Shakespeare’s Champion

Chapter Five

I don’t know what I expected of the rest of the day. I think I expected the man in the closet to pop up any minute; to tell me what had happened when he left, to ask me if he’d hurt me in our struggle, to explain himself.

After seeing him everywhere I turned, now he was nowhere. I passed through being worried, to being angry, and back through worried. I made my feelings cool down, concentrated on chilling them; I told myself the fear and rage engendered by our silent struggle in Beanie Winthrop’s walk-in closet-what a location-had nudged me past some internal boundary marker.

Out of sheer restlessness, that night I attended the meeting at Golgotha A.M.E. Church. I found it with a little difficulty since it was in the center of the largest black residential area in Shakespeare, which I seldom had reason to visit. The church itself, redbrick and larger than I expected, was set up on a knoll, with cracked concrete steps bordered by a handrail leading up to the main doors. It was on a corner lot, and there was a big streetlight shining down those steps. Golgotha was so centrally located that I saw many people walking to the meeting despite the gusty cold wind.

I also saw two police cars on the way there. One was driven by Todd Picard, who gave me an unhappy nod. It was easy to tell that every time he saw me, I reminded him of something he wanted to forget. I felt the same way about him.

I went up the steps of the church at a fast clip, anxious to get out of the wind. It seemed to me I’d been cold all day. There were double doors at the top of the steps, and inside those, a large foyer with two coatracks, a table spread with lots of free literature on Planned Parenthood and Alcoholics Anonymous and the practice of daily prayer, and the doors to two rooms, one on each side, that I guessed were vesting rooms or perhaps served for choir practice. Ahead, there were two sets of doors into the body of the church. I picked the right set of doors and followed the flow of people into the sanctuary. There was a long center set of pews and a shorter set on each side, with wide aisles in between, the same conformation I’d seen in many churches. I picked a long central pew at random, and scooted toward the center to give later arrivals easy access.

The meeting was scheduled to begin at seven, and surprisingly enough it did. The high attendance on a cold school night was a measure of how strong feeling was running in the African-American community. Mine was not the only white face in view. The Catholic sisters who ran a preschool for disadvantaged children were seated some distance away, and Claude was there: a good public relations move, I thought. He gave me a curt nod. Sheriff Marty Schuster was sitting beside Claude on the dais. To my surprise, he was a small wizened man you would’ve thought couldn’t arrest a possum. But his appearance was deceiving; I’d heard more than once that Sheriff Schuster had cracked his share of skulls. Schuster’s secret, Jim Box had told me one morning, was to always strike first and hardest.

Claude and Marty Schuster shared the platform with a man I supposed was the church’s pastor, a short, square man with great dignity and angry eyes. He was holding a Bible.

Another light face caught my eye. Mookie Preston was there, too, sitting by herself. When Lanette Glass came in, the two women exchanged a long look before Lanette sat by another teacher.

I saw Cedric, my mechanic, and Raphael Roundtree, who was sitting with his wife. Cedric gave me a surprised smile and wave, but Raphael’s greeting was subdued. His wife just stared.

The meeting went like many community meetings with an ill-defined goal. It opened with a prayer so fervent that I half expected God to touch everyone’s heart with love and understanding on the spot. If He did, the results were not immediate. Everyone had something to say, and wanted to say it simultaneously. They were all angry about the blue pieces of paper, and wanted to know what the chief of police and the sheriff were doing about them. At tedious length, the lawmen explained that they couldn’t do anything about them; the handouts were not obscene, did not contain a clear and overt incitement to violence. Of course, this was not a satisfactory response to most of the people in the church.

At least three people were trying to speak when Lanette Glass stood up. There was silence, gradually; a deep silence.

“My son is dead,” Lanette said. Her glasses caught the harsh fluorescent light and winked. Darnell’s mother was probably still in her forties, with a pleasant round figure and a pretty round face. She was wearing a brown, cream, and black pantsuit. She looked very sad, very angry.

“You may talk about ‘we don’t know this’ and ’we can’t guess that,‘ but we all know good and well that Darnell was murdered by the same men that are passing around this paper.”

“We can’t know that, Mrs. Glass,” Marty Schuster said helplessly. “I sympathize with your grief, and your son’s is one of the three homicides the city and county police are working on-believe me, we’re working on it, we want to find out what happened to your son-but we can’t go haring off and accuse people who don’t even have an identity.”

“I can,” she said unanswerably. “I can also say what everyone here is thinking, blacks and probably whites, too: that if Darnell hadn’t been killed, Len Elgin would not have died, and maybe Del Packard, too. And I want to know what we, the black community, are supposed to do about these rumors of armed militia in our town, armed white men who hate us.”

I awaited a reply with interest. An armed militia? The problem was, just about every white man-and black-in town was already armed. Guns were not exactly scarce in this area, where lots of citizens felt you were wise to carry a weapon if you traveled to Little Rock. You could buy arms at Winthrop Sporting Goods, if you wanted a top-of-the-line piece. You could buy a gun at WalMart, or at the pawnshop, or just about anywhere in Shakespeare. So the “armed” part wasn’t exactly a shocker, but the “militia” part was.

I wasn’t too surprised when Claude and Marty Schuster protested ignorance of any knowledge of an armed militia in our fair city.

The meeting was effectively over, but no one wanted to admit it. Everyone had had his or her say, and no solution had been reached, because a solution to this problem was simply unreachable. A few die-hards were still trying to get the lawmen to make some kind of statement committing the law to eradicating the group apparently inciting white Shakespeareans to some kind of action against dark Shakespeareans, but Marty and Claude refused to be pinned.

People rose and began to shuffle toward the two exits. I saw Marty Schuster, Claude, and the minister go toward the aisle on my left. I stood admiring the carved pulpit, at the end of the aisle to the right, before I stepped into the aisle. I had zipped up my coat and was pulling on my black leather gloves when I felt a hand on my arm. I turned to meet the magnified eyes of Lanette Glass.

“Thank you for helping my son,” she said. She looked at me unwaveringly, but her eyes suddenly swam in tears.

“I wasn’t able to help when it counted,” I said.

“You can’t blame yourself,” she said gently. “You can’t count the times I’ve cried since he died, thinking I could somehow have warned him, somehow rescued him. I could have gone out for milk myself, instead of asking him to run to the store. That was when they got him, you know, in the parking lot… at least that was where his car was found.”

His new car, still with its crumpled fender.

“But you, you fought for him,” Lanette said quietly. “You bled for him.”

“Don’t make me better than I am,” I said flatly. “You’re a brave woman, Mrs. Glass.”

“Don’t you make me any better than I am,” Lanette Glass said quietly. “I thanked the black Marine the day after the fight. I never thanked you until tonight.”

I looked down at the floor, at my hands, at anything but Lanette Glass’s large brown eyes; and when I looked up, she had gone.

