"I'll tell you in the car. Let's go."

Seated in the car beside him, I kept glancing his way but he was intent on driving. "Well?" I finally asked.

"Lieutenant Peavey wants to talk to you."

"Again? He's already talked to me, and you said he was satisfied that I didn't bounce those checks."

"I get the feeling that he's not so sure now." Sam still hadn't looked me full in the eye, concentrating as he was on driving.

"Well, what's changed his mind? Talk to me, Sam. What's going on?" By this time, I was clutching my pocketbook with one hand and the armrest with the other.

Sam pulled into a parking place beside the sheriff 's office and turned off the ignition. He sighed and finally looked at me. "I don't know. The lieutenant called me a while ago while I was working at my house. Said something's come up and he wanted to know how much contact you've had over the past few weeks with Richard Stroud."

"Richard Stroud!" I almost screeched the name. "I've had no contact with him. The man's been in prison, as Lieutenant Peavey ought to know because he put him there. And as far as I know, he's still there, except . . ." I slumped back against the front seat of the car, recalling Mildred's guess as to the ident.i.ty of the body in the toolshed. "They have a positive identification, don't they?"

Sam rested his hands on the steering wheel, gazing out the windshield between them as if the brick wall of the sheriff 's office was a thing of intense interest. "How long have you known?"

"Known what?"

"That it was Stroud."

"I haven't known! It was Mildred who made a wild guess, which I have not repeated except to you, because I didn't know for sure and I didn't want to spread gossip. Besides, I've had my mind on a few other things here lately, if you haven't noticed, and simply have not had time for useless speculation." I turned sideways on the seat and glared at him. "Now look, Sam, if you have something to say, just say it."

"They found that fifth check of yours, folded up and stuck way down in the watch pocket of his pants. It's made out to Stroud and signed by you, but without an amount filled in. It all looks like your handwriting, Julia."

"Well, it wasn't! I've never written a check to him. I haven't laid eyes on that man since the day he was arrested, and it flies all over me that you think I have."

Sam hadn't looked at me for some little while, but at that moment, he did, his deep blue eyes filled with a ton of hurt. "What about the little matter of a check for a hundred thousand dollars you gave him before he was arrested?"

"Oh. Well." I took a turn of looking at the sheriff 's brick wall. "There is that. But I didn't want you to know about it."

"They found his records from back when he put himself up as an investment counselor, and there was your name." Sam's face was drawn and he looked tired, and the longer we talked, the sadder he looked. "Didn't you trust me, Julia? Or Binkie?"

"Of course I trusted you. I trusted both of you, and I still do. But let me explain, Sam. Please, let me explain because it's not as bad as it sounds. What happened was that a long-term certificate of deposit matured, one that Wesley Lloyd had in an out-of-town bank that n.o.body, including me, knew about. When the maturity notice came to the house, I intended to give it to Binkie and tell you about it. But, Sam, it was like found money because Richard had been pushing me to transfer the whole estate from Binkie to him, something I wasn't about to do. But because I admired Helen and wanted to help a friend, I invested that money with him. That's all that happened, and it happened years ago and I'd long since given up hope of seeing any of it again. And," I added, searching in my pocketbook for a Kleenex to wipe my eyes, "I didn't want you to know how foolish I'd been."

"He had it down as a payment."

"A payment! For what?" My eyes suddenly dried up as I stared at him with disbelief. "Why in the world would you ask such a thing? What would I be paying him for? I barely knew the man. I did it for Helen's sake, and for no other reason."

"Okay," he said, but there was no warmth in it.

"If you don't believe me, Sam, what do you believe?"

"I don't know, Julia. He had it down as payment for services rendered, and it just looks strange that he was getting money from you both before and after he was in prison . . ."

"He stole that money from me-both times. You yourself showed me how somebody-and it had to have been Richard-had ripped out those checks from my checkbook. He was a crook, Sam, and I got taken in like a lot of others did." I reached out and touched his arm. "I'm telling you the truth, which, I admit, I should've done long ago. But believe me, I did not pay him for any kind of services rendered. I invested with him, thinking I'd learned enough to manage a little money on my own, and I got burned. Binkie put it down as a loss on our tax returns and I thought you'd ask about it, but you never did so I thought . . . Well, I don't know what I thought."

"We better go in," he said, opening the car door.

"Sam, wait," I said, reaching for him again. "Please. I don't want to go in there with you like this. I need you to understand and not be hurt. I didn't mean to hurt you-I wouldn't hurt you for the world. Just . . . let's just wait a few more minutes."

