"I've been wondering about Father Steven," I said. "Sadie told me that his face was scarred in a fire. Is that true?"

"So I've been told," Mother said. She bent over to stroke Delilah's happy pink ears. "It happened at St. Agatha's, some years ago. I don't know any of the details, but I'm sure Sister Olivia does." She straightened up, and Delilah, courting more attention, rubbed against her ankles like a cat.

I already had quite a few questions for Sister Olivia. I added that one to the list.

"I also heard that Father Steven is 'on probation,' " I said, "for something that happened in the past-at St. Agatha's, I assume. What does that mean?"

Mother gave an exasperated sigh. "Don't the sisters have anything better to do than gossip? But it's true, I'm afraid. There were several incidents involving… well-"

"Boys, I was told."

She shook her head. "So sad, really. The poor children. But the bishop is to be commended. He's taken quite a firm stand on the matter. Father Steven has the strictest orders not to-" Her jaw tightened. "But that has nothing to do with your investigations, I'm sure. Unless you think he could somehow be involved with-"

"With what? The fires?"

She looked at me. "Oh, surely not."

' 'He was here when each of the fires occurred, even last night. Did you believe him when he said he'd come after a book?"

"I took what he said at face value, I'm afraid." She

shook her head helplessly. "What possible motive could he have?"

"I don't know, Mother," I said. "But perhaps I'll have more answers after Sister Olivia tells me about the fire at St. Agatha's, and how Father Steven was injured."

I was still thinking about my conversation with Mother Winifred when Tom and his father walked in.

"How come you're not sitting under the longhorn?" Tom asked, jerking his thumb toward the table in the corner. "That's where Lyndon Johnson always used to sit when he stopped here."

"I didn't wear a hat," I said.

Tom Senior's blue eyes glinted. "Woman's got a right good sense of humor," he said to his son. "Makes up some for that outlandish name of hers." He spoke in an exaggerated Texas drawl that, to out-of-state ears, would probably sound like a parody. It wasn't. People in Texas- especially in rural Texas-really do talk that way.

"Hello, Mr. Rowan," I said.

He pulled out a chair and sat down. "What I wanta know," he said abruptly, "is how come you broke it up with my boy." His lopsided grin showed that he was only teasing. "Not good-lookin' enough for you?"

Tom's father was a tall, slightly stooped man in his mid-seventies with a weather-beaten face and thick, silvery hair. Except for a look of weariness and a few more lines, he didn't look much different from the man I'd met in Houston eight or nine years before. He was wearing a tweed sport jacket with an array of pins on the lapel-Chamber of Commerce, Knights of Columbus, Lions Club-and a bolo tie.

I grinned back. "How do you know Tom wasn't the one who broke it up with me? Maybe I wasn't pretty enough for him."

He chuckled shortly. ' 'If I thought the boy was that stupid, Fda drowned him when he was a kid. How the hell are you, China?"

"I'm fine," I said, and glanced at Tom, suddenly (and in spite of myself) feeling finer. He was relaxed and handsomely blond in a suede vest, open-collared blue shirt, and city-blue denims. He smiled, and I remembered yesterday's kiss. The electric tension was suddenly there again, crackling in the air, hghtning before a storm. I smiled back, tipping my head nonchalantly, but I'm not sure I brought it off.

To my relief, my Dos Equis arrived, Tom and his father ordered longnecks, and we fell into a discussion of the menu, which featured several rather adventurous items for a rural Tex-Mex joint. Tom and his dad decided on a large plate of nachos and the house salsa, reputed to be hotter than hades, to occupy us until the rest of the food arrived. Figuring that my mostly veggie monastery meals gave me a little leeway, I went for the steak tampiqueno, which was billed as an eight-inch pancake of mesquite-grilled beef enfolding onions and hot peppers, topped with cheese and ranchero sauce, plus chicharrones-Mexican-style chitterlings. Tom Senior and Junior ordered the usual medley of enchiladas and chalupas and chiles rellenos and retried beans. (Ordinary beans are fat-free and good for you. Why does lard have to taste so great?)

The ordering accomplished and the nachos and salsa duly delivered and given pride of place in the middle of the table, we moved to the munching stage of the meal, trading (as Texans invariably do) tall tales of the hottest salsas we have ever eaten. Finishing our repertory of salsa stories, we moved to recent history, and Tom asked me about the progress of my investigations. Figuring I might as well get it over with, I repeated my story of this morning's events- making it as amusing as possible-and admitted to having been wrong about Dwight on two counts. Then Tom asked the question I was getting tired of hearing.

"If Dwight didn't set those fires, who the hell did?"

"I'm working on it," I said. "Ask me tomorrow." After I talked to Sister Olivia, and found out the truth about the

fire that had so profoundly scarred Father Steven.

"So oV Royce has taken up target-shootin', huh?" Tom Senior asked with a grin. "Gotta keep your eye on them Townsends. Devious sons of bitches. Rena too. Among the four of 'em, they've got the county trussed up like a bull calf in a ropin' contest."

I pressed him for information about the Townsends, but he wasn't forthcoming. My guess was that they were big customers at the bank and it didn't do for him to bad-mouth them any more than he had to. But I did manage to learn some Rowan family history that I'd either never known or had forgotten.

Tom Senior had come back to Carr from the war in the Pacific with a Silver Star he'd earned on Iwo Jima for taking out a Japanese pillbox when his squad was pinned down by machine-gun fire. He married his high school sweetheart, Harriet, and had a son, Tom Junior. A few years later, he succeeded his father, Old Tom, as president of the Carr State Bank, which had managed to survive the Depression, but not by much.

When Tom Senior took over, business began to look up. He moved the bank out of the small brick building it shared with the feed store and into the two-story modern facility I'd seen on the square. Over the next three-plus decades, he tripled its staff and quadrupled its assets. Then Harriet died and illness struck him, and a couple of years ago Tom Junior-newly divorced from the woman he'd told me about yesterday-came home to move into Tom Senior's spot at the bank. He had also moved into the family home.

"Two guys bachin' it," Tom said wryly. "You can guess what that's like." He grinned at his father. "Although I've got to admit the old man can cook up a mean pot of spaghetti. His apple pie isn't half-bad, either."

"After Harriet died, it was either learn to feed myself or starve," Tom Senior said. "Hell, there's a limit to the number of bologna sandwiches a man can eat and five to tell it. Although I won't be tellin' it long," he added, without

a trace of resentment or self-pity. ' 'Doc Townsend says I can forget about makin' it to the half-century mark at the bank."

"What do those doctors know?" Tom grunted. "You've fooled ' em before. You'll fool 'em again."

Tom Senior went on as if his son hadn't spoken. "The boy here is carryin' on the fam'ly tradition." He glanced at Tom fondly. "Third-generation banker. Can't beat that with a stick. Course, it's in the blood. The Rowans are the best bankers in Texas, bar none."

"Watch it, Dad," Tom cautioned. "You'll break your arm patting yourself on the back."

The old man scowled. "Yeah, well, one thing I ain't so proud of, let me tell you." He picked up his beer. " 'Less you get off your can and start workin' on it, there ain't gonna be a fourth generation."