The crowd continued to exit slowly. People were talking, shaking their heads, pulling on their own coats and scarves and gloves. I moved along with them, thinking my own thoughts. I pushed up my sleeve to check my watch: It was 8:15. Through the open doors ahead of me, I could see that the crowd was thick in the church’s foyer. People were hesitating before stepping out into the cold. There were about three people between me and the sanctuary doors, and there were at least six people behind me.

The stout woman on my left turned to me to say something. I never found out what it was. The bomb went off.

I can’t remember if I knew what had happened right away or not. When I try, my head hurts. But I must have turned. Somehow I had a sense of the pulpit disintegrating.

I was pushed from behind by a powerful wind and I saw the head of the woman beside me separate from her body as a collection plate clove through her neck. I was sprayed with her blood as her body crumpled and her head and I went flying forward. My thick coat and scarf helped absorb some pressure. So did the bodies of the people behind me. The wooden pews also blocked some of the blast, but they splintered, of course, and those splinters were deadly… some of them were as big as spears, just as lethal.

The roar deafened me and in silence I flew through the air. All this happened at the same time, too much to catalog… the woman’s head flew with me, we flew together into kingdom come.

I was lying halfway on my right side, on something lumpy. Something else was lying on me. I was soaking wet. There were cold winds blowing in the church, and flames were flickering here and there. I was in hell. I watched the flames and wondered why I was so cold. Then I realized if I turned my head a little, I could see the stars, though I was in a building. This was remarkable; I should tell someone. The lights were out, but I could see a little. I could smell smoke, too, and the sharp smell of blood, and even worse things. And there was a heavy chemical smell overlaying everything, an odor that was completely new to me.

My situation isn’t good, I thought. I need to move. I want to go home. Take a shower.

I tried to sit up. I couldn’t hear a thing. That made my state even more surrealistic. With some senses so drenched with input and others totally deprived, it was easy to convince myself I was in a nightmare. I lost my place for a few minutes, I think. Then I reoriented, after a fashion. Someone was near me, I could tell, I could feel movement but not hear it. I turned painfully onto my back, put my hands on whatever was lying on my chest, and shoved. It moved. I tried to sit up, fell back. That hurt. A face appeared through the gloom in front of me. It was the face of Lanette Glass. She was talking, I could tell, because her mouth was moving.

At last she seemed to realize that she wasn’t getting through. She moved her lips slowly. I decided she was saying, “Where-is-Mookie?”

I remembered who Mookie was, and I remembered seeing her earlier. She had been on the other side of the church-that was where I was, in the Golgotha A.M.E. Church-and I’d glanced across at Mookie as she’d passed from the sanctuary into the foyer.

“Can you hear me?” I asked Lanette. I couldn’t hear myself. It was overwhelmingly strange. I thought of going to the dentist, not being able to feel your own lips after he filled a tooth. I went off course for a minute. Lanette shook me. She was nodding frantically. It took me another moment to realize she was letting me know she could hear me. That was great! I smiled. “Mookie is on the other side of the church,” I said. “In the foyer.”

Lanette vanished.

I wondered if I could stand up and go to a warm place and shower. I tried to roll onto my knees; I pushed against the thing underneath me, to flip from my back to my stomach. When I’d gotten that done, I saw the lump underneath me was the body of a girl, about ten or twelve years old. Her hair was elaborately decorated with beads. There was a sharp splinter protruding from her neck. Her eyes were blank. I closed my mind to that. I pulled up on a bench upended and aslant, propped against another bench. I wondered at the multitude of benches. Then I thought, church. Pews.

I stood erect. Everything swung around me, and I had to hold on to the back of the pew, actually a leg, since it was upside down. I suspected that all the flashing I could see meant I was losing my vision; but it was blue flashing. I was looking through the sanctuary doors to the foyer, through the foyer door to the outside; all the doors were open. No. The doors weren’t there anymore. Maybe I was seeing police cars? Surely, in an emergency like this, they would help?

I wondered how I might get out of this place. Though the electricity had gone out, there was that big streetlight right outside, and its light was coming through the holes in the roof. There were flames in several spots around me, though I couldn’t hear them crackle.

I remembered I was strong. I remembered I should be helping. Well, there was no helping the girl beneath me. I had helped Lanette by telling her where Mookie had been the last time I’d seen her. And look at what happened. Lanette had left. Maybe I should just fend for myself, huh?

But then I thought of Claude. I should find him and help him. It seemed to me it was my turn.

I took a shuffling step, now that I had a purpose. My left leg hurt very badly, but that was hardly a big surprise. Didn’t make it hurt any the less, though. I looked down unwillingly, and saw there was a cut in my leg, a very long slicing cut down the side of my thigh. I was terrified I’d see another splinter protruding, but I didn’t. I was bleeding, though. Understatement.

I took another step, over something I didn’t want to identify. I could feel my throat moving and I knew I was making sounds, though I couldn’t hear them, which was fine. They were better unheard. The beams of the streetlight that came through the roof had a surrealistic air because of the dust, which swam and floated in their light.

I stepped carefully through debris where there had been order just minutes before; the dead and dying and terribly injured where there had been whole clean living people. My leg collapsed once. I got back up. I could see other people moving. One man had gotten to his knees as I neared him. I held out my hand. He looked at it as if he’d never seen a hand. His eyes followed the line of my arm up to my face. He flinched when he looked at me. I figured I looked pretty bad. He didn’t look so great himself. He was covered with dust, and he had blood flowing from a deep cut in his arm. He’d lost the sleeve of his coat. He took my hand. I pulled. He came up. I nodded to him and went on.

I found Claude in the far aisle of the church, where I’d last seen him talking to the sheriff and the minister. I’d been closer to the bomb on the east side of the church, but the sheriff and the minister were dead. One of the big bar-shaped lighting fixtures had fallen from the ceiling and hit them square. They’d been much the same height. Claude must have been a step ahead of them. His legs were under the long heavy bar and he was lying on his stomach. His hands and arms and the back of his head were covered with white powder and debris and dark red blood. He was motionless.

I touched his neck, couldn’t remember why I was doing that, and began to push the long lighting fixture that was pinning his legs. It was very heavy. I was in terrible pain, and wanted desperately to lie down. But I felt there was something wrong about that, something bad, and I had to keep on pushing and pulling at the light fixture.

I finally got it off Claude’s legs. He was stirring, heaving up on his arms. I made a connection in my mind between the flashing blue light and Claude. I saw a group of lights swinging around catching millions of dust motes, thought it was in my head. But I gradually worked out that these were flashlights in the hands of rescuers.

It seemed to me they would want to move the most seriously injured first; at the same time, I had to admit, I really wanted to go home and shower. Maybe an ambulance would drop me off at home. I was sure sticky and smelly, and I was so sleepy. Maybe Claude and I could drive together, since we lived side by side. I knelt down by him and leaned over to look in his face. He was in agony, his eyes wide. When he saw me, his lips began moving. I smiled at him and shook my head, to show I couldn’t hear. His lips drew back from his teeth, and I knew that Claude was screaming.

