Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 105, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 640 & 641, March 1995

The Big Empty by Judith Post

She’d moved into the run-down house surrounded by flat, open fields to die. Not because she’d seen a doctor, not because she was ill or had a genetic disorder. Simply because she was so empty. There was nothing left.

To her, the miles and miles of wintry farmland symbolized her state of mind. Miles and miles of nothing. Her friends called it burnout, but she called it living death. So she’d left the city and her steady job, her circle of friends, and the pain of Rob’s leaving her, and she’d come here. To a place where she was surprised if she saw two pickups pass her house on the same day! To where nightfall meant darkness, with no streetlights or distant glow from the city. To a solitude so lonely even a radio blaring couldn’t penetrate the silence. And at first, she’d wallowed in it. Licking her wounds. Picking up the pieces. Sorting things out. But then she’d grown bored. Burn-out or broken heart, neither was fatal, and waiting for death wasn’t everything she’d thought it would be. Finally she tired of it altogether and drove into town to look for work.

It had been easy getting a job. Miss Timmons had been the Honors English teacher for too many generations of local families, until now, in her senility, it was finally time to retire her to a nursing home and find a quick replacement. Caryn would be doing what she did best: teaching. And this time it would be different. Kids bussed to a consolidated high school from good, righteous farm families would inspire her, bring back the old feelings of accomplishment and pride in a job well done. Only city kids were rude and unmotivated, joined gangs and scribbled graffiti — traits inherent to cement jungles and low incomes. This time she’d remember why she’d wanted to be a teacher to begin with.

“I don’t get you,” Betsy McCormick complained during third period English Lit. “I mean, I can’t wait to get out of here, away from this hick town, and see what life is like in a city. But you... you chose to come here. What gives? You’re decent-looking. You seem normal. What’s the matter with you anyway?”

Caryn looked up from her copy of Shakespeare and studied her class. “I got tired of the city. I wanted to try something different.”

“Yeah, right,” Troy Habegger said. “Did you get in trouble or something? Do you have some big dark secret you need to hide?”

“Like she’d tell us!” Ralph Fryburg chimed in. “She’s probably in trouble with the law and has to hide out. Who’d look here?”

Caryn crossed her arms and glared. The class went quiet. They’d learned quickly that Caryn wasn’t a teacher one took lightly. She put a lot into her lessons, and she expected a lot of her students. She didn’t buy into the “I’m only going to be a farmer” routine.

“Every mind can be expanded through reading,” was her constant reminder.

“Look. You always tell us to use our minds. We can’t help being curious,” Kenny Nesco said. “None of our teachers had ever started in the city and ended up here. It makes us wonder.”

Caryn sighed. He had a point. “I’m forty-three,” she said. “Every year, teaching in the city got harder. The kids got harder to reach. More of them died.”

“Died?” Betsy asked.

“Car accidents. Drug overdoses. Gang violence,” Caryn explained. “Anyway, I got tired of it. It just seemed like I was putting too much into it and getting too little back, so I quit and came here.”

They stared.

“Why not just try a different job?” Ralph asked. “Teaching must be a lousy job anyway. Why not go for the money? Go into business or be a bartender?”

Caryn shook her head. “I was sick of it all, having to worry if I’d get mugged, if my car would still have tires when I left a restaurant, the whole thing...”

“You wimped out,” Ralph said.

“I gave it all I had,” she snapped, “but those kids’ needs were so big, they were beginning to consume me. And I wasn’t saving them anyway. We were all going down.”

Betsy squirmed, frowning. “So you came here expecting it to be like Mayberry.” She sounded half-mocking, half-sympathetic.

“It’s not what I expected, okay?” Caryn conceded. It had come as a rude shock that country kids weren’t the innocents she’d thought they’d be. They had mouths and attitudes that went with the nineties, just as every teenager in America must have, she decided. “But nothing is. Remember that. Reality and expectations rarely agree. When you leave here and go to the city, you’ll see what I mean.”

That sobered them. Maybe their dreams would be as deluded as hers.

