"Who's been saying that?" he asked me, in a choked voice that made me more worried about him than I wanted to be.

I shrugged. While he was thinking of more words, I was walking away.

I was sure he wouldn't follow me, and I was right.

There was a message on my answering machine when I returned home about five o'clock. Jump Farraclough, Claude's second-in-command, wanted me to come to the police station to sign my statement about the night I'd pulled Joe C from his house, and he wanted to ask me a few more questions. I'd forgotten all about signing the statement; too much had happened. I replayed the message, trying to read Jump's voice. Did he sound hostile? Did he sound suspicious?

I was reluctant to go to the police station. I wanted to erase the traces of Deedra Dean from my life, I wanted to think about Jack coming to live with me, I wanted to read or work out—anything, rather than answer questions. I performed a series of unnecessary little tasks to postpone answering Jump's summons.

But you don't ignore something you're told to do by the police, at least if you want to keep living and working in a small town.

Shakespeare's police station was housed in a renovated ranch-style house right off Main Street. The old police station, a squat redbrick building right in front of the jail, had been condemned. While Shakespeareans balked over raising the money to build a new station, the town police were stuck in this clumsily converted house about a block from the courthouse. This particular house had formerly been the perquisite of the jailer, since it backed onto the jail.

I came in quietly and peered over the counter to the left. The door to Claude's office was closed and the window in it was dark, so Claude hadn't yet come back to work, or maybe he'd left early. I didn't like that at all.

An officer I didn't know was on desk duty. She was a narrow-faced blonde with crooked teeth and down-slanting, tobacco-colored eyes. After taking my name, she sauntered to the partitioned rear of the big central room. Then she sauntered back, waving a hand to tell me I should come behind the counter.

Jump Farraclough was waiting in his own cubbyhole, marked out with gray carpeted panels, and the fire chief was with him. Frank Parrish looked better than he had the last time I'd seen him in his working clothes, sweating in their heat and streaked with smoke from Joe C's fire, but he didn't seem any happier. In fact, he looked downright uncomfortable.

I reminded myself there were other people in the building, while at the same time I made fun of myself for the sense of relief that gave me. Did I seriously fear harm from the assistant police chief and the fire chief? I told myself that was ridiculous.

And it might be. But I'd never feel comfortable in any kind of isolated situation with men. A glance out the window told me the sun was setting.

Jump indicated an uncomfortable straight-back chair opposite his desk. Frank Parrish was sitting to Jump's left.

"Here's your statement," Jump said brusquely. He handed me a sheet of paper. It seemed like years since the fire; I barely remembered giving this statement. There hadn't been much to include. I'd been walking, I'd seen the person in the yard, I'd checked it out, I'd found the fire going, I'd extricated Joe C.

I read the statement carefully. You don't want to just scan something like that. You don't want to trust that it's really what you said. But this did seem to be in my words. I thought hard, trying to figure if I'd left anything out, trying to remember any other detail that might be important to the investigators.

No. This was an accurate account. I took a pen from the cup on the desk and signed it. I returned the pen and stood to leave.

"Miss Bard."

I sighed. Somehow I'd had a feeling this wasn't going to be that easy.

"Yes."

"Please sit down. We want to ask you a few more questions."

"This is everything." I pointed at the sheet of paper on the lieutenant's desk.

"Just humor us, okay? We just want to go over the same thing again, see if you remember anything new."

I felt wary all of a sudden. I felt my hair stand up on my neck. This wasn't just routine suspicion. They should have asked me this before I signed my statement.

"Any special reason?" I asked.

"Just... let's us go over this thing again."

I sat down slowly, wondering if I should be calling a lawyer.

"Now," Jump began, stretching out his legs under the small desk, "you say that when you went to the back door at the Prader house, you used your key to get in."

"No. The door was unlocked."

"Did you ever know Joe C to leave the door unlocked at night?"

"I'd never been there at night before."

For some reason, Jump flushed, as if I'd been making fun of him.

"Right," he said sarcastically. "So, since the back door was unlocked, you didn't need to use your key. Did you have it with you?"

"I've never had a key to the Prader house." I blessed all the times Joe C had so slowly come to let me in. I blessed him for his suspicion, his crotchety nature.

Jump permitted himself to look skeptical. Frank Parrish looked off into the distance as if he were willing himself to be elsewhere.

"Your employer didn't give you a key to the property? Isn't that unusual?"

"Yes."

"But you're still sure that's what happened?"

"Ask Calla."

"Miss Prader would know?"

"She would."

For the first time, Jump looked uncertain. I pressed my advantage. "You can ask any member of his family. He always makes me wait while he comes to the door as slowly as he can manage. He really enjoys that."

Parrish turned his head to look at Jump with surprise. I began to worry even more.

"Are you planning to charge me with anything?" I asked abruptly.

"Why, no, Miss Bard."

The fire chief hadn't said anything since I'd come in. Parrish still looked uncomfortable, still sat with arms crossed over his chest. But he didn't look as though he was going to gainsay Jump Farraclough, either.

"Just tell us everything from the beginning ... if you don't mind." The last phrase was obviously thrown in for padding, as Southern and soft as cotton.

"It's all in my statement." I was getting a feeling I couldn't ignore. "I have nothing new to add."

"Just in case you missed something."

"I didn't."

"So if someone says they saw you elsewhere, doing something else, they're mistaken?"

"Yes."

"If someone says they saw you behind the house with a gas can in your hand, instead of in front of it seeing this mysterious vanishing figure, that someone would be wrong?"

"Yes."

"Didn't you dislike Joe C?"

"Doesn't everyone?"

"Answer the question."

"No. I don't think I have to. I've made my statement. I'm leaving."

And while they were still thinking about it, I did.

I would call Carlton's cousin Tabitha if they followed me and arrested me, I decided, keeping my pace steady as I headed toward the door in the police station. Tabitha, whom I'd met once or twice when she was visiting Carlton, was an attorney based in Montrose.

Gardner McClanahan, one of the night patrol officers, was fixing a cup of coffee at the big pot next to the dispatcher's desk. He nodded to me as I went by, and I nodded back. I'd seen Gardner the night I'd been walking, the night of the fire. I was sure that Farraclough knew that. Gardner's seeing me didn't prove anything either way except that I hadn't been trying to hide myself, but knowing he'd seen me and could vouch for at least that little fact made me feel better.

I crossed the floor, keeping my eyes ahead. Now I was almost at the front door. I tried to recall if Tabitha Cockroft's Montrose phone number was in my address book. I wondered with every step if a voice would come from behind, a voice telling me to stop, ordering Gardner to arrest me.