"He's waiting for us." Sam walked around the car and opened my door. I climbed out, hoping that that gesture of courtesy portended a change of att.i.tude. It hadn't, for he took my arm without a word and walked with me to see Lieutenant Peavey.

Chapter 23.

Who would've thought that Lieutenant Peavey would be more receptive to my explanations than Sam had been? Sam had sat beside me in front of the lieutenant's desk, acting more like my hired lawyer than my husband. In fact, there had been a decided chill radiating from him aimed in my direction.

In response to Lieutenant Peavey's questions, instead of "Mrs. Murdoch did not. . . ," Sam would say, "Mrs. Murdoch says she did not . . . ," and so forth. Finally, I decided to answer for myself, realizing that my attorney did not have his whole heart invested in the interview, and I told the lieutenant everything. And I mean everything: that I'd invested with Richard Stroud for charitable reasons, how I'd lost the money and never been repaid, why I had not sued to get it back, how checks had been stolen from the center of my checkbook because I stopped to get gas-he got a little confused at that, so I had to explain how I'd not been able to find the Texaco card and had dumped everything out, obviously failing to replace the checkbook, so that it had been left lying in plain sight on the car seat for Richard Stroud to come along and find. I told him that obviously Richard had copies of my signature on investment papers during our earlier dealings, so he had something to go by when he forged my checks more recently.

"And, Lieutenant Peavey," I summed up, "I a.s.sure you that I have not seen Richard Stroud since we were both at a certain party given by Mrs. Allen on the same day he was arrested some few years ago. And furthermore, I've had no contact with him at any point in time since then. I didn't know he was out of prison, I didn't know he was back in town, I don't know what he was doing in Miss Petty's toolshed, and I don't know why he died there." I gave a firm nod of summation, then added, "Or why he was killed there, as the case may be."

Sam gave me a sharp glance as Lieutenant Peavey asked, "Why do you say killed?"

The whole interview was beginning to get on my nerves. "Because," I said, "I don't know how he died, and because, as Lillian says, it's not exactly a natural death when you do it in a toolshed."

"Well," Lieutenant Peavey said, gathering up papers and stacking them neatly before putting them aside. "As it happens, it was a natural death in an unnatural place. The autopsy confirmed that he had a heart attack, which was probably intensified by hypothermia. That information is being released today."

I had the wild notion of nudging Sam and saying, "At least you can't lay that at my doorstep." But I didn't. I was afraid to touch him, for he was still engulfed in a coldness that kept him stiff and unsmiling.

After signing some papers that transcribed my answers to Lieutenant Peavey's questions, Sam and I walked out to the car. As gentlemanly as ever, he helped me into the front seat, then drove home in silence. And the longer it went on, the more anger I could feel welling up in me. I wanted to shout, "Lieutenant Peavey, who never believes anybody, believes me. Why can't you?"

But again, I didn't. Because the fact of the matter was, I couldn't figure out why Sam was so put out with me. So I had thrown away a hundred thousand dollars. I hadn't, by any means, done it intentionally, for it had been a goodwill gesture toward Helen, the kind of gesture I knew Sam had made to other people under different circ.u.mstances. He'd just been smart enough to distinguish well-intentioned people from crooks.

Or was he mad at me for not first discussing it with him? Or at least with Binkie? Yet he was always telling me that it was my money and that I had a say in how it was invested or spent. But when, on my own, I took a step-a wrong one, as it turned out-he closed up shop and would hardly look at me.

Or could it be, I suddenly thought as he turned the car into our driveway, that he suspected something had been going on between Richard and me? I almost laughed aloud-a decidedly unhelpful action, given his current state of mind if I'd actually done it.

Surely he couldn't think that. For one thing, Richard was, or had been, some few years younger than I was, and as far as I had known, he'd been happy with Helen and had never strayed-certainly not in my direction. There'd never been a smidgen of gossip about him. Well, except for his various business ventures, the last of which landed him in jail. There'd been plenty of gossip about that, nearly killing Helen with shame in the process.

No, I couldn't figure out why Sam was so distant and so silent and so hurt. I had wounded him deeply, that was plain, but I didn't even know what to apologize for. So I decided to issue a blanket apology and hope it would cover everything.

As he pulled out the keys and started to open the car door, I said, "Sam, I'm sorry. I am sorry for anything and everything I've done or said or even thought, if any of it hurt you. You know I'd never deliberately and with malice aforethought do anything to upset you, so I ask you to forgive me for whatever it is that has cut me off from you." I began to choke up, for he didn't immediately respond. "Please say you forgive me, or at least tell me what's wrong so I can correct it."

I didn't think he was going to answer, yet he stayed in the car and finally said, "You were awfully eager to go to Thurlow's the other night."