“Have I answered all your questions?” Caryn asked. “Are you satisfied now? Because, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to our lesson.”

No one protested. She didn’t think they would.

In the middle of March, Silas Greeley’s rusted pickup truck made its way down the long gravel drive that led to the farmhouse and parked near the kitchen door. It was the first time he’d come since he’d handed Caryn the keys to the house and given her a short tour of the property. She was thankful that the yard was small, only a green square of grass, surrounded by wheat and soybean fields. Silas farmed these, but he’d sold her the house.

“Buying all the property I can,” he’d explained. “Renting even more, but I don’t need the houses. Glad somebody can use one.”

She’d gotten the house for a bargain because the family who’d owned this property had gone under. Farming wasn’t the simple family concern it had once been. Silas had wanted the rich fields, and she’d wanted the house, so they’d made a deal. It had worked well for both of them.

As he climbed the wooden steps to the back stoop, she went to greet him.

“Howdy.” He took off the seed cap he habitually wore and fussed with it, turning it in his large hands. “Just thought I’d come and check on you. See how you were making out.”

“Fine.” She motioned him inside. “Care for some coffee? I just made some fresh.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” He sat at the wooden kitchen table and looked about him uncomfortably. “Haven’t done much since you moved in.”

“I’ve been too busy,” she explained, bringing him a steaming mug with a creamer and sugar bowl on a tray, “but I plan to dig in once school’s out. I’ve got lots of ideas.”

He looked out the window silently. “You’re new here, and folks are kind of cliquish, so I don’t s’pose you’ve heard.”

“Heard what?”

He hesitated, sipping his coffee to give himself time. “Old lady Yardley, one field over, died sometime this week. When she didn’t show up for Ladies’ Sewing Circle at the church, the minister came to call on her. Found her at the bottom of the stairs. Been dead for a while.”

“You mean she fell down the steps and died?”

“Looks that way,” he said. “Don’t make much sense, though. Moved her bed to the parlor a long time ago. Her arthritis made it too hard to go up and down steps.”

“Maybe an animal got in upstairs and she went up to see.”

“Maybe.” He squinted into his mug for the answer, but shrugged in frustration. “Thing is, people are bound to talk. She left all her property to me, land, that is. Personal stuff went to her kids.”

“She left her land to you?”

He shifted in his chair. “I been farming it for years, ever since her husband died. Split the profits with her, fifty-fifty.”

“That seems generous.”

“Old folks need money, too, you know. Not that she ever got out much. Pretty much of a shut-in with her arthritis botherin’ her so much and all. But still, her kids never came home to see her, and with the extra money she could call them long distance whenever she wanted and buy the fancy chocolates she liked so much.”

“Why will people talk?” Caryn, asked. The whole thing seemed reasonable to her. Silas had been kind to the old woman, and she’d repaid him the way she knew he’d appreciate it most.

He frowned, his forehead puckering like corrugated cardboard, dry and weathered. Too much time spent outdoors. “This here’s a small town. People talk about anything and everything, and everybody knows everybody else’s business. They’ll know that money’s been tight for me, tryin’ to buy up more land. The corn crop didn’t do too good last year. It was mighty odd the way Hazel died.”

“I see.” She went to the stove and poured them more coffee. “Is that why you came, to let me know I shouldn’t listen to their gossip?”

The idea seemed to surprise him. “Everybody listens to gossip,” he said. “S’pose you’ll have to make up your own mind what to think. No...” He fumbled with his mug. “I don’t like it, that’s all. That an old woman that lived alone had a nasty accident. That Hiram Becker’s barn caught fire last spring, with him in it. That Josie Turner drowned the summer before that when she hit her head on a rock in the swimming hole.” He gave her a level stare. “And that you live way back here, a woman all by herself.”

For the first time, Caryn comprehended what he was trying to say. “You think I might be in danger?” she asked.

“Just seems funny, don’t it? So many accidents in such a small town.”

Caryn thought about it. She’d become so used to deaths and violence in the city that an accidental death a year didn’t seem much to her. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly.