Oh, I had to get up again, I realized wearily. I made it, but I was pretty sick of trying to walk. I shuffled a few steps, saw an upright figure ahead of me in the uncertain gloom. He swung around, and my eyes dazzled in the sudden blast of the flashlight. It was Todd Picard, and he was talking to me.

“I can’t hear,” I said. He ran the flashlight up and down my length, and when I could see his face in its glow again, he looked sick.

“I know where Claude is,” I said. “You need him, right?”

He illuminated himself with the flash. “Where-is-he?” Todd mouthed. I took his free hand and pulled, and he followed me.

I pointed down at Claude.

Todd turned in another direction, and I could see his hand go up to his mouth, his lips moving; he was screaming for help. Claude was still alive; his fingers were moving. I bent down to pat him reassuringly, and I just fell over. I didn’t get back up.

I don’t remember being loaded onto the stretcher, but I do remember the jolt of being carried. I remember the brilliance of the lights of the emergency room. I remember Carrie, all in white, looking so clean and calm, and I remember her trying to ask me questions. I kept shaking my head, I couldn’t hear anything.

“Deaf,” I said finally, and her lips stopped moving. People were busy around me; there was near-chaos in the hospital corridor. Since I wasn’t the most seriously injured, I had to wait my turn, and that was fine, except I couldn’t have any pain medication until Carrie had looked me over.

I blanked in and out, waking to see people moving up and down the hall, gurneys rolling past, all the doctors in town and most all the medical personnel of any kind.

And then, very oddly, I felt fingers on my wrist. Someone was taking my pulse, and while that was not so extraordinary, I knew I had to open my eyes. With an effort, I did. The detective was bending over me. He was so clean.

I could not hear much, I found, but I could hear a little, and I could lip-read.

“Is your head hurt?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said slowly, every word an effort. “My leg is.”

He looked down. “They’ll have to stitch it up,” he told me, and he looked very angry. “Who can I call for you? Someone should be here with you.”

“No one,” I said. It was an effort to talk.

“There’s blood all over your face.”

“The woman next to me was…” I couldn’t think of decapitated. “Her head came off,” I said, and closed my eyes again.

When I opened them some time later, he was gone.

I hardly woke up when Carrie stitched on me, and it was a surprise to find myself in the X-ray room. Other than these travels, I was out in the hall all night, which was fine. All the rooms were filled with the more seriously injured. And I could tell by the constant flow of ambulance personnel that some people were being sent to Montrose or Little Rock.

Carrie came by and shook me awake every so often to check my eyes, and the nurses took my pulse and blood pressure, and I wanted most of all to be left alone. Hospitals are not places for being left alone.

The next time I opened my eyes, it was daylight. I could see a pale watery morning through the glass doors of the emergency room. A man in a suit was standing by my gurney. He was looking down at me. He, too, was looking a little squeamish. I was really tired of people looking at me that way.

“How do you feel, Miss Bard?” he asked, and I could hear him, though his voice was oddly beelike.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what happened to me.”

“A bomb went off,” he said. “In Golgotha Church.”

“Right.” I accepted that as the truth, but it was the first time I had thought of the word bomb. Bomb, man-made. Someone had actually done that on purpose.

“I’m John Bellingham. I’m with the FBI.” He showed me some identification, but my brain was too scrambled for it to make sense.

I absorbed that, trying to make sense of it. I thought that since Claude and the sheriff were down, the FBI had been called in to keep the peace. Then I cleared up a little. Church bombing. Civil rights. FBI.

“OK.”

“Can you describe what happened last night?”

“The church blew up as we were leaving.”

“Why did you attend the meeting, Miss Bard?”

“I didn’t like the blue sheets.”

He looked at me as if I were insane.

“Blue sheets…”

“The papers,” I said, beginning to be angry. “The blue sheets of paper they were putting under everyone’s windshield wipers.”

“Are you a civil rights activist, Miss Bard?”

“No.”

“You have friends in the black community?”

I wondered if Raphael would consider himself my friend. I decided, yes.

“Raphael Roundtree,” I said carefully.

He seemed to be writing that down.

“Can you find out if he’s okay?” I asked. “And Claude, is Claude alive?”

“Claude…”

“The police chief,” I said. I couldn’t remember Claude’s last name, and that made me feel very odd.

“Yes, he’s alive. Can you describe in your own words what happened in the church?”

I said slowly, “The meeting went long. I looked at my watch. It was eight-fifteen when I was leaving, walking down the aisle.”

He definitely wrote that down.

“Do you still have your watch on?” he asked.

“You can look and see,” I said indifferently. I didn’t want to move. He pulled the sheet down and looked at my arm.

“It’s here,” he said. He pulled out his handkerchief, wet it with his tongue, and scrubbed at my wrist. I realized he was cleaning the watch face. “Sorry,” he apologized, and when he pocketed the handkerchief again I could see it was stained.

He bent over me, trying to read the watch without shifting me.

“Hey, it’s still ticking along,” he said cheerfully. He checked it against his own watch. “And right on time. So, it was eight-fifteen, and you were leaving…?”

“The woman next to me was about to say something,” I said. “And then her head wasn’t there.”

He looked serious and subdued, but he had no idea what it had been like: though when I thought about it, I had little idea myself. I could not remember exactly… I could see the shiny edge of the collection plate. So I told John Bellingham about the collection plate. I recalled Lanette Glass speaking to me, and I mentioned that, and I remembered helping the man up, and I knew I’d journeyed across the church to find Claude. But I refused to recall what I’d seen on that journey, and to this day I do not want to remember.

I told John Bellingham about finding Claude, about leading Todd to him.

“Was it you that moved the fixture off his legs?” the agent asked.

“I believe so,” I said slowly.

“You’re one strong lady.” He asked me more questions, lots more, about whom I’d seen, white people in particular of course, and where I’d been sitting… ta da ta da ta da.

“Find out about Claude,” I told him, wearying of the conversation.

Instead, he sent me Carrie.

She was so tired her face had a gray cast. Her white coat was filthy now, and her glasses smeared with fingerprints. I was glad to see her.

“You have a long cut on your leg. Some stitches and some butterfly bandages are holding it together. You have a slight concussion. You have bruising all across your back, including your butt. A splinter evidently grazed your scalp, one reason you looked so horrendous when they brought you in, and another splinter took off a little of your earlobe. You won’t miss it. You have dozens of abrasions, none of them serious, all of them painful. I can’t believe it, but you have no broken bones. How’s your hearing?”

“Everything sounds buzzy,” I said with an effort.

“Yeah, I can imagine. It’ll get better.”

“So I can go home?”

“As soon as we’re sure about the concussion. Probably in a few hours.”

“Are you gonna charge me for a room since I was out in the hall all night?”

Carrie laughed. “Nope.”

“Good. You know I don’t have much insurance.”

“Yeah.”

Carrie had arranged for me to be in the hall. I felt a surge of gratitude. “What about Claude?” I asked.

