Fourteen

Maum Chrish didn’t hang her head.

“If I hear one more outburst like that, I’ll clear this room! I will. I told all of you at the outset, this is only a preliminary hearing. All we’re trying to do today is decide whether to impanel a grand jury or not. This ain’t no trial and you ain’t witnesses.” Judge Harry Thompson cleared his throat and mopped sweat off his face with a balled-up handkerchief. Then he gazed around at the crowd below him. “Everyone just simmer down. I deliberately called an open hearing so you could see that something’s being done. I know two murders are scary, hell, one’s scary enough. But you’re gonna have to be quiet so we can get on with it.”

To the magistrate’s left sat the tall black woman, the object of the day’s inquiry, imperious in posture with her chiseled, masculine features. Maum Chrish wore a floor-length white caftan and her head was wrapped in a white cotton turban. Beside her was her court-appointed attorney, Ben Estes, the recent law school graduate who had also taken on J. T. Turner earlier. The young lawyer looked at his client for a second, then gazed down at his best pin-striped suit and picked invisible lint off the left sleeve. On the other side of the conference table, serving here as the judge’s bench, slouched a district attorney for the state of South Carolina, a sway-backed man of forty-five whose navy tie was spotted with ketchup. Despite his appearance, however, Emmett Atkins was a skilled prosecutor with many convictions to his credit.

Owing to the incendiary nature of the case, the preliminary hearing was being conducted like an informal trial; evidence would be presented by both the prosecution and the defense but without benefit of cross-examination and without a jury present. They were meeting in the largest conference room of the Ashton County courthouse (Judge Thompson had deliberately not used the courtroom—it would have permitted even more spectators); a long oak table sat raised on a dais at the back of the room, framed from behind by three Palladian windows which overlooked the street outside. Two smaller tables on either side of the raised platform functioned as defense and prosecution enclaves. Beyond the smaller tables were rows of folding metal chairs. Each was filled. Nearly all of Essex had turned out, but no one looked comfortable. From the oldest to the youngest, from the best dressed to the dowdiest, people perched precariously on the edge of their seats, as though unsure of where or with whom they should sit.

For the first hour and a half Emmett Atkins had presented the state’s case against Maum Chrish. Photographs of Sarah Rothenbarger’s body were entered into the record, along with a statement by Mr. Gabriel McFarland and the post-mortem report completed by the Ashton County Medical Examiner, Dr. Edward Hammond. The district attorney, in his unpressed tan summer suit, then stopped in mid-sentence and looked up at the judge. “If you’d like any of these witnesses to testify, they are all present.”

Judge Thompson waived testimony of the crime statistics. “I see no need for that here.”

Now the district attorney began to build a case on the basis of Maum Chrish’s eccentricities. When he spoke of the dissected goat, the crowd murmured to itself, remembering.

Emmett Atkins rose to his full six feet and rocked back and forth in his scuffed loafers, appealing visually to the audience. “Those of us who live around here, we know odd things go on in those swamps. We’ve accepted that. We mind our own business and let others live in peace. We’ve always pretty much ignored what goes on out there. But”—the attorney paused for emphasis—“when someone comes into town and commits murder, then—then it becomes our responsibility to do something about it.”

He turned back to the judge. “Those of us in law enforcement hear every day about some new cult that’s sprung up, that perpetuates atrocities in the name of a mystical religion. Detective Lou Brockhurst knew this too. In a way these cults have become legitimized by what is currently being called the New Age. My own daughter brought home a rock the other day—which she bought in a crystal store in Charleston—and she expects it to tell her what to major in when she gets to college.” Here and there a chuckle erupted among the spectators, and the district attorney turned in the appropriate direction and smiled.

Knowing he had the audience on his side, Emmett Atkins walked toward the crowd, nodded to them as he would a jury. “It’s a well-known fact that some voodoo ceremonies involve the killing of goats, sheep, chickens, all kinds of animals. These beasts are skinned and the blood is saved for use in rituals, just as certain other body fluids are used—which I’ll get to later on. But for now, consider this—a woman who routinely kills animals with a knife has only to go one step further to do the same to a human being. I submit to you—and the state will prove—that Maum Chrish murdered Sarah Rothenbarger as part of the ritual of her cult.”

“Damn straight!”

It was a single voice and it was impossible to tell where it had come from. Judge Thompson pounded on his tabletop anyway. A single voice in court rarely stayed single. Then the magistrate said to the DA, “Evidence is what we need, counselor.” The judge also eyeballed the defense attorney, visually admonishing him to defend his client. Eyes forward again, Judge Thompson added, “The court is willing to stipulate, based on the photographs entered, that the defendant practices a religion unknown to most of us. But that, as you know, is not the issue. That’s a civil right. Murder is the issue. Let’s get on with it, please.”

