"Are you afraid she'll worry about you?" Her voice verged on being a taunt.

"Oh, no, not at all. I –"

"No, don't worry. We will have you back in time. Back in time for your tea. Richard, what about you? Do you need a ride?"

"No, I got my truck, Anna. I gotta get a couple of things out here. I'll see you all later." He started to go inside, but then stopped and touched her sleeve. "That Hayden thing's bad, isn't it? After last night, that's the fourth thing that's gone wrong. And now, one so close after the other…"

"We'll talk about it later, Richard. Don't worry about it now." Her voice was a quiet monotone.

"Worry? How the hell don't you worry? I pissed in my pants when I heard. That poor sucker Joe Jordan's up shit creek."

I watched Anna's face during the exchange, and it hardened more and more as Lee talked on.

"I said that we would talk about it later, Richard. Later." She held up a hand as if to push him away. Her lips had tightened.

He started to say something more but stopped, mouth open, and looked at me. Then he blinked and smiled as if something had dawned on him that made everything clear. "Oh, right! Jesus, listen to me and my big mouth!" He smiled and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Anna. You watch out for her, buddy. she can get pretty damn grouchy on you sometimes."

"Come on, Thomas. Good-bye, Richard."

The path was wide enough for us to walk side by side.

"Anna, I don't understand some of what's going on here."

She didn't stop and she didn't look at me. "Like what? You mean about what Richard was saying?" She pushed a hand through her short hair, giving me a glimpse of sweaty forehead. I love to see sweat on a woman. It's one of the most erotic, inviting things I can think of.

"Yes, what Richard was saying. And then Mrs. Fletcher kept asking me this morning if the Hayden boy was laughing when he got hit by the truck."

"Was there anything else?"

"Yes, there was. That man who hit him, Jordan? Joe Jordan? He kept saying that it wasn't supposed to be him, and that nobody knew anything anymore." I didn't want to push her, but I did want to know what was happening.

She slowed down and kicked a stone up the path. It hit another and caromed off into the woods. "All right, I'll tell you. Some terrible things have happened in town in the last six months. A man was electrocuted, a store owner was shot in a holdup, an old woman was blinded last night, and then this thing with the boy today. Galen is Sleepy Town, USA, Thomas. You can see that already, I'm sure. Things just don't happen here. We're the kind of place people joke about when they talk about hayseeds. You know – 'What do you people do around here for fun? Oh, we fish illegally or go down to the barbershop and watch them give haircuts.' Suddenly, these nightmares are happening."

"But what did Jordan mean when he said it wasn't supposed to he him?"

"Joe Jordan is a Jehovah's Witness. Do you know anything about them? They think that they are the chosen few. God would never let this happen to one of them, and besides that, what would you say if you had run over a child and killed it?"

"The boy died?"

"No, but he will. I mean, he probably will, from what I've heard."

"All right, that makes sense, but then what was Mrs. Fletcher talking about when she asked me if the kid was laughing before he got hit?"

"Goosey Fletcher is Galen's crazy old lady. You've seen that already, I'm sure. She orders everyone around and asks crazy questions and is perfectly at home in her nutty little head, God bless her. She was committed to an insane asylum for three years after her husband died."

We had reached the car, and she went around back to let the dogs in. Everything sounded reasonable enough the way she explained it. Yes, it sounded fine. So why did I turn and take a long last look back into the woods? Because I knew that what she had said was somehow a bunch of bullshit.

She dropped Nails and me off at Mrs. Fletcher's and said that she would give me a call in a day or two. She wasn't brusque, but she wasn't adorable, either.

As I reached the porch, Saxony loomed up into view behind the screen door.

"Ah, darling, you are a vision in wire mesh!"

"Were you with Anna?"

"Wait a minute." I unclipped Nails from his leash and he sat down on the top step. "Yes. She took me out to the Queen of Oil's house."

"What?" She opened the door and came outside.

"Yes. Some old woman named Dorothy Lee who was supposedly the inspiration for the Queen. She lived in an old dilapidated shack about three or four miles out of town in this big forest. Anna came by and asked if I'd like to see it. I did until Dorothy Lee's son appeared and almost shot us for trespassing. Richard. He reminded me of Lon Chaney Junior in Of Mice and Men. 'Tell me 'bout the rabbits, George.' One of those guys, you know?"

"What was the house like?"

"Nothing. A rickety dump decorated with old newspapers. Very uninspiring.

"Did Anna say anything more about the book?"

"No, not a word, dammit. I think she's into this big teasing thing, you know? She'll tell me all these things about her father and always phrase it, 'Here's something else for your book.' But she's never yet said whether she will let me do it or not."

Saxony shifted her stance and tried to sound nonchalant when she spoke. I loved her for the failed effort. "What do you think of Anna? I mean personally?"

I fought a smile down and reached out and ran my hand down her freckly cheek. I saw that she had gotten some sun when she was out shopping. She pulled away and caught hold of my hand in hers. My smile came up anyway. "No, really, Thomas, come on, don't be funny. I know that you think she's pretty, so don't lie about it."

"Why would I lie about it? And she certainly isn't what David Louis painted her. Christ, he had me thinking that we were about to rendezvous with Lizzie Borden."

"So do you like her?" She kept hold of my hand.

"Yes, so far I do." I shrugged. "But I'll tell you something, Sax. I also think that there's some kind of big weirdness going on around here that I don't like much."

"Like what?"

"Like, did you know… ?" I stopped at the last moment and lowered my voice to a whisper. "Did you know that Goosey Fletcher was in the booby hatch for three years?"

"Yes, she told me about it when we went shopping today."

"She did?"

"Uh-huh. We started talking about movies because of your father, and she asked me if I'd seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I said yes, and she told me that she'd been in an asylum once. She said it like 'So what?'"

"Hmm." I took my hand back and played the dog leash through my fingers.

"But what's the matter with that?"

"Did you buy stuff for lunch?"

"Yes, all kinds of good things. Are you hungry?"

"Starved."

I make the world's most delicious grilled cheese sandwich, bar none. While I flitted around the kitchen whipping us up a couple of masterpieces, I filled her in on my woodland idyll with Anna.

"How great, you got whole-wheat bread! Now, now, now, a lee-tle boot-er…"

"Do you really think that Richard Lee would have shot you?"

"Saxony, I not only think so, I've got sweat stains to prove it. That man was not kidding."

"Thomas, you said that David Louis told you that crazy story about Anna screaming at him to get out, and that she wrote him mean letters whenever he sent someone out here to write about her father?"

"Louis didn't send anyone out, Sax, he would just answer their questions. They came out of their own accord, like us."

"All right, they came out on their own. But didn't he say that when they did come out, she would send him letters telling him that it was all his fault and that he had no right doing it?"

I nodded and slapped the spatula on the counter.