He shook his head, embarrassed. “I’ve prob’ly just been stuck in the house too much, with too much time to think.” Pushing himself to his feet, he said, “Hazel’s funeral is Tuesday. S’pose most of the town’ll be there. Thought you should know.”

“Thanks for telling me.” She walked with him to the kitchen door and watched him U-turn at the empty chicken coop and drive away. Silas Greeley wasn’t the type of man to look for worries. He had enough of them at his doorstep. A widower, he’d raised a boy all by himself — a baby that townsfolk called “slow” behind Silas’s back.

“But pretty,” Mrs. Henderson had told Caryn at the grocery store. “Pretty and sweet. No wonder that little tramp, Heather Merchant, snapped him up. All the other boys knew what she was. Now she’s got a good husband, and her daddy-in-law keeps a roof over both their heads. He’d work himself into a grave to keep his boy happy.”

Yes, Silas Greeley was no stranger to hard work and hard times, Caryn decided. He must be pretty concerned if he drove to her house to tell her about Hazel Yardley’s death.

“It wasn’t Silas that offed her,” Ralph Fryburg was saying as Caryn strode into the classroom.

“Who else would it be?” Troy Habegger argued. “She left him all her property.”

“It was his boy,” Ralph said.

“Jake?” Betsy shook her head. “He’s too sweet. He comes into the restaurant every morning for breakfast. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“You’re just soft on him ’cause he’s good-looking,” Troy scoffed. “And the only reason he eats out every morning is ’cause the slut he married won’t get her lazy ass out of bed before noon.”

“My dad says she’s the one who put him up to it,” Ralph explained, “so old Silas could have a bigger farm. Means more money for her and her retard husband.”

“You’re both pigs,” Betsy told them.

“Better than being a sow,” Troy shot back.

Betsy’s face flushed red. She was a little overweight, and on the plain side, but if he meant his remark to silence her, he’d underestimated her.

“Why would it make any difference?” she persisted. “Silas was already farming her land. Why would he have to kill her for it?”

“Because,” Ralph said, “he was giving her fifty percent of the profits. I bet that made Heather red under the collar, the way she likes to spend money. And because the old bat was getting really feeble. There was talk of sticking her in a nursing home. To pay for that, she’d have had to sell everything she had.”

Caryn let them argue until the bell rang, then briskly started her lesson, putting a finish to the gossip. They took her cue: there’d be no talking about Hazel’s death on her time. As soon as the bell rang to dismiss them, though, they started up again.

Betsy turned to Kenny Nesco and said, “You’ve been awfully quiet. What do you think? Do you think Jake killed Hazel Yardley?”

Kenny shrugged. “That’s up to the law to decide. As for me, I like to believe everyone’s innocent until proven guilty. Gossip can get ugly. I don’t want to be a part of it.”

Caryn was surprised by the conviction underlying his words, but Troy Habegger supplied part of an answer for her.

“That’s because everyone’s always talked about your old man. If my dad was the town drunk, I wouldn’t gossip either.”

Kenny leveled a quiet stare at him, and Troy immediately tried to eat his words. “Look. It’s not like it’s your fault. Everyone thinks you and your mom are something, sticking it out and all.”

Kenny’s expression didn’t change, and Troy said, “Forget it, man: I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Yes, you did. You like to hurt people. It makes you feel big. But that’s your problem, not mine.” Kenny picked up his books and left the classroom.

The rest glanced at each other uneasily, then followed.

Caryn couldn’t believe how much she was looking forward to spring break. She was tired of the conjectures and whispers. This was one part of living in a small town she hadn’t anticipated and didn’t like. She was fairly confident that Silas Greeley was right, though, that the talk would eventually die down. Once everyone had a week off and tractors plowed fields again and boys went hunting in the woods, people would have other things to occupy their minds. So when the first week of April came, Caryn was ready for it.

She drove three towns over for the weekend, hoping to buy some furniture at a big auction that Mrs. Henderson had told her about.

