  bad it is. Make him think it never once  occurred to me my suspicions could bring me to this.  "She told you, didn't she?" I say softly,  as if these were words of love. "About the child she had.  About Susanna."
  "To protect Bill. Yes, she told me."
He pulls back to study my face. "I  guess you figured out Luci had a thing with him.  Her diary makes that pretty clear."
  "It doesn't tell the whole truth."
  His lips part, waiting for me to explain.  "She told you Bill wasn't her baby's  father, right? She must have said more than that."
  "You don't want to know," he says, shaking his  head. "You mean everything to me, you know. You're the  one who gave me a chance to start over. Our  stories fit like two parts of a shell around what  happened, perfectly, a perfect pairing. It's  still like that."
  "Our stories?"
  "It was Garvey under that car. He left his  fingerprints on her body. Weber's not coming  back. It's still the two of us, you and me."
  My smile tells him Yes, I never  want that to change. With such a smile there's a  chance I can keep him close enough to tell me  everything I want to know. But my gaze into his
  
eyes is so traitorous I need  to make myself grow detached in order to carry this  off, this intimate interrogation. "Don't you think  she really wanted to die?"
  "Yes, it was a relief to her, believe me.  She was in torment."
  My breathing slows. "And so you--"  "Accused her of sleeping with Bill; that's how  it started. She paced around the house. She cried.  Finally, when she'd exhausted herself, she wanted  me to believe it was her own father who'd gotten  her pregnant, when she was eighteen."
  My eyes stop blinking.
  "Yes," he says. "It seems he would  visit her when she was in high school, buy her  expensive clothes and shoes to make up for not being  around when she was little. He made up for it all  right." Charlie's mouth clamps shut, and he  swallows with a frown, as if his words have left a  taste in his mouth. "She really found it a  turn-on, telling me all the details. Who  would believe such a thing?"
  My mind resists. Her own father. But it  fits, explains her terrible shame, her erotic  anger. But would she find it a turn-on? Not the  Luci I've come to know from her journal. Never.  "You're the one who found it exciting," I say  quietly. "The way you found it exciting to ask  me if I'd been kissing John Bender.  Remember how it turned you on, believing that?"  I almost falter. Almost give myself away.
  Charlie studies my mouth as I lick my  dry lips.
  "Luci wanted to stop talking about it, didn't  she?" I tell him. "She told you the one thing  she'd never been able to tell anyone. She had  always believed saying it out loud would put an end  to it. But you wanted to hear it again. The details.  And then again. Until finally you might be able  to believe her. Is that what you told her?" The  way he's looking at me, I know that even this  accusation stirs him, and he wants me to go on,  say it all. "Finally she'd had enough. She  couldn't say the words anymore. But you kept  insisting, asking for details. You went on  tormenting her. You killed her."
  "Yes."
  "Rosemary knew that Weber came around asking  for money more than once. That's why you and she  argued. It wasn't back pay he was asking for,
  
was it?"
  "No."
  "It was blackmail. He was the only one who  knew it was you." I pull back from Charlie's  embrace.
  "He won't be bothering us anymore," he  says quickly. In the same moment car doors  slam outside, and an amplified voice,  metallic, emphatic, shouts unintelligible  words.
  It's Bender's voice I hear clearly,  calling my name. Bender, who never trusted  Charlie for a moment. He's right beside me,  relieved, telling me that Weber is out in the  squad car. Hansen was waiting for him at the end  of Railroad Street, after another car went  chasing the black pickup that turned out to be a  lie. "We were never far away, Linda, on the  chance you were still in here, with him."
  For all of that, Charlie is calm, the set of  his shoulders high as ever. He turns to me as  Detective Hansen and the other officers gather  around us. "I thought you said Weber took Linda  away at knifepoint," someone says. "Be  careful what you say, Linda," says Charlie,  his tone still hushed. "No one could ever love you the  way I do. Don't throw it away. Are you still with  me?"
  He sees my hesitation, no doubt pins his  hopes on it. For the frailest of moments I could  say yes. They must all see it, how I watch  with such fascination as he curves his hands and  places them together like two halves of a shell. A  perfect pairing.
  "He killed her," I say, just loud enough for  everyone to hear.

  My sandals lie at the edge of the driveway,  where I must have stepped out of them so I could feel the  wet grass on the soles of my feet and feel  anchored, I suppose, to solid ground. Two  huge oaks overreach Weber's front yard, their  branches brightly underlit, leaves whispering as the  evening air cools. Charlie is taller than the  two cops who flank him. He's looking around,  but he can't find me over here in the neighbor's  yard, far enough away to be in the dark but close enough  to stare at him until finally he ducks his head and  gets into one of the cars.
  Even now, knowing what he has done, I  haven't stopped loving him, or I  wouldn't feel so utterly forsaken as the car  leaves, the first of three police cars parked  along the street, and he's gone. I'm going  to miss him. The very idea folds me up a little.
  Ken Hansen sees me shudder as he crosses  the driveway and stops to stand six feet off to my  left. Weber's duffel bag, containing three  fat rolls of bills and the tapestry he stole that  night in the garage, is slung over the  detective's shoulder. With concern, Hansen  glances at John Bender, who is standing off to my  right, close enough for me to talk to, if I ever  decide to speak again. My last words to him were that  Charlie trusted me after all, enough to tell me  everything. And that I used his love for me, to disarm  him.
  Overhead a small plane passes--unseen,  but I can hear its engine throb. "I had a friend  who wanted me to learn skydiving," I say,  tilting my face upward, smelling the air. "I  was going to jump, but he put his hands on my  shoulders, and it felt like a push. So I  refused, and I ended up here. A single moment can  change a person's whole life."
  Bender has heard this story before, a story that  used to be about a test I once failed. "I'm  just going to stand here," he says to me now. He  actually shows me the palms of both hands and  takes a step back, away from the look I  give him.
  "Well, maybe "push" is too strong a  word," I admit. "He tried to urge me, a  little too enthusiastically." I manage an  unconvincing laugh.
  "Friends do that sometimes," Bender says. "An  open airplane's probably not the best place  to do it."
  I wonder if later we'll talk about how he  and I solved a difficult puzzle without either of  us ever seeing all the pieces until they were all  in place. At this moment I can't think that  clearly. Right now it's enough that he's willing  to listen to me speculate about turning points when  I've just learned that my husband has killed  someone. While Bender stands his ground, I begin  to realize how fortunate I am that he and Hansen  got here in time. It's sinking in, what Bender  said a few moments ago: "Charlie wouldn't have  told you anything if he'd expected you  to survive."
  The two men move toward each other, a little  closer to me. I wonder if they see how they're  closing ranks between me and the stage of activity where  Weber is being escorted to the second car. The  way we've been talking, Hansen probably  thinks John and I are friends.
  "You ready?" someone shouts. A car starts.  "We're in no hurry now," Hansen says,  to no one in particular. He exchanges another  look with Bender, one that I recognize as  proprietary and protective, and which I see in  this moment as the most desirable thing in the world.

               THE END