Swahn flipped another page, though he never looked down at the lines written there. "I never told Mrs. Straub how I found out about her affair with you. I suppose she assumed that you betrayed her. For all I know, she still believes that. But after I talked to her, she went to the sheriff anyway. You were only seventeen-probably younger the first time she took you to bed-the underage son of a judge. That woman risked a lot more than money." He leaned forward, the better to study the younger man's face when he asked, "Did she tell the truth? Or did she risk everything to lie for you?… Did she love you, Mr. Hobbs?"

Oren looked at his watch. "Time to go." He brushed pizza crumbs from his jeans as he stood up. Extending a hand down to his host, he helped the man to rise from the floor.

Swahn seemed deeply disappointed. He had dug his hole, his trap of words, and covered it over with twigs and branches, but Oren had not fallen in.

That wasn't an idle question." Swahn's limp worsened as he followed his guest into the foyer. "It doesn't matter if Mrs. Straub lied or not. Just consider what she stood to lose."

Oren opened the front door.

Mr. Hobbs, either this woman loved you-or she needed an alibi as much as you did."

"Thanks for the beer and pizza." Oren stepped outside, escaping. He was walking down the driveway when he glanced back.

Swahn had followed to the edge of the portico and now called out to him, "When you report back to the sheriff, ask him about Mrs. Straub's séances in the woods. The judge and Miss Puce go out there to commune with your dead brother."

Oren stumbled and then moved on.

10

The phantom spiders had been vanquished by the doctor from Saulburg.

While Sarah Winston slept off a sedative in the tower room, her husband and daughter stood outside on the deck. Isabelle focused a telescope on the winding fire road. In the twilight hour, the running lights of vehicles made them visible through the scrub pines of the foothills. These were the witchboard people.

"Yes, it still goes on." Addison Winston swirled the whiskey in his glass. "Since when do you care what happens in Coventry? When was the last time you paid us a visit, Belle? I can't seem to remember the decade."

This failed to make her angry, but he liked a challenge.

She looked up from the telescope. "Those people didn't used to meet in the woods."

"Well, they have for the past fifteen years. And you'd know that if you'd bothered to come home more often. However, your mother so enjoyed the crummy little postcards you sent her from Europe." Addison held the binoculars up to his eyes and wondered why the spookfest in the woods should interest Isabelle. "They're heading up to Evelyn Straub's old cabin. You were just a little girl when she built that place."

As he recalled, Evelyn's last name had been Kominsky back in those days. Well into her thirties then, she had aged out of her showgirl career and snagged an elderly millionaire for a husband. And these days? Well, the woman had gone to hell from the hips up, and her long legs were not on display anymore, but they tended to linger in a man's memory. Evelyn's best quality was the heart of a pirate, and this alone was enough to make her worthy of his admiration.

"Did you ever go to one of the séances?"

"Yes, I took your mother once. Everyone in Coventry went to at least one of them. Some people go back again and again." The witchboard group was an old one, but hardly exclusive. He drained his glass and rattled the ice cubes. "Any other town in America would've formed a bowling league."

The parade of vehicles had almost cleared the pygmy forest of scrub pines. He lifted his wife's binoculars and trained the lenses on one straggler. "You see that jeep following them from a distance? That's the sheriff. Evelyn's place is the only cabin on that fire road. If she catches Cable, he's toast. Legally, he shouldn't be within a half-mile of that séance." Addison 's grin spread wide. "I smell a lawsuit."

The jeep disappeared under a canopy of tall trees as it climbed the mountain into denser foliage. The show was over, and Isabelle abandoned the telescope to lean back against the railing. "How did Mrs. Straub get involved with séances? She doesn't seem the type."

"She's not. However, the lady does have an eye for opportunity, and her pet psychic is worth a fortune."

"How much does she charge?"

"Not one dime," said Addison. "The séances have always been free."

The Coventry Pub was a quiet place. A television set was bolted to the wall over the bar and always tuned to a local news station. By custom of long standing, the bartender never turned on the volume until the sports coverage was nearing airtime. So five steady patrons, sports fans all, were watching an anchorman moving his mouth in silence. They liked their news delivered this way-so restful.

And now they were startled by the image on the screen.

"That looks just like our library," said the bartender, stepping up to the set for a closer look. "Can't be."

A customer squinted and then donned his spectacles. "Sure it is. Hey, Fred, turn on the sound."

The bartender turned the volume up high, and an anchorman's voice boomed out of the box to tell them that this was indeed film coverage of the local library. It was also the scene of a standoff with a fugitive from justice. Unconfirmed was the rumor that the escapee was armed.

One of the men stepped outside for a look at the library two doors down and across the street. He called back to his fellow patrons, "Just a van parked out front and a couple of guys standing around the phone booth, smoking cigarettes." He walked back inside, looked up at the screen and scratched his head.

The picture of the library was replaced with coverage of a California race for the senate, and the volume was turned off again. Fresh beers were served up and down the bar, and reality was restored to the Coventry Pub.

"I'd never take my own car up here." The sheriff steered the jeep through a turnout to avoid a large cavity in the dirt road. He gave his passenger a wary glance. "I understand how you feel, son. If I'd known that Hannah and the judge were sucked in, I would've kept tabs on the séances. But I still say Alice Fridays harmless."

"Psychics are never harmless." Oren Hobbs had already made it clear that psychics were the precursors to blowflies lighting on a fresh corpse, and their favorite prey was the parent of a murdered child.

"This one's different. I learned a lot about the psychic trade when your brother disappeared. All the pros turned out. I must've talked to twenty con artists. Alice was the only one with a Ouija board. Now that's one way to separate hustlers from amateurs. Pros won't use 'em. There's no money in a board game that anybody can play at home."

"What about Evelyn Straub's connection?"

"When Alice Friday moved into the Straub Hotel, the other guests really liked the nightly Ouija board sessions on the verandah. So Evelyn cut a deal with the woman-free room and board and some walking-around money." The closer Cable got to the cabin, the thicker the trees and ferns- almost there. "It's just a gimmick to fill the hotel off-season. Now some people got hooked on the séances, but there was no charge. As long as nobody got fleeced, I never saw the harm." He had never foreseen a day when rock-solid people like Hannah and the judge would go looking for Josh in a witchboard.

As the jeep approached the cabin, Cable began a preamble to his worst fears. "It's been quite a while since I was up here," he lied. "The land changes as years go by. You think you know a place, and then you find out you don't. I wouldn't want to be up here when it gets dark. There'll be a full moon, but you can't count on it-not tonight." He leaned forward to look up through the windshield. "The clouds are already rolling in."