“Everybody spring-cleans around here,” Mrs. Henderson had explained, “and lots of folks don’t care if a chair or a table’s supposed to be an antique. They just want the junk out of their attics.”

Caryn didn’t care if a chair or table was an antique, either. She just needed more furniture to fill her rooms. The few things she’d brought from her apartment when she’d moved here hadn’t gone very far. She was pleasantly surprised when she saw the oak rocking chairs, heavy mahogany dining room tables, and old horsehair sofas plunked in the grassy meadow where the auction took place. She’d rented a U-Haul and filled it before she started home late Sunday afternoon.

She stopped for supper at the Greasy Spoon Cafe so she wouldn’t have to cook when she got back.

“Where’s Betsy?” she asked Claire Morris after she’d given her order. “I always try to sit at her station.”

“Girl didn’t come in tonight,” Claire snapped. “Didn’t call in, either. Parents said they haven’t seen her since early this morning. Damn kids. Spring break and they do as they please.”

Caryn thought about that as she ate her meal. Alone, as she’d eaten every dinner since she’d come here. It didn’t sound like Betsy not to call in. Betsy was usually dependable. She was studying hard at school so she could go to college to be a nurse. Betsy prided herself on being responsible.

Frowning, Caryn had to admit the girl had been different lately, though. She’d had sort of a glow about her. Caryn had put it down to the upcoming spring break, but maybe there was something else. Troy Habegger had been surlier than usual, too. Was there a connection?

Finishing her meal, she paid at the cash register and left a bigger tip than normal for Claire. The woman looked run ragged. On the drive home, she felt her spirits sink. Why was she bothering with this charade? Why pretend that she was ever going to be happy again? She had to admit, finally and emphatically, that teaching had lost its appeal for her. City or country, it made no difference. And she was past forty. She didn’t want to start over.

As she pulled into her gravel drive, she had to brake to keep from hitting Jake Greeley, who was pulling out.

Rolling down his car window, Jake said, “Dad thought I should come over to see if you needed any help unloading furniture. How about it?”

She shook her head. “I’m too tired tonight. I’ll park the U-Haul in the barn and worry about the furniture tomorrow.”

“Give us a call when you’re ready,” he said. He put his pickup in reverse and backed onto the grass to let her by.

Nice, she thought, driving into the old barn. That had been country hospitality at its best. Fumbling for her key while she climbed the back steps, she inserted it in the lock only to have the kitchen door swing open before she could turn it.

A shiver ran down her spine, and a knot tightened in her stomach. She’d locked the door before she’d left. She was sure she had. City habits. Swallowing hard, she reached inside the door and flipped on the light. Still standing on the stoop, she peered through the kitchen windows, studying every inch of the room she could see. There was no movement, but she couldn’t see below the kitchen counters. Someone could be squatting there, waiting.

Reaching into her purse, she dug to the bottom and found a canister of Mace she’d carried in the city and never bothered to remove. She held it in front of her as she stepped through the door. Nothing. No one. She went to the drawer by the sink and took out the butcher knife. With the Mace in one hand and the knife in the other, she started through each room of the house.

The ground floor was safe, she was sure. There wasn’t enough furniture for anyone to hide anywhere. The basement was another matter. With the furnace and shelves that held old jars of canned vegetables, it would be harder to see an intruder. She took the chicken’s way out and locked the door, then wedged a kitchen chair under its doorknob. If anyone was down there, they could stay there until they got the coal bin doors pried open.

At last, it was time to look upstairs. She used only the one bedroom and the bath. The other two rooms were empty. Making her legs go up the steps, she held the Mace in front of her. The knife she kept in a firm grip by her side, ready to ram. She made her way down the upstairs hall with her back against the wall. No one was going to take her by surprise. She checked the two empty rooms first. Empty.

When she reached the open door of the bathroom, she hurriedly whipped a hand in and flipped on the light switch. No sound. Her eyes swept the room, then stopped. Bile rose in her throat, and she turned her head in horror.

Betsy McCormick lay in the tub, blood staining her throat and the front of her shirt and the porcelain of the tub. Blood from an ugly gash that sliced her neck so deeply that her head looked as if it were dangling from a thread.

