Heading back to Hank is tougher going. The tide is coming in fast now; before long, Gwen’s boots will be soaked. The leather will be ruined and she may have to throw them away, and yet she takes the time to look behind her. Unless she is mistaken, the compass is no longer on the front porch, and so she feels free to run the rest of the way; she can run until she reaches Hank at last.

14

Everyone saw March and Hollis together on Halloween night. They’re common knowledge now, discussed in the deli aisle of the Red Apple market and in the reading room at the library. They were sitting beside each other all through their dinner at Dimitri’s, not across from one another like normal, civilized people. The waitress over there, Regina Gordon, doesn’t like to tell tales, but honestly, they couldn’t keep their hands to themselves. They were practically doing it right there at the table, and several customers noticed when he reached his hand under her sweater. Why they had bothered to go out to dinner at all was a mystery to Regina, since it was clear all they wanted was each other.

Ed Milton is the one who finally informs Susanna Justice of her friend’s affair. He tells Susie right after they make love, at her place, a cottage so small he can talk to her from bed while she fixes them hot fudge sundaes. Susie’s dogs, Chester, the golden Lab, and Duffy, the black one, watch her every move, drooling onto her bare feet.

“Bullshit,” Susie says when he tells her about Hollis and March. “I’d be the first to know.”

“Well, you’re probably the three hundredth to know,” Ed informs her. He’s a big, good-looking man who moved up here from New York City, and his only complaint about small-town life is that there isn’t a decent bagel or a good cup of cappuccino to be found. He misses his daughter, an ill-tempered twelve-year-old, who comes up from New York for one weekend a month, legal holidays, and all of July. Ed has great blue eyes, and he cries at sad movies-God, even Susie’s dogs are wild about him. If she let herself, Susie could get involved with him. And this is the reason she’s ready to argue whenever she has a chance-to ward off anything deeper than what they already have.

“You know what I’m going to do?” Susie says, half in jest. “I’ll call them both and get the real story.”

Ed gets out of bed and stands between Susie and the phone. He’s one of the few men Susie has known who look better without clothes than with them.

“Stay out of it,” Ed says. “That guy is trouble.”

The hot fudge is ready, but Susie doesn’t bother with it, even though the ice cream she’s scooped has started to melt. “You sound like you know something.”

“I’ve heard rumors, that’s all.” Already, he’s starting to back off. This often happens when Susie is reporting on local issues, whenever a source realizes he’s said too much. “It’s your friend’s business, not yours,” Ed adds. “Besides”-he really did have a great smile-“love is strange.”

Susie has always wondered where Hollis was during those years he was away, but nobody else has ever seemed interested. Out making money, people usually joked. Or, I don’t know, but when you find out tell me-I’d like to be as rich as that bastard.

Susie finds herself thinking about Hollis all that day, and into the next. She’s got him so much on the brain, in spite of how she dislikes him, that she ignores her daily chores to focus on him instead. He’s like some terrible puzzle, made up of equal parts flattery and contempt, and she’s still trying to figure what bothers her most about him-the way he’s manipulated the town fathers, with his wisely placed donations that have allowed him to buy up and redistrict most of Main Street, or the way he’s maneuvered March back into his life-when she pulls up to her parents’ house the following evening. It’s a Wednesday, the night when Louise Justice roasts her famous rosemary chicken. Susie kisses her father hello, then goes into the kitchen, to watch her mother cook. She steals bits and pieces from the salad on the counter, then gets herself a cold beer.

“Hear any good gossip lately?” she asks her mother.

Louise has begun to fix plates of chicken and rice. “What are you after?” she asks drolly. “A good murder? Financial ruin?”

“Love,” Susie says. “Or maybe it’s more like insanity. I’ve been hearing all sorts of things about March.”

Louise Justice spoons out the snap beans. When she’s upset her hands always shake slightly, as they do now. “Tell March she’s making a mistake,” Louise says. “He’s not worth it.”

“Geez,” Susie exclaims. “Did everyone in town know about this before I did?”

“Maybe you didn’t want to know.”

This statement from her mother brings Susie up short. Louise is right, of course. It’s simply that Susie had no idea that her mother could be so insightful.

“You seem extremely sure that March is making a mistake,” Susie says now.

They’ve brought the plates over to the table; any minute the Judge will come in from his study.

“I am.”

Again, Susie is surprised, this time by her mother’s certainty.

“For one thing,” Louise says, “he killed Belinda.”

“What?” Susie says. She tilts her head to search her mother’s expression so quickly she can feel the vertebrae in her neck pop.

Louise has gone to get a glass of club soda for the Judge, which he always takes with a slice of lemon. Susie follows on her heels.

“Do you have any proof of that?” Susie’s adrenaline is going like crazy. She is a reporter, after all, even if it’s only for The Bugle.

“If I had the proof, don’t you think I would have gone to the police?” Louise pours a glass of club soda for Susie as well. A good thing because Susie’s mouth is now parched; as dry as dust. “But I don’t need proof. I know. He did it.”

Louise’s hands are shaking badly as she returns the club soda to the refrigerator, but thankfully Susie doesn’t see. Louise has always kept her suspicions to herself, which hasn’t been easy, and which, she now realizes, was a mistake. People used to do more of that-look the other way-and Louise is as guilty as anyone else. The last time she saw Belinda was almost twelve years ago, only a few months before she died. They were both on the board of the Library Association back then, and there had been a meeting to discuss the coming year’s cultural series. It was late when the meeting finally ended-Harriet Laughton had chosen to be difficult, insisting that her son, a rather boring botanist, be asked to lecture-and people were hurrying to get home. Louise was on her way to her parked car, when she noticed Belinda headed for her truck. It was a bitter, windy night, and the shutters which framed the library windows were banging against the bricks. Belinda was carrying an armful of papers and proposals, since she was then the association secretary.

“What a meeting,” Louise said as she approached Belinda from what must have been her blind side.

Belinda was so startled that she dropped her pile of papers.

“I’m so sorry,” Louise had said.

“It’s nothing.” Belinda was always polite; she’d been carefully trained by her mother, Annabeth. Why, you could probably wake her in the middle of the night and she would say please and thank you. “I got spooked.” Belinda smiled gamely.

“Well, it’s that kind of night,” Louise had granted.

They’d both crouched down to gather the notes and proposals and that was when Belinda’s sweater was pushed up above her forearm. She quickly tugged her sleeve back down, but it was too late. Louise had seen the line of bruises.

“I need iron tablets,” Belinda had declared. “Anemia’s the problem.”

Once they’d gathered the papers, they both stood up. Louise remembers the chill she felt down her spine. Something is not right, she was thinking. She recalled seeing other bruises; although Belinda had the sort of pale, freckled skin which was susceptible to chafing and injury, there were too many instances when she’d been hurt. At a meeting the month before, Louise had noticed a mark in the shape of a butterfly on Belinda’s cheek. The little boy, Cooper, had hit her with a toy truck, by accident, or at least that had been the explanation. When she sprained her wrist, and Harriet Laughton asked how it had happened, Belinda said her horse had bumped against her, and all that summer her wrist continued to pain her as she took the minutes for the association’s meeting. Belinda had taken to wearing long-sleeved shirts in August; she had stopped looking her friends in the eye. All at once, in that parking lot, Louise was certain that she knew what the problem was, and what it had been all along. It’s him.