Her face grew more serious. “He’s got a badly broken leg, broken in two places,” she began. “Like you, he has a concussion, and he’s temporarily deaf. He has a serious cut on one arm, and his kidneys are bruised.”

“He’s going to be okay?”

“Yes,” she said, “but it’s going to take a long time.”

“Did you treat my friend Raphael Roundtree, by chance?”

“Nope, or I did but I don’t remember the name, which is entirely possible.” Carrie yawned, and I could tell how exhausted she was. “But I’ll look for him.”

“Thanks.”

A nurse came a few minutes later to tell me Raphael had been treated and released the night before.

A few hours later, a hospital volunteer gave me a ride back to my car, still parked a couple of blocks away from the ruin of Golgotha Church. She was civil enough, but I could tell she thought I’d mostly deserved what happened to me because I’d gone to a meeting in a black church. I was not surprised at her attitude, and I didn’t care a whole lot. My coat was in a waste-basket at the hospital because the back of it was shredded, and the hospital gave me a huge ancient jacket of sweatsuit material, with a hood, which I was grateful to wrap around me. I knew I looked pretty disreputable. Bits of my shoes were missing and my blue jeans had been cut off to treat my leg. I was wearing even older sweatpants.

The wound was in my left leg, which was fortunate, because it meant I could drive. It was painful to walk-hell, it was painful to move-and I wanted to be home locked inside my own place so bad that I could just barely endure the process of getting there.

I parked my car in my own carport and unlocked my own kitchen door with a relief so great I could almost taste it. My bed was waiting for me, with clean sheets and firm pillows and no one shaking me awake to check my pupils, but I could not get into it as filthy as I was.

When I looked into my bathroom mirror, I was amazed that anyone had been able to endure looking at me. Though I’d been swabbed at some, the hospital had been so flooded with injuries that cleaning up the victims had had low priority. I had speckles of blood all over my face and clotting my hair, my neck had a dried river where my ear had bled, my shirt and bra were splotched in blood and smelled to high heaven of all kinds of things, and my shoes would have to go. It took a long long time to get all this off me. I threw the remains of my clothes and shoes into a plastic bag, set it outside the kitchen door, and hobbled laboriously to the bathroom to sponge myself. It was impossible to get in the bathtub, and my stitches were supposed to be kept dry, too. I stood on a towel by my sink, and soaped with one washrag and rinsed with another, until I looked and smelled more like my own self. I even did that to my hair; all I can say of my hair after that is that it was clean. I dabbed more antiseptic ointment on the scalp wound. I threw away the earring still in my right ear-the left earring had been removed in the hospital when they’d treated my ear, and I had no idea where it was and cared less. I did look at my left ear to make sure I could still wear a pair of pierced earrings. I could, but I needed to grow my hair longer to cover the place about midway down the edge of my earlobe where there was, and would always be, a notch.

Finally-barely able to walk, full of medicine, and still oddly numb emotionally-I was able to lower myself into my bed. I flipped the volume of the telephone ring to its lowest setting, but left it on the hook. I didn’t want anyone breaking in to see if I’d died. Then I lay back very very carefully, and let the darkness come.

I had to miss two and a half days of work, and I had Sunday as a free day anyway. I should have stayed home Monday (and maybe Tuesday), too, but I knew I had to pay the hospital for the emergency room visit, and Carrie for treatment. I always cleaned for Carrie to pay her, but I didn’t want my debt to mount too high.

That Monday, it was much easier to clean for the clients who weren’t present when I got to work. Otherwise, they tried to send me home.

Bobo had come by the evening of the day I went home.

“How’d you find out?” I asked.

“That new guy said you might need some help.”

I was too exhausted to ask questions, and I was too depressed to care.

Bobo came every day after that, too. He brought in my mail and my paper, and made me sandwiches so thick they were almost impossible to chew. Carrie ran by one evening, but I felt guilty because she looked so tired. The hospital was still full.

“How many dead?” I asked, lying back in my recliner.

She was in the blue wing-back chair. “So far, five,” she said. “If it had gone off five minutes later, there would maybe have been no fatalities and few injuries. Five minutes earlier, and the death toll would have been very high.”

“Who died?” I asked.

Carrie fetched the local paper and read me the names. I hadn’t personally known any of them, and I was glad of that.

I asked about Claude, and she told me he was better. But she didn’t sound comfortable about his progress. “And I’m worried about him going home by himself, anyway. He lives upstairs.”

“Move all his stuff to the empty downstairs apartment,” I said wearily. “They’re just alike. Tell all the officers they have to show up and help. Don’t ask Claude if that’s what he wants. Just get it done.”

Carrie looked at me with some amazement. “All right,” she said slowly.

Carrie had suggested I use a cane for a few days until the swelling and pain in my leg subsided, and I was glad to have the one she loaned me. Marshall came the same evening after she’d left, and he was horrified to see me hobble. He brought three movies he’d taped off HBO for me to watch, and a takeout meal from a local restaurant. I was glad of both. Thinking and standing were not things I wanted to do. When Marshall left, I noticed that he walked next door to the apartments. I figured he was going to see Becca Whitley. I didn’t care.

To my amazement, Janet Shook dropped by about lunchtime on Sunday. I’d never seen Janet in a dress before, but she’d been to church and was all decked out in a deep blue dress that looked very nice. She had made me a pot of stew and a loaf of bread, and while she was there she helped me shave my legs and wash my hair properly, two problems that had been bothering me to the point of distraction.

When I went back to work Monday, I can’t say I did a good job, but I did my best: That would have to do. I would do extra things, I promised myself, to atone for leaving some chores not well accomplished this time.

I tried all day to save some energy, and at the end of it I drove to the hospital. I was really hurting by then, but I knew if I went home first and took a pain pill I wouldn’t persuade myself to go back out. I was looking forward to taking the strongest ones, the ones Carrie had said to take if I knew I wasn’t going anywhere.

I had some flowers in a bud vase in my right hand, and my cane in my left, so I was glad the doors were automatic. I made my way to Claude’s room, resting here and there. I couldn’t knock with both hands occupied, so I called out through the partially open door, “Claude? Can I come in?”

“Lily? Sure.” At least he seemed to be hearing better.

I butted the door open with my head and hobbled in.

“Damn, girl, I better move over and let you in with me,” he said wearily.

I was shocked when I had a good look at Claude. His face was not its normal healthy color, and his hair was spiky. He was shaven, at least. His right leg and his right arm were engulfed in bandages and casts. He had visibly lost weight.

To my horror, I felt tears crawling down my cheeks.

“Didn’t know I looked that bad,” Claude murmured.

“I just thought… when I saw you that night… I thought you were gone.”

“I hear you did me a favor.”

“You’ve done plenty for me.”

“Let’s call us even, then. No more rescuing each other.”

“Sounds good.”

I sank into the chair by the bed. I felt like hell.

Carrie trotted in then, moving fast as always, her professional face on.

“Two-for-one visit,” she remarked. “I just came to check in on you, Claude, before I leave for the day.”

