“What happened?” she echoed him, and held a pause for a few more maddening seconds. “Well, I guess a number of odd things happened the day Kathy came back. The deputy nearly died of a heart attack. And then they found Babe Laurie’s body, his head all stove in with a rock. Oh, but wait – I’m misremembering the day. First, the idiot got his hands broken, but that was done with a piano.”

“A piano. Right. And Mallory is supposed to have accomplished all this in one day?” Not likely. Though she was capable of frightening a man into a heart attack, she was fanatically neat, hardly the most likely suspect for a messy homicide by rock. And as for the idiot’s broken hands, though Mallory was a highly original creature, if she were merely assaulting someone, she would probably not use a piano.

With light pressure on his arm, the woman moved him forward again. “Well, we’re pretty sure she had something to do with the deputy’s heart attack. He had a dickey pump. It wouldn’t have taken much of a fright. Your friend startled a whole lot of people, showing up the way she did.”

Well, that fit. Startling people was Mallory’s forte. She had an unparalleled talent for it. “After we drop off your groceries, perhaps you could give me directions to the jail?”

The woman’s face was stark-naked incredulity. Oh, you rube, said her eyes. “So you’re gonna go strutting in there and demand to see her, is that it?”

“That’s my plan, yes.” It was a nice straightforward plan, no flaws, no holes in it.

“The sheriff’s bound to ask what you know about her. If she’d wanted him to know anything at all, I guess she would’ve told him.”

But, according to this woman, who now introduced herself as Augusta Trebec, Mallory had refused to say anything at all. Miss Trebec had this on the word of the cafe proprietress who delivered the prisoner’s meals. For three days, Mallory had sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the jail cell wall and driving Sheriff Jessop wild. She never moved, never said a word. Except once or twice, Jane, of Jane’s Cafe, had seen Mallory smile while the sheriff was pitching a fit. “Jane says the girl is making him a little crazier every day. So if you go in there all – ”

“I see the problem.” It might create complications for Mallory, and it would certainly ruin her fun.

When they cleared the cemetery, the path changed from gravel to hard-packed dirt. As they drew closer to the house, he was told that jail visits were limited to the morning hours. Charles also learned that Mallory had not been blamed for breaking the idiot’s hands. The murdered man had done that particular piece of damage.

Well, that was encouraging.

He paused at the foot of a wide lane flanked by stands of ancient trees. Their dark twisty limbs reached out across space to form a green canopy high above them. The ground was dappled with bright patches of late afternoon sun streaming through the leaves.

“These are live oaks – Quercus virginiana,” said Miss Trebec, in the manner of a tour guide. “And the house at the end of the lane was built in 1850.”

He had seen centurion oaks before, but never one approaching the enormous girth of these giants. Surely the trees were older by -

“The trees are three hundred years old,” said Miss Trebec. “Give or take a few decades.”

Charles shook off the idea that she was reading his thoughts. She could no more do that than could the men who regularly beat him at poker. It was his face that spoke to everyone. Even his most private thoughts were on display in every change of expression. She must have noted his confusion and followed the swing of his eyes from manse to tree trunks.

“So the oak alley was planted for another house?”

She nodded. “And it was built by a real tree-planting fool. There’s fourteen varieties of trees back there.” She gestured back over her shoulder. He turned to scan the woods extending out from the cemetery, east and west of the oaken lane.

“Now that first house was destroyed in a flood, and my house sits on top of its remains.”

He smiled. “Hence the ten-foot hill?”

“Right you are, Mr. Butler. My place, however, has never shown any structural weakness. It’s harder to destroy.” By her tone, she seemed to take this as a challenge.

Looking westward through the spaces between the massive tree trunks, he could see an open field of green grass stretching out to the levee. He watched the slow flight of a bird in a glide, a free ride on the wind. There were birds everywhere – singing, and some were screaming. Everything was in motion. Drapes of Spanish moss swayed in the boughs of the oaks, and shade-loving ferns waved in the breeze. There were nods from blooming shrubs and deep bows from independent flowers.

When they had come to the end of the covered lane, he had his first unobstructed view of Trebec House. The basement level was a gray brick wall with deep-set windows and a small door. Rising above this foundation was a massive structure very like a Grecian temple. He counted eight white fluted columns soaring up past two flights of windows. The breakneck flow of their lines was not disrupted by the ornate railing on the gallery, which served as a roof to the wide veranda. The scrolled capitals supported the massive triangle of a pitched roof with a round attic window.

Thick foliage surrounded the foundation wall and climbed the brick to wind strong green tendrils around one column, threatening to pull the shaft from pedestal and lintel, and thus to bring down the house. But this was only illusion. The structure was elegant, yet bold enough in its design to withstand every assault of nature.

Two graceful staircases curved upward from the grass, and inward to embrace on the main level above the brick foundation. A massive carved door was set well back on the veranda.

“Those are courting staircases,” said Augusta. “In my grandfather’s day, a young lady never preceded a gentleman on the stairs. That was for the gentleman’s protection. One sight of a woman’s ankle and he was as good as engaged. So they each took a separate staircase and met up there at the front door.”

The house was so beautiful, even in its ruination – like the woman who walked beside him. The exterior had once been white and smooth, but now was weathered by the elements and extreme age.

He had to bow slightly to follow her through the small wooden door set into the foundation between the staircases. They passed down a dimly lit hall, which suddenly broadened into a wide, bright room.

“This kitchen only dates back to 1883,” she said. “The original was in a separate building out there where the paddock is now.” She gestured to a tall window which framed a white horse at the center of a fenced enclosure. The entire wall was a bank of such windows.

Charles loved kitchens, and this one was a sunlit marvel. Absent was the neglect of the exterior. The room was in perfect order and contained all the creature comforts of a twentieth-century Hobbit – microwave and dishwasher, coffee machine and bean grinder. Polished copper-bottom pots and pans hung from the mantel of a stone hearth large enough to accommodate a roasting ox on a spit.

A broad table was laid with a red-and-white checked cloth. At its center was a sketchbook, which lay open to a rather good drawing of a white owl. Beside this book was a set of galleys with the red marks of a proofreader’s pencil.

Augusta caught his eye. “I write monographs on local birds.”

As he set the grocery bag down on a slab of butcher block, a hiss called his attention to the top of the refrigerator and the narrowed eyes of a large yellow cat.

“You just sit yourself down.” Miss Trebec gave Charles a gentle push in the direction of the table.

The cat on the refrigerator followed his every move. He stared at the animal as he spoke to the woman. “This man Mallory’s accused of murdering – ”