The district attorney walked back over to the prosecution table and picked up a photograph. “This is the photograph you mentioned, Your Honor.” The prosecutor faced the crowd again, flashed the picture many of them had now heard about. “On the walls of Maum Chrish’s home are several drawings and various kinds of writing. It was the discovery of what some of these symbols mean, the state will contend later, that led to the murder of State Law Enforcement Agent Lou Brockhurst, who was the first person to understand them.” When the defense attorney stood up suddenly, the district attorney turned to the judge. “I know that’s a separate case, Your Honor.”

The judge looked at both attorneys simultaneously. “This is not a trial. Please proceed, but keep to the case at hand.”

The defense lawyer, looking crestfallen, sat down again and the prosecutor continued, “Sarah Rothenbarger, as you all know, was Jewish. Indeed, she was the only Jewish person in the town of Essex. Maum Chrish, on the other hand, is a black woman who seems to practice some form of voodoo. Yet on the walls of her cabin”—the lawyer tapped the photograph he still held—“what do we find but the Jewish alphabet.”

The front row leaned forward to see the photograph better.

“There was clearly a connection between Sarah Rothenbarger and Maum Chrish,” Emmett Atkins concluded. “A connection which resulted in murder.”

“This is like a witch trial,” Stoney whispered to Anna. “It’s like something out of the thirties.”

His wife didn’t respond. She was too angry with him to discuss anything. Instead, she focused on the photograph the district attorney was holding. She had been inside that cabin any number of times but she hadn’t recognized any Jewish alphabet. Of course, that was about the last thing on earth she would have expected to find there. What did Marian think about this? Searching the room, Anna’s eyes fell on the back of Marian’s neck; Marian was sitting five rows ahead of Stoney and Anna. Two rows behind Marian loomed Harriet Setzler, replete with wide-brim hat. Twice Anna noticed the old lady turn and stare at Marian. Then Anna looked at Maum Chrish. The black woman’s face was oddly untouched by what was going on. Anna’s eyes moved in an arc from Maum Chrish to Marian and then back to the older black woman. They were both tall, but Marian’s face was full and wide where Maum Chrish’s was long and lean. Of course, Maum Chrish was older and had no doubt had a much harder life. Did Marian realize she herself had probably had an easier life because her mother left her? Again Anna studied the back of Marian’s head; the other woman didn’t take her eyes off Maum Chrish. But Maum Chrish wasn’t looking back. Rather, she was staring ahead vacantly, as though her consciousness had shifted to another astral plane. Why didn’t she look at Marian—my God, Marian was begging her to.

In a moment Anna got up, nodded at Stoney, and pointed at the back door of the room. She walked down the aisle and out the door and toward the restroom. Inside it, she wiped her forehead with a damp paper towel. It was so hot in this building. Or was it just her? Then she went back out into the hall and walked over to the pay telephone near the water cooler.

Back inside the conference room, the district attorney was talking about the “physical evidence,” by which Stoney gathered he meant the semen found on Sarah Roth’s body. “It’s a well-known fact,” the prosecutor continued, “that certain occultists attach mystical properties to various body fluids besides blood. I refer now specifically to semen.” He smiled apologetically at the women in the audience. “Sexual fluids were accorded magical status in many primitive cultures. They were, for example, sometimes applied to new crops in ancient Greece and Egypt as a talisman of fertility—to help ensure a good yield.”

Judge Thompson raised the index finger of his right hand. “The point, counselor?”

Stoney turned around and stared at the back door of the conference room and wondered what Anna was doing. She’d been gone a long time. He sighed imperceptibly. He had to tell her about his job soon; this charade (she assumed he was taking annual leave to attend the hearing) could not go on any longer. He had to tell her that, after failing to appear for his appointment in Columbia, he had sent his supervisor a letter requesting an indefinite leave, that if such leave couldn’t be granted he was herewith tendering his resignation. He had to tell Anna he had quit his job because Essex was more important right now. Even to him, it sounded absolutely insane, the act of an irresponsible child. Yet he felt better about it than almost anything he had done in years.

But he could not tell Anna right now. She had been so unpredictable this week. First she comes on to him out of the blue—that afternoon on the living room floor was incredible, he had never known her to be so uninhibited, even now it made him smile, he had always wanted a woman he could talk to who was also that sexy (every man really did, even those who married the woman their mother liked or the woman who had the best looks, they all got divorced because what they really wanted was a good friend who liked to do it like crazy). That afternoon Anna had been everything he’d imagined when they were first married; afterward, they had lain there naked for hours talking about Maum Chrish, about crime and punishment, about what made some people hurt others. Then—four days later—suddenly it was like it had never happened; if anything, his wife was more remote than ever before.