Claude smiled at her. Carrie suddenly looked more like a woman than a doctor. I felt extra.

“I ain’t feeling as bad as yesterday,” Claude rumbled. “You get on out of here and get some rest, or you’ll end up looking as ragged as Lily. And she hasn’t been at work all day.”

“Yes, I have.”

They both looked at me like I was the biggest fool they’d ever encountered. I could feel my face hardening defensively.

“Lily, you’ll end up back in bed if you don’t rest,” Carrie said, keeping her voice even though it obviously cost her a great deal of self-control.

“I’ve got to go,” I said, hauling myself up with an effort I didn’t want to show. I had counted on sitting longer before I walked back out to my car.

I hobbled out, trying not to limp, failing, getting angry and sad.

For the first time in years, as I stood at the front doors of the hospital and looked at how far away my car was parked, I wanted someone to make my life easier. I had even thought of calling my parents and asking for help, but I hadn’t asked them for anything for so long that I’d gotten out of the habit. They would have come, I knew. But they’d have had to book a room at the motel on the bypass, they’d have looked at everything in my house and gotten a close-up of my life. It seemed more trouble, finally, than the help was worth. And I knew from their letters that my sister Serena was heavily involved in engagement parties and showers; the wedding would be just after Christmas. Serena would resent me even more than she already did if I horned in on her spotlight.

Well, this was too close to wallowing in self-pity. I jerked my shoulders straight. I set my eyes on my car. I gripped the cane and started walking.

Two nights later I got an unexpected summons.

The phone rang when I’d finally gotten warm and comfortable, curled up in my double recliner watching TV, covered by an afghan my grandmother had crocheted for me. When the shrill of the bell jolted me into awareness, I realized I hadn’t registered anything I was supposed to be watching. I stretched out a hand to lift the receiver.

“Miss Bard?” An old voice, an empress’s voice.

“Yes.”

“This is Arnita Winthrop. I wonder if you could come by the house. I would surely like to talk to you.”

“When did you have in mind?”

“Well, young woman, would now be inconvenient for you? I know you’re a working woman, and I’m sure you’re mighty tired by the evening…”

I was still dressed. I hadn’t taken a pain pill. Tonight would be as good a time as any. Though I could tell my body was healing, since the night of the explosion I’d been gripped by an apathy that I could not shake. It seemed a great deal of trouble to get out again, but that was no good reason to refuse.

“I can come now. Could you tell me what this is about? Are you thinking of replacing your maid?”

“Oh, no. Our Callie is part of our family, Miss Bard. No, there’s something I need to give you.”

“All right. I’ll come.”

“Oh, wonderful! You know where we live? The white house on Partridge Road?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“We’ll see you in a few minutes, then.”

I hung up. After powdering my nose I got my better coat from the closet, the one with no stains or holes, and buttons instead of a zipper. It was all I had left. I was tired, so I took the cane, though I’d managed that day without it.

In a few minutes, I was a little out of town but still within the city limits at the white house on Partridge Road. House was a belittling term to apply to the senior Winthrops’ dwelling. Mansion or estate would be more accurate. I turned onto the semicircular drive that swept opulently through a huge front yard. The drive was illuminated by lampposts stationed at intervals on either side of the paved surface. Pools of water from an afternoon shower glistened with reflected light.

I went up the shallow front steps as quickly as I could. The wind was biting through my coat and jeans. I limped across the stone flags of the front portico, too cold to even think about standing back to admire the facade of the house. I punched the doorbell.

Mrs. Winthrop opened the door herself. I had to look down at her. I judged Arnita Winthrop to be in her midseventies. She was beautifully turned out in chestnut brown, which made the rich white of her hair glow. She was lightly made up, and her nails were manicured and coated in clear polish. Her earrings would have paid six months’ electric bills for my house. She was absolutely charming.

“Come in, come in, it’s freezing out there!” As I stepped past her into the glowing warmth of the entrance hall, she took my hand and clasped it lightly and briefly.

“I’m so glad to meet you at last,” she said with a smile. She glanced at my cane and courteously did not mention it.

Her southern accent, laced with the flat vowels of southern Arkansas, was the thickest I’d heard in years. It made everything she said sound warm and homey.

“Marie talked about you all the time,” Mrs. Winthrop continued. “You were so helpful to her, and she thought so highly of you.”

“I liked her.”

“Here, let me take your coat.” To my discomfort, Mrs. Winthrop eased the coat off my shoulders and hung it in a convenient closet. “Now, come on in the family room. My husband and son are in there, having a drink.”

The family room, predictably, was as large as the ground floor of the Shakespeare Garden Apartments. I had never seen a room that amounted to an investment. There were animal heads on the dark paneling, which had never been on sale at Home Depot. The colors in the upholstery and wallpaper were deep and rich. On top of the wall-to-wall was a rug that I could have stared at for hours, its pattern was so intricate and beautiful.

The two men in the room weren’t nearly as appealing.

Howell Winthrop, Sr., was a little rat terrier of a man, with thin gray hair and a thin sharp face and an alert expression. He was wearing a suit and tie, and looked as if that was his casual wear. I thought he was older than his wife, perhaps eighty. Howell Jr. looked much less at ease than his father; in fact, he looked terrible.

“Honey, this is Lily Bard,” Arnita Winthrop said as if her husband should be happy to hear it. At least her equal in manners, he tried to look delighted I’d come, and he and his son both rose without hesitation.

“Pleased to meet you, young lady,” the older man said, and I could hear his age in his voice. “I’ve heard a lot of nice things about you.” But his tone said “interesting stories” rather than “nice things.”

Howell Jr. and I nodded at each other. I hadn’t seen Howell since the day of the break-in. He was giving me the strangest, most intense look. I could see he was trying to transfer some thought directly to my brain.

This was becoming more complex by the second. Now, what might he want me to say, or not say? And why? Could I manage to care?

“Lily and I will just go into the other room for a minute,” Arnita Winthrop excused us. Underneath her courtesy and the mask of her expensive turnout, I realized the older woman was anxious. Very anxious. That made three of us.

Her husband looked cool as a cucumber.

“Now, sugar, wait a minute,” Howell Sr. said, with the greatest good nature. “You can’t just whisk the prettiest woman I’ve seen in ages out of the room before I have a chance to get a good look at her.”

“Oh, you!” said Arnita with an excellent imitation of perfect good humor. She relaxed visibly. “Sit down, then, Miss Bard.” She set an example by easing into the couch opposite the two men, who were in higher wing chairs. I had to comply or look like a clod.

I was sorry I’d come. I wanted to go home.

“Miss Bard, weren’t you in the church during the explosion, and at my son’s house at the time of this very mysterious break-in?”

My senses went on full alert. The older Winthrop knew full well I had been there.

“Yes.”

He waited a second for me to say more, saw I wasn’t going to.

“Oh my goodness,” Arnita murmured. “I know you were scared to death.”

I cocked an eyebrow.

Howell Jr.‘s forehead was beaded with sweat.

