"Beth, I wish I knew. I worry about it too. Really. And I don't much like me for it. But I'm sure I'm right. I have to do it. I think part of it comes from everybody else being so damned eager to kill the case."

"Phone's ringing." She darted out. A moment later, "It's your wife."

"I'll take it in here. Yeah?"

"Mail came. There's an invitation."

"Huh? What to?"

"A funeral."

"Come on, Annie…"

"Really. From that Sister Mary Joseph."

He was silent for a long time. Then, "Beth, when did Hank release my stiff?"

"Early Monday morning. I thought you knew."

"Son of a bitch. Me and him are going to have words over this."

"Norm?" Annie was trying to get his attention again.

He snapped his fingers. "Honey? Where? What time? Let me get a pencil here."

"You're going?"

"Damned right. I'll bet Miss Groloch was invited too. And I'll bet she shows. No matter what part she's played, she's got to be damned curious about this thing."

He wrote demonically as Annie relayed the information. "Thanks, love. I've just got to run. Love you. Bye. Beth! Put out the word for John to call me."

A half hour later they had it set up. John was able to confirm, from his chat with the postman, that Miss Groloch had received an invitation that morning.

Cash parked a half block short of the Groloch house. Castleman was one-way, eastbound. Any cab would have to pass them if already called. They had arrived, they judged, forty minutes before the woman would have to leave to make the funeral.

"This's crazy," Harald insisted. "I just don't see why you think she'll go."

"Call it a hunch." The sun beat down. The car quickly evened up. He didn't feel communicative.

"How's she going to get a cab?"

"She's going to walk down to that pay phone. If she hasn't already."

Passersby gazed at them curiously. The neighborhood hairy youth appeared on his front porch, stared, ducked back inside. Even plainclothes cops were easily recognized by their suits, semi-military haircuts, and blackwall tires.

"Bet that jerk thinks it's him we've got staked out."

"Want me to go roust him?"

"What for?"

"He must've done something."

"Shit, John. Probably got a little pot put away. What's the dif?"

Harald shrugged, changed the subject. "What the hell do we get out of this even if she does go?"

"I don't know. It just seems to me that, long as we can keep her breaking her pattern, chances are she'll slip up. I want to be there when it happens. You ever see a dog go after one of them little box turtles you find in the woods? That turtle is safe… as long as Rover don't con him into sticking his head out."

"Shit. Can't we move up? That sun's murder."

"Soon as somebody pulls out from under a tree."

"How about I walk over to Lambert's and get us a couple of Cokes?"

"You really got the fidgets, don't you? Yeah, sure. Here. I'll buy."

"Hang on. Here we go."

Miss Groloch was on the move. She was brisk, businesslike, as she strode eastward, quite alert to her neighbors' reactions. Few of them had ever seen her. Those who had been out surreptitiously eyeballing the cops now watched her.

"Now?"

"No. After the cab comes. We'll follow her now. Make sure she uses that phone."

"Norm, I'm beginning to think this maybe isn't such a hot idea."

"It was yours."

"Yeah. That's why. No. Only sort of. And it's not legal. I'd rather have crooks do the crooked stuff. What if somebody spots me and calls the cops? Lot of people out here. Could we talk our way out of it?"

"What do you mean, 'we,' white man?"

"Norm, if it was anybody else sitting over there, I wouldn't admit it. But I'm scared. Last time I had the shakes this bad was the day Michael…"

"Want some outside backup?" Cash started the car, began creeping down the block. "Smitty might do it."

"No. Shit no. We can't get anybody else involved. Even you shouldn't be. Twenty-three years is a lot to risk."

"Nah. No problem. We can bullshit our way out." But he, too, had begun to feel that peculiar twisting of the guts remembered from the Ardennes and several occasions when he had approached women with less than honorable intentions. He dithered at the intersection with Klemm till another vehicle rolled up behind him.

He turned right, went over to his own street, then east a block to Thurman. He parked beneath the huge elm on the corner. In the distance, Miss Groloch turned on to Thurman and strode purposefully toward the service station.

Cash said, "Guy that lives here on the corner is going to run for alderman next year." As John grunted his disinterested response, Norm turned to peer out the back window. They had parked in front of the house next to his own. He wondered if Annie had noticed. "Maybe you knew him in school. Name's Tim Schultz."

"It's the service station all right. She's crossing over. You going to cruise past?"

"No. She might make us. Don't want her changing her mind now."

Miss Groloch vanished behind the bulk of the station.

"I figure you should have a good two hours," Cash continued. "Plenty of time. I'll leave you off, then head for the funeral. Soon as you finish, hoof it over here. Annie'll be home. She never goes anywhere anymore. I'll pick you up when I get back."

The funeral was small and quiet. The priest didn't have much to say. He, Cash, and two men from the funeral parlor did the pallbearing. Sister Mary Joseph was accompanied only by two nuns. No one else came.

Except Miss Groloch, who watched from a distance, from the shadow of a grove of young maples. Her cab awaited her on a cemetery road behind her.

After depositing the casket next to the grave, Cash positioned himself so he could observe the principals. Sister Mary Joseph showed neither warmth nor coldness. Earlier, she had greeted him only with a curt nod. Miss Groloch seemed more interested in the surrounding cemetery than in the funeral, though there was no one in sight except an old man, off among the fancier monuments, who appeared to be a caretaker.