Caryn’s knees shook, then her whole body caught the tremor. She pressed herself against the hallway, taking deep breaths, trying not to vomit. It took all of her effort to make her way to her bedroom and sink onto the old quilt of her double bed.

The killer might be in this room. She knew it, but she was too numb to care. Instead, she reached for the phone on her nightstand and dialed the courthouse.

“Hello?” She wasn’t sure whom she was talking to, but it didn’t matter. “This is Caryn Lockhart, on County Road Six. Betsy McCormick is dead in my bathtub. Someone should come get her.” Then she hung up and curled into a fetal position. And she wept.

She told the sheriff everything she knew.

“And Jake Greeley was pulling out of your driveway while you were pulling in?” he asked again.

“Yes, his father had sent him to help me with the furniture.”

“He says.”

“I’m sure you can verify that,” Caryn said.

“You don’t think he killed her, do you?”

Caryn sighed. She’d replayed her return home over and over again in her mind. “If he did, he’d have to be an awfully good actor to be so cheerful when I met him. From what I’ve heard, I kind of doubt that. He didn’t have any blood on him, either. It seems to me that whoever killed Betsy...” She shut her eyes and swallowed hard. “Whoever did that should have gotten bloody.”

Sheriff Taylor nodded. “I’m not trying to make this difficult for you, ma’am, but people often remember a few more things the second time they talk to me. Like what you said just now, that helps.”

She took a good long look at him. In his late fifties, his face was as creased as a pug’s. His eyes had the same wistful quality, too. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I want to help you as much as I can.”

“You are, ma’am. You’re holding up real good. Now, I hate to ask you, but was there anything you noticed when you first saw Betsy?”

“All the blood,” she answered immediately. “And that it was sticky, that it wasn’t running anymore. It had stopped.”

“And when did you leave for the auction?” Sheriff Taylor asked.

“Saturday morning, about ten-thirty.”

He nodded. “Probably most of the town knew you were going.” He walked to her kitchen counter and poured them each another cup of coffee.

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” she admitted. “I talked about it with Mrs. Henderson at the grocery store and with my students at school.”

“So anybody would have known they could use your house while you were gone.”

She sipped her coffee, studying her hands. “I thought I’d move to the country and leave all this behind. Instead, it’s even closer.”

“Closer?”

“In the city, people were getting shot or mugged all the time. I read about it in the newspaper every morning, but it always felt far away from me. Every once in a while it might be a student from our building, but I taught Honors English. It wasn’t anyone I knew very well, and it still bothered me. But it was nothing like this.”

“I’ve never gotten used to it,” he told her. “You get used to dealing with it, but I don’t think it would be healthy to get too calloused about it. I think it says a lot for you that you still care.”

A short while later, he waited while she packed a few things, then he drove her into town to stay in a little efficiency apartment over the jewelry store. “Don Porter used to live over the shop before he and his wife built a fancy house on the edge of town. A clerk lived there for a while, but it’s empty now. It’ll be awhile before we’re done at your place. Don said you can stay here as long as you want. There’s separate stairs coming up.”

She was depressed for the rest of spring break. Every time she went anywhere people asked her about finding Betsy until finally she stayed in the little apartment and rarely got out of bed. She dreaded teaching school on Monday and facing her English class. It took all of her professionalism and courage not to call in sick.

When fourth-period Honors English started, she walked to the front of her desk and leaned against it. She’d decided to hit the problem head-on, deal with it, and then put it behind her.

“You’ve all heard about Betsy’s death,” she stated. “If there are any questions, I’d rather we addressed them. Well?”

“When do you get to go back to your house?” Ralph asked. “My dad said they should be finished with it by now.”

“Today,” she told them. That was another thing she wasn’t looking forward to, but the sooner she did it, the better. The longer she stayed away, the larger her fear of returning grew.

“Was it really horrible?” Troy Habegger asked. “Or was it sort of neat, like scary movies?”