Abruptly Stoney looked around him again. He thought he’d seen Leonard Hansen earlier. When he wasn’t thinking about Anna, Stoney kept going over his invasion of Leonard’s house. It had yielded absolutely nothing. Leonard was redoing his house. Leonard liked naked women. Hardly a breakthrough. Put him right up there with almost every man in town. Again Stoney turned and stared at the back of the room. He didn’t see Leonard anywhere now. Once more Stoney wondered if he could be wrong about Leonard. He just didn’t like the guy—but that was no reason to accuse him of murder. Make that two murders. True, Leonard still struck Stoney as basically unchanged from the Lenny of twenty years ago—but even that didn’t make him a criminal. Did Leonard know Stoney suspected him? Had anyone seen the Rover outside his house that day?

Up front the district attorney was still going on about the existence of semen on Sarah’s body. He finally ended with, “Now I ask you, what better way to disguise a murder committed by a woman than to leave semen on the body? This is the only possible explanation for why Sarah Roth was not raped. Her attacker was female.”

Stoney got up and headed out the room to see what was keeping Anna. When he opened the door into the hall, he saw her on the phone. Probably with that lawyer friend of hers in D.C. Stoney smiled; one thing he loved about Anna was how she never gave up. They hadn’t been able to get the guy by phone all week but Anna was still calling, was still hoping he could put them in touch with someone in South Carolina who would provide Maum Chrish with free, but more efficient, legal services. Stoney waved at his wife and headed toward the men’s room. As he was about to open the door, though, he saw a man leaning against the opposite wall, lighted cigarette in his hand, his eyes on Anna. Leonard Hansen didn’t even notice Stoney; Leonard just kept staring straight at Anna.

Stoney never went in the men’s room. Instead, he went over and stood beside Anna until she hung up the phone. Then he took her arm and Leonard smiled at them as they crossed back to the conference room door.

Back in their seats, Anna whispered, “Stoney, let go, you’re hurting my arm.”

He looked down at where he’d gripped her forearm. Vigorously he massaged the red imprint left by his thumb. “Sorry.”

She gazed at him. “What’s wrong?”

He shivered despite the heat but didn’t tell her what he’d just realized. That if Leonard Hansen ever did want to get him, he would not come at him directly.

Harriet Setzler tried not to listen when they talked about the semen. The things they said in public nowadays. No worse than what you could hear on your own television set, though. All her life she had tried to keep distasteful subjects at bay. Decent women did not think about some things. Thank the Lord William had not been the kind of man to make an issue of—of things. Harriet regarded Maum Chrish silently. The black woman sat up tall like Cleopatra on her barge. Harriet almost smiled despite herself; the old thing was tough as nails. A lunatic, of course, but tough all the same. Harriet rather admired the way Maum Chrish kept her own counsel. Sometimes if you pretended things didn’t exist, they didn’t. Maybe that old woman knew that.

A sudden shift nearby startled Harriet and she turned to see Stoney and Anna take their seats again. Then she faced forward once more, and just beneath the rim of her hat she studied Marian, who was hunched over, staring at Maum Chrish as though trying to figure something out. Harriet was still so worried about Marian. She looked so—wild, uncontrolled. The old lady had bequeathed her own precision and dignity to Marian, had tried to make her forthright and unflappable. She wanted Marian to be able to look back someday and think, I’ve made only a few mistakes. Just a few. Which was a lot more than most could say.

Harriet swallowed. Except, the ones she herself had made were such big ones. And they kept coming around again and again.

Marian Seethed with loathing when the prosecutor began shaking his finger at Maum Chrish. In fact, Marian couldn’t remember hating a white man so badly since she was a teenager being routinely raped by one. She wanted to get up and march to the front of the room and slap that man’s face, slap him silly, until he shut up, until he stopped badgering her mother.

“This woman has refused to answer our questions,” Emmett Atkins was saying. “She cannot account for her whereabouts on the night of the murder; indeed, she hasn’t attempted to. She cannot even prove who she is. It is unlikely Maum Chrish is her real name, yet she will not tell us what her real name is. Nor does she possess any legal identification.”