"Thurlow's?" I looked up with a frown. "When?"

"The night they found Stroud's body."

"Why, Sam, I was worried about Lloyd. I was going to look for him, but you went instead."

"Yes, but that didn't stop you. You went anyway, and what were you doing with Thurlow that kept you away for so long?"

"Wait a minute!" I said, thoroughly confused by this new tack and more than a little agitated by it. "Wait just a minute. Is this about Richard Stroud or Thurlow Jones?"

"Take your pick." He slid out of the car, stood by the door for a moment, then leaned down and said, "I think we need some thinking time. I'll be staying over at my house for a few days." And he closed the door and walked off through the backyard toward his house, leaving me sitting alone in the car, dazed by such an unexpected turn of events.

Stunned, I sat watching as he walked around patches of snow, going farther and farther away until he brushed past overgrown forsythia bushes to unlatch the gate that led out of the backyard onto the sidewalk. I watched his black overcoat grow smaller as he continued on his way until he turned a corner and was gone.

A wave of desolation filled the car, almost suffocating in its intensity. My head slumped down to my chest and a ringing in my head blocked out every thought except one: Sam had left me. I wanted to cry, but couldn't. I wanted to scream, but wouldn't-somebody might hear me. I wanted to run after him, beg him, plead with him, but I couldn't move.

And that reminded me of what I'd heard about Lois Iverson when her husband told her he wanted a divorce so he could marry his secretary. Everybody was talking about it-the word was that Lois cried and pleaded and begged him not to do it, finally falling to her knees and throwing her arms around his hairy legs-he'd been in tennis shorts when he made his announcement-and threatening suicide if he left.

Well, he went ahead and left, and she's still alive, but it was the consensus of both the book club and the garden club that none of us would degrade ourselves in such a shameful fashion, and that if she wanted to threaten anything, it should've been murder, not suicide, neither of which would've been carried out, but the threat of the former might've made him stop and think.

Mildred had leaned over to me and said, "There's not a man alive I'd kill myself over." Then she'd gotten up and given the report on our last flower show, while I thought admiringly of what Mildred had done when Horace had strayed-she'd given the biggest party the town had ever seen.

And still I sat, feeling the cold seeping in along with the desolation. I was about to freeze but was unable to move as I sat there like a statue in an unheated car. There was a hole in the center of my chest, and what had once been there seemed to be lodged now in my throat. I might never be able to speak again.

I saw Lillian look out the kitchen window, then in a few minutes she opened the door and came to the car, pulling a sweater on as she came. Frowning, she looked in the car window at me, then all around the yard. Finally, she opened the door and slid under the wheel in Sam's seat.

"What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "What you settin' out here freezin' to death for? Where's Mr. Sam?"

"Gone," I croaked, loosening whatever it was that had clogged up my throat. "Oh, Lillian, he's left me."

"Uh-uh, not Mr. Sam. Where'd he go, anyway?"

"His house. So he could think. For several days, he said. Oh, Lillian, he's so mad at me, and I don't know why. Not exactly, anyway. He may not ever be back."

Lillian didn't say a word, just sat there watching me sob and thinking over the situation.

Then out it came. "This is James's fault," she said, "and n.o.body else's."

"James? What's he got to do with it?"

"He always sayin' Mr. Sam b'long in his own house, always sayin' he miss cookin' for him, always tellin' him the house fallin' apart with n.o.body in it. An' all that sorry thing want is to keep his job, so he won't have to go lookin' for another one and have to do some work for a change."

"Why, Lillian, Sam has no plans to let him go. How in the world would what James thinks make Sam leave me?"

"'Cause he there! You think any man leave a good home if he don't have no place to go? No, ma'am, they always have somewhere to go 'fore they up and leave. An' that's what James been doin', always sayin' how he miss havin' life in the house. I bet he down there dancin' a jig right now 'cause Mr. Sam back where he b'long."

"Well, they Lord," I said, leaning my head back against the headrest. "You'd think Richard and Thurlow would be enough. Don't tell me I have to put up with James too."

Chapter 24.

Lillian walked me into the house, where we were met with a silence so unusual that I wondered if everybody else had left me too. I eased into a chair at the table. "It's so quiet."

"Yes'm, Mr. Pickens, he gone; the chil'ren still in school; an' the rest of 'em's in there sleepin'. An' 'bout time too-them babies been cryin' an' cryin'. I tell Miss Etta Mae they got the colic an' we oughta give 'em a sugar t.i.t, but she say the doctor don't want'em to have such as that. But a little sugar an' a drop of bourbon never hurt n.o.body."