She raised an eyebrow and her voice went flat. “It was really horrible. Any death is sad, but a violent death is terrible. Only a sick person could find anything entertaining in it.”

“How are you doing?” Kenny Nesco asked. “My mom says this has to be especially awful for you because you came here to get away, and now this...”

Tears misted her eyes and she blinked them away. At least somebody understood. “It’s been pretty hard,” she confessed, “but I’ll be all right.”

“Aren’t you afraid to go back there?” Troy asked. “I mean, maybe the killer isn’t very picky. Maybe next time, it could be you.”

“I’m sure a lot of people feel that way,” she said, “not just me.”

“But you’re a lady,” he persisted. “Way out in the country. All alone.”

“And Hiram Becker was a man in a barn, and Josie Turner was a girl at a swimming hole,” she told him. “No one’s really safe.”

His eyes went wide. “What are you getting at? Josie drowned. It was an accident.”

“Was it?” she demanded. “For such a small town, a lot of people have been dying.”

The class went silent, and Caryn said, “All right, we’ve gotten that out of the way now. From now on, we can concentrate on English.”

It had been difficult, she told herself on the drive home, but she thought it had been worth it. The issue had been dealt with out in the open and now it was closed.

Turning onto her drive, she touched her foot to the brake in a reflex reaction. Silas Greeley’s truck was parked on the turn-off, and he was waiting for her. She didn’t want to see him. Worse, when her car came into view, the door on the passenger’s side opened, too, and Silas and his son stepped from the truck to greet her.

Her heart thudded against her ribs. Why were they here? Biting her lip, she forced herself to remain calm as she parked and went to meet them.

“Miss Lockhart,” Silas said, “me and Jake here wanted to think of some way to thank you for bein’ so fair when you talked to Sheriff Taylor about what happened. So we decided to surprise you.”

“Oh, but that’s not necessary,” she protested. “I only told him what I could.”

“But that’s the whole point, ma’am,” Silas insisted. “Around here, rumor’s usually like a game of telephone. The truth gets lost in the tellin’. You told it like it was, no extras, no gossip.”

Jake stared at her as his father spoke, making her uneasy. Finally, he said, “Most people don’t care much about me ’cause they say I’m slow. You treated me like a real person.”

She frowned. “I’m glad I could help you.”

“So we wanted to return the favor,” Silas said. “Let us show you what we done.” He motioned for her to follow them inside the house.

Her flesh went cold. How had they gotten inside? What did they want?

“I have an extra set of keys,” Silas explained, “in case there’s ever an emergency here. I don’t believe in stickin’ my nose in other people’s business, but I couldn’t think of nothin’ else.” He nodded his head toward the living room.

She looked inside and let out a sigh. “You shouldn’t have.”

Smiling, he said, “It was Jake’s idea. He said you’d bought lots of furniture at that auction. If it’s not in the right spot, we’ll move it wherever you want.”

“No, it’s lovely,” she said, looking at the furniture carefully arranged in each room. “This was so kind.”

“No trouble at all,” Silas said. “We took the U-Haul back for you, too.”

She’d forgotten all about it. Shaking her head, she said, “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”

“Glad to oblige,” Silas said. “Put new locks on your doors and windows, too. The keys are on the kitchen table. Take care now, you hear? No use taking chances.”

Thanking him, she walked them to the door. As she hooked the latch on the screen and watched them drive away, she thought how nice so many people had been to her. She had to concentrate on the good, as well as the bad.

Troy Habegger was edgy all the rest of the week. He was too distracted to disrupt class more than a couple of times.

“Josie had been his girl,” Ralph told her after class on Friday. “When you said she might have been murdered, you messed Troy up pretty bad.”

“I’m surprised no one had considered it before,” she said.

Ralph grimaced. “She was the first, I guess. No one thought much about it. Just that it was sad.”

She could understand that. Hindsight was always clearer than foresight. What she didn’t understand was why he followed her home on Friday night. She always went to the grocery store after she cashed her paycheck to stock up on groceries for the week, then she ate at the cafe as her Friday night treat, then she went home. It was a ritual, almost. Maybe too much so. Everyone must know her pattern by now. Clearly, Troy did, because as she turned onto County Road 6, he pulled out of a small lane and followed her in his souped-up black Camaro.