Should I stand up and identify her? Marian wondered. Will it hurt or help her to be rendered more concrete? Marian looked around the room; Jordan Taylor had said he would try to get by, that he was too busy to take the case himself but he would try to find someone who would, that he would definitely find someone before the case went to trial—which, at this point, certainly seemed likely. Marian had been to the Ashton County lockup every day but Maum Chrish had not spoken since being incarcerated. Finally, frustrated, Marian had driven out to the cabin to get her mother’s Bible as well as the granite amulet. “Wear it in court,” she told Maum Chrish. “You always said it would protect you.”

But she didn’t have it on. Marian stared at her mother. Why hadn’t she worn it? Why wouldn’t she talk—especially now—about why she’d come back, why she’d chosen to live in the swamps, why she’d left all those years ago. What if they didn’t have much more time together? What if Maum Chrish was convicted and they locked her away forever? That just couldn’t happen. Jordan would have to see to it. They’d all have to do whatever it took. Again, she stared up at her mother. She searched the other’s long face for the slightest sign of recognition, familiarity, acknowledgment. None was forthcoming. “You are the one who’s come,” the older woman had said that first afternoon when Marian approached her. But that was all she’d ever said. Why didn’t she say more? Was she simply incapable of dealing with reality anymore?

In a dramatic flourish the district attorney suddenly brandished a plastic bag containing a pewter-colored knife. “This knife,” he announced with an orator’s cadence, “is no ordinary knife. It’s a hunting knife. Seven inches long. This serrated edge”—he held the weapon up so everyone could see it—“will cut through small trees. A knife like this is useful in skinning game. A knife like this leaves a jagged wound on whatever it cuts. A jagged wound is easily identifiable. Such wounds were found on the body of Sarah Rothenbarger. And this knife”—the prosecutor paused, his face flushed—“was found in the home of Maum Chrish.”

Marian felt faint with the heat. She got up and walked outside to get some air.

Behind her, Emmett Atkins laid the knife back down, folded his hands together as in prayer, looking first at the judge and then at the spectators. “For the protection of this community, the state contends that the woman known as Maum Chrish should be tried for the murder of Sarah Rothenbarger.”

The noise began slowly. Just a clap of the hands, then another, then another. Soon the room shook with applause, people were on their feet, nodding, calling out to one another. It was going well, wasn’t it?

Stoney McFarland sat silently while Anna looked around for Marian. And Judge Thompson, picking up his gavel, reached under his robe for his antacid tablets.

Marian sat on the front steps of the courthouse and her hands shook so badly she longed for the cigarettes she’d given up six years ago. She even looked down the street for a store that might have a vending machine. Hardware store, another county office building, ice cream parlor, small Chevy dealership. Nothing that might sell smokes.

It was worse than she’d ever expected. Her identification of Maum Chrish was not going to be enough.

“The day mebbe come,” her mama had once told her, sitting there on the wood steps staring at the swept yard, “when you gonna have to choose up sides. Don’t choose iffen you don’t hafta. But when that day come, and you gotta, just choose and don’t look back.”

Suddenly Marian laughed aloud as she also remembered a strange trip she’d once taken with Harriet. When Harriet’s brother was still alive and owned a farm in Orangeburg. Harriet was always trying to help him out, whether he wanted her help or not. She would save watermelon seeds and dry them on newspapers on the back porch to give to him to plant new watermelon crops—even though he told her a dozen times those weren’t the right kind of seeds to plant, you had to buy seeds from the feed store, you needed seeds specially prepared for planting. In those days Harriet still kept a milk cow in the back yard and it had had a calf and suddenly one day she decided to take the calf to her brother. In the back seat of her car. She made Marian help her drag the bench seat out of the back of the car and put down newspapers, then force the hundred-pound calf through the door. Marian had been mortified; Harriet was really going to drive that animal fifty miles in the back seat of a car? Worse, Harriet expected her to go along? Sure thing, there they went down the highway, no air-conditioning in the car on that hot summer day as they slowed down to pass through small towns, people on the street stopping dead in their tracks to stare at this woman and a colored gal driving a calf somewhere. The car really smelled now (the calf was nervous and did more every time they went through a town). All this to take a calf to a man who didn’t even want it. The day got hotter, the calf got more agitated, more people stared and laughed, and the miles got longer and longer—and Harriet was pleased as punch. She sat up tall and haughty and waved to people as though there was something unfortunate about the fact they weren’t chauffeuring farm animals cross-county today.

Even when verging on lunacy, both of her mothers had always been women of fearless action.

Out of the corner of her eye, Marian spied a small boy on a bicycle peddling furiously toward the courthouse. Seth Von Hocke, Bryan’s younger brother.

