According to this version, which was put together by Mr Milheron and Mrs Burlingame-and endorsed enthusiastically by the police, I might add-I returned to partial consciousness several times, but each time I did, I passed out again. When I came to the last time, the dog had gotten tired of Gerald and was noshing on me. I got up on the bed (according to our story, Gerald and I found it where it was-probably moved there by the guys who came in to wax the floor-and we were so hot to trot we didn’t bother to move it back where it belonged) and drove the dog off by throwing Gerald’s water-glass and fraternity ashtray at it. Then I passed out again and spent the next few hours unconscious and bleeding all over the bed. Later on I woke up again, got to the car, and finally drove to safety… after one final bout of unconsciousness, that is. That was when I ran into the tree beside the road.

I only asked once how Brandon got the police to go along with this piece of nonsense. He said, “It’s a State Police investigation now, Jessie, and we-by which I mean the firm-have lots of friends in the S.P. I’m calling in every favor I have to, but in truth I haven’t had to call in that many. Cops are human beings, too, you know. These guys had a pretty good idea of what really happened as soon as they saw the cuffs hanging from the bedposts. It’s not the first time they’ve seen handcuffs after someone popped his carburetor, believe me. There wasn’t a single one of those cops-state or local-who wanted to see you and your husband turned into a dirty joke as a result of something that was really no more than a grotesque accident.”

At first I didn’t say anything even to Brandon about the man I thought I saw, or the footprint, or the pearl earring, or anything else. I was waiting, you see looking for straws in the wind, I suppose.

Jessie looked at that last, shook her head, and began to type again.

No, that’s bullshit. I was waiting for some cop to come in with a little plastic evidence bag and hand it to me and ask me to identify the rings-finger-rings, not earrings-inside. “We’re pretty sure they must be yours,” he’d say, “because they have your initials and those of your husband engraved inside them, and also because we found them on the floor of your husband’s study.”

I kept waiting for that because when they showed me my rings, I’d know for sure that Little Nell’s Midnight Caller had just been a figment of Little Nell’s imagination. I waited and waited, but it didn’t happen. Finally, just before the first operation on my hand, I told Brandon about how I’d had the idea that I might not have been alone in the house, at least not all the time. I told him it could have just been my imagination, that was certainly a possibility, but it had seemed very real at the time. I didn’t say anything about my own missing rings, but I talked a lot about the footprint and the pearl earring. About the earring I think it would be fair to say I babbled, and I think I know why: it had to stand for everything I didn’t dare to talk about, even to Brandon. Do you understand? And all the time I was telling him, I kept saying stuff like “Then I thought I saw” and “I felt almost sure that.” I had to tell him, had to tell someone because the fear was eating me from the inside out like acid, but I tried to show him in every way I could that I wasn’t mistaking subjective feelings for objective reality. Above all I tried to keep him from seeing how scared I still was. Because I didn’t want him to think I was crazy. I didn’t care if he thought I was a little hysterical; that was a price I was willing to pay to keep from getting stuck with another nasty secret like the one about what my father did to me on the day of the eclipse, but I desperately didn’t want him to think I was crazy. I didn’t want him to even speculate on the possibility.

Brandon took my hand and patted it and told me he could understand such an idea; he said that under the circumstances, it was probably tame. Then he added that the important thing to remember was that it was no more real than the shower Gerald and I took after our athletic, bump-and-bruise romp on the bed. The police had gone over the house, and if there had been someone else in there, they almost certainly would have found evidence of him, The fact that the house had undergone a big end-of-summer cleaning not long before made that even more likely.

“Maybe they did find evidence of him,” I said. “Maybe some cop stuck that earring in his own pocket.”

“There are plenty of light-fingered cops in the world, granted,” he said, “but it’s hard for me to believe that even a stupid one would risk his career for an orphan earring. It would be easier for me to believe that this guy you thought was in the house with you came back later and got it himself.”

“Yes!” I said. “That’s possible, isn’t it?”

He started to shake his head, then shrugged instead. “Anything is possible, and that includes either cupidity or human error on the part of the investigating officers, but… “He paused, then took my left hand and gave me what I think of as Brandon’s Dutch Uncle expression. “A lot of your thinking is based on the idea those investigating officers gave the house a lick and a promise and called it good. That wasn’t the case. If there had been a third party in there, it’s odds-on that the police would have found evidence of him. And it they’d found evidence of a third party, I’d know.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because something like that could put you in a very nasty situation-the kind of situation where the police stop being nice guys and start reading you the Miranda warning.”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” I said, but I was beginning to, Ruth; yes indeed. Gerald was something of an insurance freak, and I had been informed by agents of three different carriers that I was going to spend my period of official mourning-and quite a few years after-in comfortable circumstances.

“John Harrelson in Augusta did a very thorough, very careful autopsy on your husband,” Brandon said. “According to his report, Gerald died of what MEs call “a pure heart attack,” meaning one uncomplicated by food poisoning, undue exertion, or gross physical trauma.” He clearly meant to go on-he was in what I’ve come to think of as Brandon’s Teaching Mode-but he saw something on my face that stopped him. “Jessie? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“Yes there is-you look terrible. Is it a cramp?”

I finally managed to persuade him that I was okay, and by then I almost was. I imagine you know what I was thinking about, Ruth, since I mentioned it earlier in this letter: the double kick I gave Gerald when he wouldn’t do the right thing and let me up. One in the gut, one smack in the family jewels. I was thinking how lucky it was I’d said the sex was rough-it explained the bruises. I have an idea they were light, anyway, because the heart attack came right on the heels of the kicks, and the heart attack stopped the bruising process almost before it could get started.

That leads to another question, of course-did I cause the heart attack by kicking him? None of the medical books I’ve looked at answer that question conclusively, but let’s get real: I probably helped him along. Still, I refuse to take the whole rap. He was overweight, he drank too much, and he smoked like a chimney. The heart attack was coming; if it hadn’t been that day, it would have been the next week or the next month. The devil only plays his fiddle for you so long, Ruth, I believe that. If you don’t, I cordially invite you to told it small and stuff it where the sun doesn’t shine. I happen to think I’ve earned the right to believe what I want to believe, at least in this matter. Especially in this matter.

“If I looked like I swallowed a doorknob,” I told Brandon, “it’s because I’m trying to get used to the idea that someone thinks I killed Gerald to collect his life insurance,”