I didn’t want to talk about the church. “Actually, I didn’t know anyone was breaking into the house until he left. I probably scared him more than he scared me.” I hoped making the burglar singular would make me sound more ignorant. Howell Jr. looked off at a stag’s head, but I could read relief in his posture. I’d given the correct response.

Looking at the three other people in the room, I had the strangest feeling: It seemed so unlikely that I was in this house, in their company. It was like falling down the rabbit’s hole in Alice in Wonderland. I wondered if I was suffering some strange aftereffect of the explosion.

Howell Sr. found my last remark quite amusing. “You got any idea what they were after, young lady? You even know if they were niggers or whites?”

I was used to taking people in their context, but I felt my back stiffen and probably my face, too. I felt Howell Sr.‘s tone was contemptuous and hectoring. But if I’d been tempted to upbraid the old man, that temptation passed from me when I saw the anxiety in my hostess’s face.

“No,” I said.

“My goodness, a woman of few words, ain’t that unusual,” Howell Sr. cackled. But his faded blue eyes were not amused. The oldest living Winthrop was used to more respect.

“A break-in in broad daylight,” Arnita said, shaking her head at the evils of the modern world. “I can’t think what was going through their minds.”

“Oh, Mama,” said her son, “they could have taken the VCRs and the camcorder and even the television sets and gotten enough money to buy drugs for days.”

“I guess you’re right.” Arnita shook her head in dismay. “The world’s just not getting any better.”

It seemed a strange point to make with me, but perhaps the older Winthrops were the only two people in Shakespeare who didn’t know my history.

“Honey, Miss Bard knows how bad the world is,” her husband said, his voice sad. “Her past, and this terrible bombing…”

“Oh, my dear! Forgive me, I would never want to-”

“It’s all right,” I said, unable to keep the weariness from my voice.

“How’s your leg, Miss Bard?” the old man asked. He sounded just as tired as I was. “And I understand you lost part of your ear?”

“Not the important part,” I said. “And my leg is better.”

All the Winthrops made commiserating noises.

Arnita seized the ensuing pause to tell her husband and son firmly that she and I had something to discuss, and I heaved myself to my feet to follow her erect back down a hall to a smaller room that appeared to be Arnita’s own little sitting room. It was decorated in off-white, beige, and peach, and all the furniture was scaled down for Arnita Winthrop’s small body.

Again I was ensconced on a comfortable sofa, again Arnita sat, too, and she got down to business.

“Lily, if I may call you that, I have something of Marie’s to give you.”

I digested that in silence. Marie hadn’t had much at all, and I’d assumed Chuck would be handling whatever little odds and ends of business Marie had left to be completed. I nodded at Arnita to indicate she could continue when she chose.

“You came by on days you weren’t supposed to work at Marie’s.”

I looked off. That was no one’s concern.

“She appreciated it more than you will realize until you get old yourself, Lily.”

“I liked her.” I looked at an oil painting of the three Winthrop grandchildren. Somehow it felt even odder seeing Bobo’s young face in these unfamiliar surroundings. Amber Jean looked more like her mother in the picture than she did in the flesh. Howell Three looked gangly and charming.

“Of course, Marie was always conscious that she didn’t have much, and Chuck was helping her live in a tolerable way.”

“As he damn well ought to,” I said flatly.

Our eyes met. “We certainly agree on that,” Arnita said, her voice dry. I almost found myself liking her. “The point is, Marie couldn’t leave you money to thank you for your kindness to her, so she told me she wanted you to have this little ring. No strings. You can sell it or wear it, whatever.”

Arnita Winthrop held out a shabby brown velvet ring box.

I took it, opened it. Inside was a ring so pretty and feminine that I smiled involuntarily. It was designed to look like a flower, the petals formed of pinkish opals, the center a pearl circled by tiny diamond chips. There were two leaves, suggested by two dark green stones, which of course were not real emeralds.

“It’s a pretty little thing, isn’t it?” my hostess said gently.

“Oh, yes,” I said. But even as I spoke, it was occurring to me that I didn’t remember seeing the worn velvet box among Marie’s things, and I’d been familiar with her belongings for years. I could tell my smile was fading. Marie could have concealed it somewhere clever, I supposed, but still…

“What’s the matter?” Arnita leaned forward to look at my face, her own deeply concerned.

“Nothing,” I said, quite automatically hiding my worry. “I’m glad to have it to remember her by, if you’re sure that’s what she wanted.” I hesitated. “I can’t recollect ever seeing Marie wear this ring.”

“She didn’t, for years, thought it looked too young for an old wrinkled woman like the ones we’d turned into,” said Arnita, with a comic grimace.

“Thanks,” I said, there being nothing else to do that I could think of. I stood and pulled my car keys out of my pocket.

Arnita looked a bit startled.

“Well, good night,” I said, seeing I’d been too abrupt.

“Good night, Lily.” The older woman rose, pushing a little on the arms of her chair. “Let me see you out and get your coat.”

I protested, but she was adamant about fulfilling the forms of courtesy. She opened the beautiful doors to the family room so I was obliged to say good-bye to Howells Sr. and Jr. I hadn’t brought a purse so the ring box was in my hand. Howell Jr.‘s eyes registered it, and suddenly he turned white.

Then his eyes met mine, and he looked as though he were going to be sick. I was bewildered, and I am sure I looked it.

What was wrong with these people?

I said the minimum courtesy demanded, and I left the room, taking my coat from Arnita at the door. She saw me to the porch and stood there while I climbed into my car. She waved, called out admonitions to drive carefully on the wet streets, thanked me for coming, hoped she would see me again soon. At last she closed her doors behind her.

I shook my head as I turned my keys in the ignition, switched on my headlights. Then my head jerked, following a movement I’d caught out of the corner of my eye. I was out of the car as quickly as I could manage, staring through the dark shapes of the bushes lining the drive, trying to figure out what I’d just seen. I wasn’t about to run from the lamplight illuminating the drive into that outer darkness, and I wasn’t really sure that I’d seen an actual living thing. Maybe it had been shadows shifting as I turned on my lights. Maybe it had been a dog or cat. As I began to ease down the drive, I scanned the shrubbery for movement, but I saw nothing, nothing at all.

My summons and visit to the Winthrop mansion had been peculiar and strangely off-kilter, and I was tempted to think over the problems this family obviously had. But getting involved in the internecine squabbles of the most powerful family in the county was no way to earn a living. Head low, go forward; I needed to go home and write that a hundred times.

I had a bad feeling I was already enmeshed in more trouble than I could imagine.

The next day was so normal it was a relief. Though I couldn’t stop myself from looking side to side when I was out driving from one job to another, at least I didn’t have that jumpy feeling that something-or someone-was about to leap out in front of me in challenge.

The assorted minor bruises on my face and arms had faded to a dusty eggplant shade, and the worse ones on my back were at least less painful. My leg felt much better. The cut on my scalp was almost healed and the notch in my ear was somewhat less disgusting.