Seth parked his bicycle and strode up the courthouse steps. He wondered if his mother had discovered him gone yet. If she knew he’d taken his bike despite being grounded.

When he passed Marian she called out, “You’re Bryan’s brother Seth, aren’t you?”

Seth nodded. “He’s in your class.”

Marian thought the boy was rather young for court proceedings. “You’re a long way from home.”

“I wanted to see the trial.”

“It’s not a trial. Only a hearing.”

“Will they put her in jail for good?”

So the little white boy had peddled all the way over here to see an old nigger sent up the river, that it? Marian’s jaw stiffened. “They may. You come to give ’em a hand?”

“Pardon?”

“You want them to send Maum Chrish away, don’t you?”

Seth’s eyes widened. “No ma’am.” He turned and looked up at the courthouse door. His legs felt weak. If he told the people inside what he knew, his parents probably wouldn’t let him play football next year. His mother didn’t like sports anyway. And the kids would laugh, would call him a wimp. Donny would call him a nigger-lover.

The boy walked past Marian and on up the stairs. Maybe he was a nigger-lover.

Marian turned and watched him go. Something about the set of his thin shoulders impressed her.

When defense attorney Ben Estes began to speak, timidly, leaning toward the judge as if that might aid his case, Jim Leland stretched back in his chair and relaxed. All that stuff about voodoo made him nervous and he was glad it was over with. Ever since he was a kid, those swamps had given him the willies. He now hunted only in dry-land woods, the shady stands of pines where the bucks fed; other guys could have all the lowland game there was. Only once had he been on a lowland hunt, a huge organized affair near the Dismal Swamp in Virginia which Heyward Rutherford had talked him into five years back. Everybody hunted in teams. Two teams got on opposite sides of the swamp and marched toward each other, with two other teams to the right and left. The four groups advanced and trapped the deer between them and everyone shot at once. The animals had nowhere to go. Five or six would go down at a time, the teams split the take. It was the worst hunting trip Jim had ever taken; the whole time he’d privately rooted for the deer.

He looked around the crowded room. The district attorney had won the crowd, no doubt about it. Now Ben Estes was saying how the case was circumstantial, no eyewitnesses or fingerprints or even any fibers to tie Maum Chrish to the scene; he even hinted that racial prejudice might be at work here. Who the hell will ever know if she really did it? Jim thought. Personally he would just be damn glad when the whole mess was over. She probably was guilty. A nut case gone off the deep end.

The Essex policeman felt sweat trickling down the back of his khaki uniform. Hot as blazes. You’d think a county as big as Ashton could afford decent air-conditioning. Every time the cotton-picking thing came on, it sounded like a plane passing by overhead. He kept expecting the windows to rattle. In a moment Jim shifted to let the back of his shirt breathe, and looked around behind him. Leonard Hansen was just coming in the back door of the conference room. For a moment the blond man stood staring at the group, then fixed his eyes on Stoney and Anna McFarland. Jim watched Leonard for several seconds until he noticed Jim and, nodding slightly, sat down.

Jim stared idly at the judge’s bench and wondered, only briefly, if there was any way Stoney was right about Leonard. Then, abruptly, Jim felt a tap on his shoulder and looked to his right. Buck Henry was standing in the aisle motioning to him and Jim got up and followed the larger man out into the hall where the Ashton sheriff whispered, “Got a call a few minutes ago. Trooper near Beaufort stopped a guy for speeding, noticed the guy looked familiar. Thinks it might have been Turner. While he was tracing the license, the guy took off. Turns out the car was stolen.”

Ben Estes’ pin-striped suit, a Brooks Brothers clone with just a shade too much polyester in it to be convincing, was damp and wilted by the time the twenty-eight-year-old finished his impassioned textbook speech about innocent-until-proven-guilty. He looked out at the crowd, searching for a friendly face. “It’s unfortunate that once you are arrested for a crime, most people think you’re guilty. Arrest is not evidence of guilt any more than the practice of an unusual religion is. Some people think Mormons are odd, other people think the Unitarians are suspicious. But we don’t go around accusing them of murder on that basis. When you get right down to it, Catholics can sound like proponents of cannibalism; in their communion service they believe they are actually drinking Christ’s blood. Do we arrest them for it? Of course not.”

Judge Thompson almost chuckled. The boy was learning.

The defense attorney continued, “We live in a country where by law people are assumed innocent until proven guilty. Lately this valuable premise is being eroded on countless fronts. Pick up your newspaper any day and you can see how many businesses in this country no longer believe in that concept—they want to test their prospective job applicants for drugs up front, they refuse to take an individual’s word anymore, they want proof. Some companies even want to give lie detector tests—or written tests that simulate the lie detector—to determine if the applicant has ever lied or stolen office supplies on a previous job. In other words, in these instances, there is no presumption of innocence anymore. In corporate America, people are being assumed guilty.