When she pulled into her driveway, he pulled in after her.

Stupid, she told herself, too late. Now she was trapped. As he opened his car door and walked toward her, she thought about making a run for the house; but she’d never reach it in time. Instead, her hand snaked out and she locked her car doors, then she rolled up the windows.

“What are you doing?” Troy yelled as he stopped beside her car. “Can I talk to you?”

She shook her head. “It’s late,” she said. “I’ll meet you at the cafe for lunch tomorrow. We can talk then.” Maybe it had started with Josie, she thought. Troy was a little unstable. Maybe he hadn’t meant to kill her, but he’d discovered he liked it. What had he asked her about Betsy? “Was it really horrible, or was it sort of neat, like horror movies?” She knew he got drunk almost every weekend, sneaking beer behind people’s barns. Had Hiram Becker caught him, was that why he’d killed him?

He was tipsy now, she could tell, and it wasn’t even that late. Angry, he kicked the side of her car. “Damn it! I drove all the way out here to tell you some things, and you won’t even talk to me.”

A good try, she thought. But it wouldn’t work. She wasn’t getting out of her car for anything.

“Josie was a nice girl,” he yelled. “I didn’t care about her being pregnant. I was planning on marrying her, anyway.”

Caryn froze. It was beginning to fall into place. Josie had told him he had to marry her at the swimming hole. He’d lost control and drowned her. Maybe not on purpose. But it had given him a taste for murder.

“Never mind!” he bellowed. “Forget it. I was gonna tell you some things, but if you don’t want to hear them, it’s no skin off my back.” He stomped to his Camaro and fired it up. A minute later, he was hurtling down the gravel drive and back to town.

Caryn sat silently listening for several minutes. Maybe it was a trick, but eventually she realized she didn’t want to sit in her car all night, and she should certainly be able to run into her house and lock the door, even if Troy had doubled back somehow.

She scooped her grocery bags up in both arms, got her house key ready, and bolted from the car, running all-out. With a quick turn the kitchen door unlocked, and she was shouldering it open when a shadow detached itself from the darkness at the corner of the stoop, leapt to the top step, and pushed her inside. Immediately, the door slammed shut behind her and the deadbolt slid into place.

Whirling, she stared in surprise. “Kenny?”

He glanced at the hand she’d jammed deep into her jacket pocket. “Are you all right? Troy didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“No, I’m fine.” She didn’t move, didn’t unwrap her fingers from the can of Mace. Not that he knew what she was gripping. Maybe he thought she had a gun.

He relaxed slightly. “You really upset him, talking about Josie. He hasn’t been the same since she drowned. None of us mentions her to him.”

“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “Why were you hiding in the shadows?”

He shrugged. “Troy and I drove around for a while after school. He downed some beers and started to talk a little crazy. I didn’t think he’d really do anything, but I didn’t want to take a chance. When he followed you up your drive and you ran like hell for the house, I guess I panicked a little. I thought Troy might still be after you.”

So had she. It was an easy mistake to make. “I don’t think he meant to hurt me,” she said. “I think he wanted to talk, but he’d scared me so much, I wasn’t listening. Now I think I overreacted.”

“Who could blame you? You’re new here. You don’t really know any of us yet.” He looked at the groceries she was still trying to balance. “Need help with those?”

She shook her head. “To be honest, my nerves are so shot, I’d rather be alone. I appreciate your concern, but I need some time to pull myself together.”

He nodded solemnly. “I know the feeling. See you on Monday.” And he quietly turned and went out the kitchen door, pulling it shut behind him with a rattle.

She watched from the window until he was at the edge of her property. Only then did she lower her groceries to the kitchen table and turn the deadbolt lock on the door. She checked each room for intruders before she came back downstairs to put her groceries away.

She was sitting in the oak rocker, sipping a cup of hot tea and reading a book of poetry, when she heard the key slide into the lock, turn, and the back door open.