I had no appetite for lunch, so after eating a piece of fruit at home I decided to go make a necessary purchase, one I’d been putting off for a few days. My workout gloves were falling apart at the seams, literally. Maybe if I got new gloves, I would go back to Body Time. I hadn’t worked out or been to karate since the explosion. I knew I was hardly up to my former routine, but I could be doing abdominal crunches or some biceps work. All my energy seemed to be absorbed in just making my body get through the movements of life, and sometimes I swear I had to remind myself to breathe, it felt like so much trouble. New gloves, a little treat, might set me back on my former track.

Since my street is the bottom stroke of a U-shaped dead end, I had to take a circuitous route to Winthrop Sporting Goods. If I’d wanted to walk up the hill and cross the railroad tracks behind my house, I’d have reached the chain-link fence enclosing the huge back lot of Winthrop Lumber and Supply, which abutted directly onto the equally huge fenced back lot of the sporting goods store. But the fences and the rough ground made walking impractical, especially in my weakened state, so I had to make a ten-minute drive that routed me through a portion of downtown Shakespeare, then off to the right on Finley.

I had too much time to think as I drove, and was scowling when I walked in the front door of Winthrop Sporting Goods. Darcy Orchard looked up, flushed nearly the color of the red store sweatshirt, and flinched in exaggerated terror as I came in.

“You better smile, girl!” he called. “You gonna crack any mirror if you walk by.”

I looked around me. I was always staggered by the sheer size and complexity of Winthrop’s. The building had been remodeled inside any number of times, until now it consisted of a huge central cavern with specialty rooms lining the walls on either side of the store. There was a room for rifles, and one for bows-bow hunting is very popular in Shakespeare. There was a room over on the left wall just for fishing paraphernalia, and another for camping accessories. There was at least an acre of open yard out back for jet skis, boats, deer stands, and four-wheelers.

But the main room was full of everything else. There were high racks of camouflage gear in every conceivable shade of green and brown, in sizes down to infant sleepers. There were hunting caps, and insulated socks, and special gloves, and thermoses, and coolers. Life vests screamed in neon orange, deer corn was piled in fifty-pound bags, and oars were arranged in upright racks. There was a display of bottles containing fluids that made you smell like raccoon pee or a doe in heat or a skunk.

There were other clothes for every sport, even a small section for skiing outfits, since the wealthy of Shakespeare went to Colorado when the snow was deep. Every time I came to Winthrop’s, it was to be amazed all over again that a place this size could thrive in a town as small as Shakespeare. But the surrounding area was known for its hunting, and sportsmen came from all over the region to the numerous hunting camps in the deep woods. Engaged couples were known to keep a list of desirable gifts hanging behind the counter. Whole families came from Little Rock to shop at Winthrop Sporting Goods, and there had been a rumor Howell Jr. was going to start sending out a catalog.

I realized as I looked around that the Winthrops must be incredibly rich, on paper at least. I’d seen the evidence in the size of the houses the family lived in, their clothes and jewelry and toys: But seeing the vastness of the store, thinking of the huge lumber and home supply store right next to this place, remembering all the fences I’d seen across areas containing working oil wells marked Winthrop oil, no entrance, the amount of money the family must have in the bank just winded me.

Well, I didn’t want it. All I wanted was gloves.

I would have to safari into the camouflage jungle to reach the little area I wanted, a far hike to the rear if I remembered the store layout correctly. Darcy Orchard seemed to feel I wanted his company, and when he found out what I needed he led me down the narrow middle aisle and veered to the left. I lifted a hand to Jim Box, who was explaining to a teenager why he needed a gun case that would float. The young woman who worked in boating accessories came up and gave me a half-hug and asked about my leg, and one of the men who’d worked in the store for over twenty years- his sweatshirt said so-patted me on the back in the friendliest way, though I hadn’t a clue who he was. These were nice people, and their kindness and their courtesy in not asking questions reminded me of why I’d liked Shakespeare in the first place.

“You can meet the new guy, if you haven’t already. He’s ‘bout as mean as you,” Darcy said in that jocular tone some men reserve for insults they don’t want you to take them up on. I suddenly remembered who the new man was, suddenly and for the first time realized… Just as a jolt of alarm went through me, I made myself pay attention to Darcy.

Darcy’s voice had been offhand, but something in his tone had made the hair on my neck stand up. “You sure turn up in funny places,” he said now. “You in the Winthrop house when it’s not your day to work, you in the church when everyone going to that meeting is black.”

“Did your wife tell you everything she was going to do, Darcy?”

I recalled he been married for six years or so, though he’d been divorced as long as I’d known him.

“My wife had more plans than the Pentagon,” Darcy said grimly, but he seemed to relax.

We rounded a corner consisting of men’s jumpsuits (very popular in Shakespeare) which led us into the small open area devoted to workout equipment and workout clothes.

Reading the instructions for an adominal exerciser gadget, with a skeptical sideways pull to his lips, was the detective, Black Ponytail. I’d just figured out who I was going to see, but he didn’t have any warning. I admired the calm with which he took me in. His hands tightened on the brochure, but that was the only outward sign that we weren’t seeing each other for the first time.

“Lily, this is Jared Fletcher,” Darcy said. “He’s got those abs of steel, don’t you, Jared?”

His name wasn’t Jared. I knew him now. He’d had the same skeptical look in the newspaper photos. I could feel my breath shorten.

“Jared, this is Lily, the toughest woman in Shakespeare.” Darcy completed the introduction with relish. “You two ought to hit it off great.”

Even Darcy seemed to realize there was something tense in the ensuing silence.

“You two already know each other?” he asked, his beige head turning from me to “Jared” and back again.

“I’ve seen Lily at the gym,” the new man said easily. “But we’ve never actually met.”

“Oh, sure.” Darcy’s face cleared. “I’ll leave you two to it, then. Jared, Miss Lily here needs herself some new gloves. Might oughta sell her some body armor, too, since she seems to always be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“What size?” the dark man asked as Darcy reluctantly went back to his work area.

I held out my hand. “What do you think?” I asked, meeting his eyes.

He took my hand with his right and stepped closer to me. This area of the store seemed isolated and silent, suddenly, though I knew there were people just through the dense racks of clothes. His other hand reached up to touch the bruise on my forehead. Among my other injuries, the place he’d bopped me had paled into insignificance.

“Sorry,” he said. He was so close I was afraid he could hear my pulse. I laid my finger on his wrist. I felt his blood leap. The apathy that had lain on my shoulders like a fog seemed to be lifting.

“Gloves,” I reminded him. My voice was scratchy.

“Right,” he said, stepping away. He looked around him like the new employee he was. “Jared” hadn’t had much time to get acclimated.

“There,” I pointed. “Women’s mediums?”

“We have some in black,” he said.

“Black is okay.”

He pulled down a plastic container and popped it open. “You better try them on.”

Again I held out my hand, and he wriggled the glove over my fingers, wrapping the strap around my wrist and Velcroing it snugly. I flexed my fingers, made a fist, looked at him. He smiled, and deep arcs appeared on each side of his mouth. The smile changed him totally, threw me off balance.