I was too done in to worry about giving whiskey to a baby. In fact, if I'd been a drinking woman, I might've had a drop or two myself. As it was, I warmed my hands around a cup of hot chocolate that Lillian had set before me and tried to think what I could do to put things right.

"What am I going to tell Hazel Marie and Lloyd?" I whimpered as Lillian sat at the table, her arms propped in front of her. "To say nothing of everybody else. How does a woman explain being left high and dry?"

"You don't tell 'em nothin'. Mr. Sam, he always over at his house anyway, doin' whatever he do, an' everybody here so busy takin' care of babies, they won't even notice he gone. An' by the time they do, he be back home, an' James can moan an' groan all he want to."

"It's more than James, Lillian, although I understand what you're saying. Sam might've thought twice if he'd had only a motel room to go to." I rubbed my forehead and told her all the ins and outs of my dealings with Richard Stroud, his theft of both money and checks, my sworn statement to Lieutenant Peavey, which he believed but Sam didn't, and having Thurlow Jones thrown in my face as a final straw.

In fact, as I recounted the highlights of the day to her, I got so steamed up that the emptiness in my soul suddenly filled with outrage at the unfairness of it all. "He didn't even let me explain. I mean I did explain, because he was sitting right there listening to it, but it didn't mean a thing to him. He wouldn't even talk to me, Lillian. Just got out of the car and left." By that time I was so hot that I took off my coat and began to pace the kitchen floor. "Let me tell you something. Wesley Lloyd Springer thought he could treat me like a doormat and, well, actually he did. But I've turned the tables on him if he but knew it. When I look back, Lillian, I can hardly believe what I put up with with that man. I don't know another woman who would've tolerated being treated as if she weren't worth noticing, much less listened to or talked to or even looked at. And when I found out what he'd been doing all those years, I promised myself I'd never let a man treat me like that again."

I stopped and waited for her to respond, expecting to be told I should calm down and wait docilely until Sam worked out his problem and came home.

"Well," she finally said, heaving herself up from the table, "maybe it just as well Mr. Sam not here so he don't have to listen to all that. But I think it good you get it all out with jus' me to hear. Mr. Sam, he a fair man, so he'll think it over for a while, an' by that time you be missin' him an' he be missin' you, an' won't n.o.body be mad at n.o.body."

So I was right. She was telling me to just take it. Just wait and take it. Well, I could do that, but Sam had better not make me wait too long, because I was through being the last one in line.

I spent the rest of the afternoon stewing in our temporary bedroom upstairs while I cleaned out every drawer and shelf I could find. I had to stay busy in order to keep my anger level up, because if I ever sat down and thought about it, that awful desolate feeling would unwoman me again.

When Etta Mae asked at the supper table that evening where Sam was, I couldn't get out a word. But Lillian was quick with an answer. "That sorry James cook up some chicken an' dumplings'cause he don't want to work outside in the cold, then he make Mr. Sam feel guilty if he don't stay an' eat it."

"Well, shoo," Hazel Marie said as she balanced a baby on her shoulder with one hand while eating with the other. "Looks like he could've invited us too and given Lillian a break."

"I'm glad he didn't," Lloyd said. "I'd rather have my chicken fried, and Lillian fries chicken better than anybody. And if somebody would pa.s.s it, I'd have another piece."

I'd thought we'd have little to say to one another without Sam there, but the babies and their needs took everybody's attention so that the empty place at the head of the table went almost unnoticed. Except by me, of course, but I was keeping myself at a slow simmer in order to get through the day.

When one baby started screaming-the one who was supposed to be sleeping-Etta Mae dropped a chicken leg on her plate and ran to pick her up. She came back with a red-faced, squalling infant whom Lillian immediately took from her.

"Finish yo' supper, Miss Etta Mae," she said. "This here's Lily Mae an' she need some lovin'." She wrapped the baby tightly, held it close to her ample bosom, and began walking around and through the house until blessed peace descended again.

"She's right, you know," Etta Mae said to Hazel Marie. "It's Lily Mae who's the loudest." She laughed. "You knew what you were doing when you named her after me and Lillian."

Later when I was in bed, the anger at the way Sam had treated me began to seep away, and I was left in the loneliest state I'd ever been in. I couldn't get fixed. I couldn't find a comfortable place. I turned first one way, then the other, but the bed was too empty.

In my mental turmoil, I recalled a poem that Tonya Allen had shown me once when the book club met at Mildred's house. I'd thought at the time that it wasn't much of a poem, but Tonya told me that it was written by a j.a.panese lady a long time ago and wasn't supposed to be long and involved. I wished I could remember all of it, but the part I did kept running through my mind: I sleep. . . . I wake. . . .

How wide