She rose to her feet, backing toward the front door, when Kenny Nesco padded into the living room to join her. Her key ring dangled from his hand. What a fool she’d been! In her panic, she’d never removed it from the door.

“Sorry about this,” he said. “I mean, you haven’t done anything mean or bad. You don’t even sit and watch things happen, pretending there’s nothing wrong, like my mom does. That’s why you came here, to get away from all that, because it bothered you. I respect you for that.”

She stared at the long, broad butcher’s knife in his hand. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing would come out, so she pressed her lips together and waited.

“It’s just that you don’t belong here, you know? So you look at things differently and cause things to shift a little. Everyone around here would have blamed Jake Greeley for Hazel’s death. They’d have gossiped about it, but they wouldn’t have done anything.”

“Did Hazel do something mean?” Caryn asked. Her mind raced with ideas to save herself, but none of them seemed promising. The irony of the whole thing hit her, that she’d come here wanting to die — and now she was stalling, hoping to avoid it.

“When all of her kids moved away, my dad made me go to her house and mow her lawn, do all kinds of repair work and stuff. He called it being a good neighbor. She’d always pay me a little. Not much. She couldn’t have hired anyone for what she gave me. And my dad always took the money when I got home. She always went upstairs to get the money, but then she got so senile, she couldn’t remember anything. I wasn’t going to take it all. Just what she owed me. But she wasn’t as deaf as I thought. She came up and caught me.”

“So you pushed her,” Caryn said.

“I’ve never hurt anyone who didn’t hurt me,” he said. “You wouldn’t mean to hurt me, but you would.” He was walking toward her, and fear kept her rooted to the spot. She didn’t want to run and be chased down. She’d never outrun him, anyway. She didn’t want to try to wrestle the knife from his hand. He was too strong.

So she watched and waited.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated.

Suddenly she felt tired and defeated. What had happened to her life, her dreams? She couldn’t make it in the city, and she hadn’t made it here. What was wrong with her?

“This time, there’ll be an investigation,” she argued. “How many times do you think you can kill and get away with it?”

He grinned. “Everyone knows Troy came out here. Josie was Troy’s girlfriend. Who do you think they’ll suspect?”

The kitchen door flew open with a bang. There was a rush of feet, and Troy Habegger lunged into the room. “You bastard!” he shouted as he barreled straight for Kenny.

Kenny turned, gripping the knife; but Troy threw himself at him, and both boys fell to the floor, struggling as they rolled. When they stopped, Kenny was on top. He pushed an elbow onto Troy’s throat, and raised his arm to bury the knife deep in his chest, but Caryn gripped his hand with both of her own and wouldn’t let go. When he loosened his grip on Troy to shake her off, Troy lunged again. This time when they quit rolling, Kenny was lying on top of Troy once more, but his body was limp. Shrugging him off, Troy stood and stared at the wooden handle protruding from Kenny’s back.

“The door was open,” he explained. “I’m sorry I scared you before. Once the beer wore off, I felt bad about it. I went to Kenny’s, but he wasn’t there. Then I got to thinking about Josie. I’d wanted to marry her, but the baby wasn’t mine. She’d always had a soft spot for Kenny, felt sorry for him, you know? Then I got to thinking about old Hiram Becker. Kenny had worked at his place one summer. When we were driving around together after school, he was telling me how things weren’t the same since you’d come to town. He wanted to get me riled up, and that made me wonder...”

“I’m glad you did,” Caryn said, her heart finally beginning to slow.

Troy looked down at his feet. “Kenny was my best friend.” His voice broke.

“He was sick. He would have only gotten worse.”

“I know that now, but I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t made me think. That’s good sometimes, I guess.”

The blood stain was spreading across Kenny’s shirt. “We’d better call Sheriff Taylor,” she said.

“They’re going to kick you out of your house again,” he told her. “But believe me. Once this is over, it’ll never happen again. This isn’t like the city.”

No, it wasn’t. There were good people here, and she had made a difference, after all.