“Don’t hit me here. Save it for later,” he murmured. “You’re quite a fighter.” I remembered I’d bitten him on the ear. I looked at it. It looked better than mine.

It had been a long time since I’d met someone new. It had been even longer since I’d met someone who apparently didn’t know who I was.

“Lived here long?” he asked, as if we’d just seen each other for the first time and he was introducing a standard conversational gambit. I looked down at the glove on my right hand, considered the fit.

“Over four years,” I said, holding out my left hand.

“And you have your own maid service?”

“I clean houses and run errands,” I said a little sharply. “I work by myself.”

His fingers stroked my hand as he pulled the other glove on.

“Do you think they’re too tight?” I asked, pantomiming a seiken zuki strike to get the feel of the glove. I was able to curl my fingers more easily than I’d thought. I practiced a hammer fist strike. I’d looked at the price tag. The gloves were very expensive, and I’d better be sure they suited me. I picked up one of the twenty-pound barbells, gripped it, raised it over my head. It was a very unpleasant surprise to find it felt heavy.

“They’ll loosen a little. Lily is a pretty name.”

I shot him a look.

He looked back steadily. “I know you live next to my apartment building. But if I wanted to call you, how are you listed in the phone book?”

As if he couldn’t ask Howell. Or anyone else in town, for that matter. I put down the barbell very gently. I’d enjoyed a few minutes of feeling normal.

“Bard,” I said. “My name is Lily Bard.” I knew he would remember.

Because I didn’t want to see the look on his face, I took the package the gloves had come in from his suddenly still hands, walked out of the area stripping off the gloves. I paid for them at the front counter, exchanging a few idle words with Al Ferrar, a big, friendly redheaded man whose fingers seemed too large to punch the cash register keys. The hunting bows were behind him, and I stared at them as he rang up the purchase. The arrowheads hung in bubble containers on the wall behind him, some so wickedly sharp, like four razors joined together, that I could hardly believe the user wouldn’t be frightened to fit them on the shafts. When Al handed me the plastic bag with the gloves in it, I stared at him blankly for a minute and then left the store.

I stood looking up into the sky when I’d reached my car, lost in the gray emptiness of an overcast November day. Wet leaves had piled up in the lower parts of the parking lot. It was going to rain again that evening, the weatherman had predicted. I heard footsteps behind me. The apathy washed back over me, a wave that pulled me under. I was so tired I could scarcely move. I wished the coming scene to be over and done with, wished I could go somewhere else while it was accomplished.

“Why’d you run out like that?”

“You’d better go back to your area, or you’ll blow your cover.”

“I’m working,” he said harshly.

“Night and day. At the store and elsewhere, Jack.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Look at me, dammit.”

It would have seemed too affected not to, so I stopped looking at the bleak sky and looked instead at Jack Leeds’s bleak face.

“I get a hard-on every time I see you,” he said.

“Try sending me roses. It’s a little more subtle.”

He gazed off at a corner of the asphalt. He’d come out without a jacket. I was meanly glad to see him shiver.

“OK. I’ll start over,” he said through gritted teeth. “You know I’m working, and you know what I am.”

He waited for me to nod. To get it over with, I did.

“I am not seeing anyone right now. I’ve been divorced twice, but you may remember that from the papers.”

I leaned against my car, feeling far away, glad to be there.

With the speed of a snake, he ran his hand under my jacket and T-shirt, placing it flat on my ribs. I gasped and flinched, but his hand stayed there, warm and firm.

“Move your hand,” I said, my voice ragged.

“Got your attention. Listen to me. This job in Shakespeare will come to an end. I want to see you then.”

I shivered, standing stock-still, rigid, taken by surprise. His fingers moved against my skin, touching the scars gently. A silver pickup pulled into the space two vehicles away and the driver gave us a curious look. I chopped down on Jack Leeds’s wrist, knocking his hand from its intimate lodgment.

“I have to go to work, Jared,” I said numbly, and got in my car and backed up, avoiding looking at him again.

Carrie was coming to supper tonight and I thought about what I’d fix, not one of my usual frozen-ahead dishes that I prepared on Sundays to carry me through the week. Maybe fettucini with ham… or chili would be good, on such a chilly gray day, but I didn’t have enough time to let it simmer.

Keeping my thoughts to a simple minimum, I managed my afternoon well. It was a relief to go home, to allow myself ten minutes in my favorite chair reading a news magazine. Then I set to work, tossing a salad, preparing the fettucini, heating some garlic bread, chopping the ham. When Carrie knocked on the front door, I was ready.

“Those morons at the hospital!” she said, sliding out of her coat, tossing her gloves on the table.

“Hello to you, too.”

“You’d think they could see the handwriting on the wall. Everyone else can.” The tiny Shakespeare Hospital was in perpetual crisis trying to maintain its accreditation, with no adequate budget to supply its lacks, which were legion.

I let Carrie bear the brunt of the conversation, which she seemed quite willing to do. There were few people Carrie could talk to, as a woman and a doctor and an outlander from northern Arkansas. I knew from previous talks with Carrie that she had gotten a loan to attend medical school. The terms of the loan stipulated that she had to go to somewhere other doctors didn’t want to go and stay there for four years; and other doctors didn’t want to go to Shakespeare. Carrie was one of four local GPs, who all made a decent living, but for more specialized medical care Shakespeareans had to travel to Montrose, or in dire need, Little Rock.

“Where’d you get the ring?” Carrie asked suddenly.

I’d been feeling a warm hand on my skin. It took me a second to reorient.

“The older Mrs. Winthrop says Marie Hofstettler left me this,” I told Carrie.

“It’s a pretty ring,” she said. “Can I see it?”

I slid the ring off and handed it to Carrie. I thought of my strange visit to the Winthrop house the night before, the pallor of Howell Winthrop’s face as he saw the ring box in my hand.

Some things that were supposed to be free actually came mighty expensive. I wondered if this little ring was one of them.

Then I wondered why that thought had crossed my mind.

I took the ring back from Carrie and slid it on my right hand, then took it back off and dropped it in my pocket. Carrie raised her thick dark brows, but didn’t say anything.

We washed the dishes, talking in a companionable way of whatever crossed our minds: the price of milk, the vagaries of dealing with the public, the onset of hunting season (which would have a certain impact on Carrie’s job and mine, since hunting engendered both injuries and dirt galore), and the recuperation of Claude, which continued at too slow a pace to suit him, and, I suspected, Carrie. She told me she’d gotten the green light to move Claude from an upstairs to a downstairs apartment, but that he wanted to be on the scene to direct the move, so a date hadn’t been set yet.

When Carrie left, it was a little later than usual, and I was worn out. I took a quick shower, put on my favorite blue nightgown, laid out my clothes for the next morning. I went through my nightly routine of checking the locks at the windows and doors. I felt more relaxed, more content. Tomorrow might be a regular day.