“That is precisely how the district attorney would have you judge Maum Chrish; he insists that because of her religious beliefs she should prove she is innocent. Which is a violation of her constitutional rights. A court of law is still governed by our Constitution. It is the responsibility of the prosecution in this case to prove ‘probable cause’ for Maum Chrish to have killed Sarah Rothenbarger. And they haven’t done that. They have told us Maum Chrish is odd, that she lives oddly. But that is not against the law. They have told us she owns a knife, had a jar of semen in her house. But that is not against the law. They have told us the Jewish alphabet is written on the walls of her house. Is that against the law? Is that a conclusive basis for a criminal indictment?”

Even Emmett Atkins looked a little worried now, and Marian was openly smiling.

But inexperience reared its soft unprotected head and, inspired by his own eloquence, Ben Estes suddenly added, “Maum Chrish is different. That is not a crime. As a professor of mine used to say, in order to protect the best of us, we must also protect the worst of us.”

Judge Thompson grimaced.

A man in the back of the room stood up and shouted, “Okay, sonny, protect us. Put her in jail.”

Laughter rippled across the room. “Yeah,” agreed several others before the judge got his gavel in place. “Jail is where the worst of us belong.”

Ben Estes looked confused. “That’s not what I meant,” he stammered.

Seth Von Hocke, standing against the back wall, opened his mouth to say something. But no sound came out.

The judge rapped on his desk and the crowd grew quieter but not contained. Chairs were moved, legs crossed and uncrossed, feet tapped. The room swayed with undercurrents. The magistrate motioned the two lawyers forward and whispered to them for a moment, then they returned to their seats. After they sat down again, Judge Thompson turned to Maum Chrish. “Ma’am, do you understand that you have been arrested for the murder of Sarah Rothenbarger? Do you have anything to say?”

The judge paused. The crowd waited.

“Ma’am, I must insist that you respond to my question. Do you understand that you stand accused of having killed Sarah Rothenbarger on April 12th of this year?”

Maum Chrish looked at the judge briefly and he had the uncanny feeling she had actually passed through him. Physically. It was crazy. He felt suddenly lightheaded, not uncomfortable, just uncertain of things that should be certain. Like how far away from the desk his chair was, how long it would take him to pick up the gavel again if he had to do so. He swallowed, tried to clear his head, looked at the prosecutor momentarily and then at the defense table.

In a second Judge Thompson turned back to Maum Chrish, stared at her intently. “Please, can’t you tell us anything that will shed some light on this accusation?”

“She’s looney, Harry. Maybe she can’t talk.”

The judge felt his fist hit the table before he realized he’d even raised his arm. “Silence!” Then he added, to no one in particular, “I guess we’ll need a competency evaluation.”

The crowd grew restless. “She did it, she won’t even deny it,” yelled a man in the corner. The adults clamored so loudly they never heard the high childish voice announce from the back of the room, “She can so talk.”

“Maum Chrish,” the judge tried again, “won’t you please speak in your own behalf?”

Marian, who had been listening outside the door, suddenly walked back in. All the way down the aisle she kept her eyes on Maum Chrish. If ever you’re going to acknowledge me, do it now, she demanded with her eyes. Give me a reason to do this. Please.

When she reached her own seat, Marian didn’t stop; instead, she continued on down the aisle until she stood at the front of the room, just below the judge’s bench. Now everyone had noticed her and instinctively they’d stopped whispering. The prosecutor and the defense lawyer both looked up expectantly, as did Judge Thompson.

Marian, however, kept her eyes steadfastly on Maum Chrish. She waited for a sign that she now knew would never come. Then she opened her mouth and said, “Maum Chrish did not kill Sarah. I was with her the night Sarah died.”

All over the room mouths flew open like pneumatic doors. Blap-blap-blap-blap.

“What would Marian be doing with her?”

“If Marian knew something about this, how come she didn’t say something before?”

“Why you reckon Marian’s doing this?”

“Got me. Why would she have anything to do with those people in the swamp anyway? Marian’s always been so—so different.”

Harriet Setzler stared at Marian but the old lady didn’t say a word.

Stoney McFarland turned to Anna, just looked at her for a moment, then asked under his breath, “Do you know anything about this?”

Seth Von Hocke, in the back, knew Marian was lying but he was relieved all the same.

And Marynell Pittman, eyes shooting daggers, jumped up and screeched, “Them kind’ll say anything to cover each other, won’t they?”

