"You had a clear view?"

"Sure did. There he was in front of me, leaping like a toad on July asphalt. Then he saw me and just froze and I swerved out of the way and that was that."

"Was there a car nearby?"

"Yessir. But I didn't see what kind."

"Was it light or dark?"

"The car? Lighter more'n darker."

"You recall the plates?"

"Don't even know if it had plates or was a truck or sedan. I just didn't notice, I was so concerned with not running that man over. What was left of the Slurpee went onto the floor and for the first time I was glad I got the maroon interior."

"He was a man, not a boy?"

"Not a boy, nope. Probably late thirties, early forties."

"Could you describe him?"

"Solid build but not fat, short hair, not real dark, combed straight back. He was wearing dark pants and a light jacket but the jacket was covered with dirt."

"White?"

"Pardon?"

"What was his race?"

"Oh. Yeah, he was white."

"Jewelry, hats, shoes?"

"No, like I say, I swerved past him real fast."

"If you saw a picture of him would you remember it?"

"Like in a lineup or something? I could try."

"Anything else you remember?"

"No."

"Nothing unusual? Try to think back."

"No, nothing. Well, except I figured he was handy. I mean, he knew about cars. He was going to replace the ignition cable himself. Not everybody can do that. That's why I almost stopped. To help him."

"Ignition cable?"

"But it was late and the wife gets a bee in her bra I don't get home by eleven, sale or no."

"He was working on the car?"

"Not exactly, he was carrying that piece of wire over to it."

"Could you describe it?"

"You know, ignition wire. White, thick. Looked to be wrapped in plastic like from NAPA."

"Could it've been rope, like clothesline?"

Amos Trout went silent for a moment. "Could very well've been."

Diane walked into the living room and found Ben Breck cutting letters out of sandpaper. Sarah sat on the couch watching him. "I owe you a new pair of scissors," he said.

"Beg pardon?"

He said, "I only had coarse sandpaper. It pretty much ruined the blade."

"Well now, I wouldn't worry about it," Diane said. "What exactly are you doing?"

"'Storage'," Breck said solemnly and handed an E to Sarah. "Touch it, feel it."

Sarah ran her hand over the letter. "E," she said. The letter joined STORAG on the table. Sarah spelled the word out loud, touching each letter. Breck scooped them up and hid them behind his back and would hand her one at a time. Eyes closed, the girl would touch it then tell him which letter it was.

Diane watched, engrossed in the drill. After ten minutes he said, "That's it for today, Sarah. You did very well but keep working on the b and the d and the q and the p. You get those mixed up."

"I will, Dr. Breck." Sarah assembled the sandpaper letters and put them into her Barbie backpack, in which she kept her tape recorder, cassettes and exercises she was working on. Diane slipped her arm around her daughter.

Breck said, "Next Thursday?"

"Fine," Diane said, "I'll be home all day." Then she added, "We'll be home, I mean."

Sarah ran outside. "I'll be back later, Mom."

"Stay close to home."

Breck and Diane walked into the kitchen and Diane poured two cups from a Braun coffee maker without asking if he wanted any. Breck glanced at her red polished nails then his eyes slipped to her blouse, two buttons open at the chest. He seemed to enjoy the route his gaze followed. She reserved judgment on this reaction.

She reserved judgment on her own as well.

Breck spent a long moment studying a picture of Corde in uniform. It was taped to the refrigerator next to an eagle Sarah had cut out of construction paper.

"It must be exciting being married to a policeman."

"More of an inconvenience, I'd say. We get calls at all hours and our friends are always wanting Bill to do something about P &Z or fixing tickets or something. Ever been married, Ben?"

She had checked his heart finger at their first meeting.

"No. Never have been so lucky." He sipped the coffee. Diane watched him closely.

"That too strong, there's hot tap water. Our boiler gets it to about one forty-five."

"It's fine."

Diane said, "The thing about Bill is, he's obsessive. He -"

"You probably mean 'compulsive'."

"I do?"

"Compulsive is when you do something repetitively, obsessive is when you think about something repetitively."

"Oh. Well, then he's both." They laughed and she continued, "He just doesn't stop. He's a workaholic. Not that I mind. Keeps him out of my hair and when he's home he's pretty much home if you know what I mean. But once he gets his mind set he's like a terrier got hold of a rat. Last night I went to bed and he was still burning the midnight oil. Bill says a case is like building a brick wall. There are always plenty of bricks if you take the trouble to look for them."

"And he takes the trouble?"

"Whoa, that's true."

"I've been an expert witness in court a few times, testifying on the psychology of observation. How witnesses can see things that aren't there and miss things that are. The senses are extraordinarily unreliable."

"All I know is I don't get much involved in his cases. It's so, you know, grim. It's different when you watch it on television."

So why hasn't he been married?

"I've done research into violence," Breck said. "Two associates of mine have done work with sociopaths -"

"Is that like a psychopath? Like, you know, Tony Curtis in Psycho."

"Tony Perkins, I believe."

"Right, right." Forty-one and never married.

"They've worked with some pretty odious characters -"

Odious.

"- and their theory is that commercial entertainment does a disservice when it minimizes violence. That it tends to distort mental judgment and leads to situations where individuals act violently because they feel the impact in human terms will be inconsequential. We're seeing -"

Diane's palms moistened as she leaned forward, trying to follow what he said.

"- many cases of blunted affect on the part of young people in response to films and -"

"Uhm. Af-fect?"

He saw that he'd lost her and shook his head in apology. "Affect. It means emotion. Kids see people getting blown up and murdered on screen and it doesn't move them. They don't feel anything. Or worse, they laugh."

"I'd rather Jamie didn't watch those movies… Well, look at his friend. They got caught up in that Lost Dimension. Look what happened."

"That boy who killed the girls?" Breck asked. "He might have been influenced by the movie."

The corner of Diane's mouth hardened. "Well, even with him getting killed and all, Bill still doesn't think the boy did it."

"He doesn't?" Breck asked with surprise. "But your bodyguard is gone."

"Wait till the story hits the news."

"Story?"

"There's a new witness." She slung the words bitterly.

"But the papers all said the boy did it."

"The papers and just about everybody else in town. They were all too happy to close the case. But not my Bill, oh no. He's still investigating. He doesn't give up. He went charging off this morning after some new lead. He thinks he can prove the boy didn't do it."

Diane noted the anger in her voice as she gazed outside at the spot where Tom's cruiser had been parked all these long weeks. "When you're young, when you're Sarah's age, everything's clear, all the endings are tidy. You know who the bad guys are and if they get away at least they're still the bad guys. At our age, who knows anything?"

Breck finished the coffee. "You have a lovely home here."