Judge Thompson had been on his feet for five minutes trying to restore order. Now he was in front of the raised oak table, facing the spectators, and his face was flushed with irritation. “I said, that’s enough! Those of you who cannot be quiet will be asked to leave. I won’t hesitate to have you ejected. Do you understand?”

The symphony of the crowd subsided into disparate notes.

The judge turned in Marian’s direction. Looking into his eyes, Marian knew exactly what he would ask. And she knew she would have to tell him; otherwise, her alibi for Maum Chrish would not be believed. Behind her sat the townspeople she had known all her life, whose respect had come to symbolize stability and accomplishment to her. She turned and let her eyes rest on Harriet.

Then she faced forward again, her back to the town. She didn’t wait for the judge. “Your Honor, my name is Marian Davis, I teach English at Essex High School.”

“And you know Maum Chrish? You can identify her?”

“Yes sir, I can.”

The prosecutor got to his feet. “I object to this soap opera staging. If this woman has something to reveal, might we not hear it in chambers first?”

Turning, the magistrate frowned at the district attorney. “No. We’re going to hear her out right now.” Judge Thompson swiveled and stared down at Marian again. “Please tell us what you know.”

Marian said loudly and clearly, “Maum Chrish’s real name is Lonnie Davis. She’s my mother.”

A hundred voices erupted like lava and grew heavier and hotter, until Judge Thompson saw it was useless to try to restore order. Even people who had no particular emnity against Maum Chrish felt cheated of the catharsis they needed. For Maum Chrish to have been the murderer would have worked so easily, would have made so much sense, and we needed it, this easy restoration of reason. Most of us never hated Maum Chrish. But her esoteric existence in the swamps made us nervous and so we weren’t above using her. If any of us had thought about it, we might have reasoned rather glibly that she had put herself in the way of being used. She could have come into town and said hello once in a while, right? She could have hung a cross from her rafter instead of a tribute to a moon goddess, couldn’t she? Was it really so bad to sacrifice one crazy swamp woman—she’d probably eat better in jail anyway—if it put everyone else at peace?

In the end, though, the preliminary hearing was adjourned for the day, to resume the following morning to hear Marian Davis testify. So we all slowly filed out, got in our cars, and drove back to Essex, not as vindicated as we’d expected to be, more confused than anything, almost all of us questioning how the hell Maum Chrish could be Marian’s mother (they all did look a little alike to some of us, even though we didn’t admit it in public anymore), and why the hell Marian hadn’t brought all this up before, and what on earth she was doing out in the swamps—mother or no—in the middle of the April night Sarah was killed. Marian was one of us, and not one of us would have set foot in that hellhole in the middle of any night.

So we trudged back to town and that evening we once more examined our door locks and stared out at the sidewalk, wondering who might have killed Sarah and that detective if Maum Chrish hadn’t. We were angry too. Marian had cheated us, she who always seemed one of us. Now she’d gone somewhere out of reach. Taking with her the solution we needed.

Stoney and Anna stayed behind to see Marian after the hearing was over. Marian spoke with the judge for a few minutes; then she walked with Maum Chrish and Buck Henry over to the police car that would take the older woman back to the Ashton jail. Marian opened the car door for Maum Chrish and leaned inside to say something to her before she closed the door again. Then Stoney and Anna joined Marian and the three of them crossed to Marian’s car, not saying much of anything, just walking along together.

All the way home Anna worried about what Marian was doing. Why didn’t it occur to anyone else that Marian might be mistaken, that Maum Chrish might not really be her mother after all? Maybe Marian wanted to find her mother so badly she couldn’t see the facts—that she and the other woman didn’t look enough alike, that Maum Chrish had yet to avow their relationship, that no one else in town had recognized the black woman as Lonnie Davis except a half-blind senile woman. Did this occur to anyone else? Anna didn’t think so. Everyone else seemed to think Marian would never align herself with the crazy swamp woman unless she had incontrovertible proof that they were blood. Only blood would make Marian stand against the town, right?

Stoney was silent during most of the ride back to the McCloskey house. Never our house, Anna thought abruptly, as they pulled into the driveway. Never our home. They got out of the Subaru and walked around to the back door which, when opened, admitted a rambunctious Silas who did his welcome dance and then sailed into the yard and picked up a stick and scrambled back to Stoney to have it thrown. The man indulged the dog and then he and Anna went inside. In the kitchen Stoney, who still had his mind on Leonard Hansen, said suddenly, “Anna, I want to show you how to use my rifle tonight.”

“Not now, okay? I need to run over to Marian’s.” Anna went upstairs to wash her face and change into shorts. In fifteen minutes she came back downstairs and found Stoney leaning into the window frames in the kitchen. “What are you doing?”

“Checking the locks.”

She stopped still. “You’re scaring me.”

He straightened up. “Sorry. I’ve just been meaning to check them, that’s all.” He looked down; he still couldn’t stop thinking about Leonard. Then he looked at Anna. “Want something to eat when you get back?”

“You’re going to fix dinner?”

He smiled. “I’m going to find an appropriate complement to a very large bottle of wine. We’ll call it dinner.”

As Anna left, Stoney insisted she take Silas with her. “But it’s not even dark,” she sputtered.

“Anna, please, just do it.”

The look in his eyes frightened her far more than his checking locks and so she clipped the leash to the golden retriever without comment and she and Silas started walking down Laurens Avenue. Anna wasn’t sure what she was going to say to Marian but she was convinced she should talk to her. Someone had to make her admit that Maum Chrish might not really be her mother. Someone had to make her see that committing perjury—and Anna had no doubt she was lying to alibi Maum Chrish—was very serious. Anna sighed and yanked on the dog’s leash. “Heel, Silas.” Then she looked up at the cloudy sky. If only it would rain.

Anna found Marian on her front porch reading her mail.

“Hey,” Anna called, “mind if I bring this bear up there?”

Marian smiled and waved them up. When Anna and Silas reached her, Marian leaned down to pet Silas but the dog craned his neck to sniff a basket sitting on the bench beside her.

“Is there food in there?” Anna asked. “This dog can smell edibles ten blocks away.”

Marian nodded. “It was here when I got home. Harriet must have brought it over.”

Anna thought Harriet should have stayed after the hearing to see Marian, but she offered no comment. Instead, she ordered Silas to lie down and then she sat down beside Marian. “That was something, today.”

“Yeah. I hope tomorrow they’ll let her go.”

But at what cost, Anna wondered. She looked at Marian and saw the deep shining purpose in the other woman’s eyes. She finally had what she’d always needed. Anna looked away. Can I tell her it’s not real? I’ve got to. Somebody’s got to. She’s my friend, I have a responsibility to tell her, I’d want someone to tell me. I can’t let her do something that might hurt her.

“You know, Anna, I never had a day like this in my whole life.” Marian laughed abruptly, a high girlish laugh that was unlike her. Then she reached over and impulsively hugged Anna.

Anna smiled woodenly. To suggest that Maum Chrish was not her mother was going to tear her apart. The truth was that Marian would probably never find her mother.

“I know she’s going to be all right now,” Marian was saying. “Tomorrow will make it all right.”

And you could go to jail for it, a voice rang in Anna’s head. She looked at Marian and again noticed the peaceful look in the other woman’s eyes. Tell her, a voice admonished. Now.

“Marian, I have to tell you something. I don’t know how to say this, exactly—”

“Just say it.”

“I wish this were easier.”

“After everything we’ve talked about lately, what can’t we say to each other?”

“It’s about Maum Chrish.”

Marian’s eyes changed instantly. “What about my mother?”

“Well, it’s … it’s …” Anna stopped and looked at her friend for a long time. Then she said, “I was proud of you today.”

Marian’s eyes widened and she looked at Anna intently. Finally she said, her voice tremulous, “Thanks, Anna. I knew you’d understand.”

Stoney was staring into the half-empty refrigerator when the phone rang and Bill Jenkins suggested an unscheduled jog. Something in Bill’s voice implied he had news so Stoney agreed to meet him at the entrance gates to Willowbrook. When Stoney got there, Bill was waiting and they started running down the Savannah highway, away from town, starting slow, pacing themselves. Jenkins had lost ten pounds in the last month and was now a more spirited runner. After they had cleared the first mile, Stoney asked the other man, “So what gives?”

“Whad’ya mean?”

“You never call me to run out of the blue. You know something?”

“You should have been a reporter.”

“So you do know something.”

“I know Diane is making spaghetti for dinner and I’ll never keep the ten pounds off if I don’t sweat before pasta.”

“Would you quit screwing around?” Stoney glanced at the other man out of the corner of his eye. “You love being the Washington Post of Essex, don’t you?”

“Yep.”

“Sooo?”

Bill Jenkins slowed down. “They spotted Turner.”

“You’re kidding.” Stoney all but came to a stop. “Where?”

“In Beaufort. That close. Driving a stolen car. He got away, though.”

“Damn,” Stoney said. “So maybe he did do it. Maybe he really did kill Brockhurst.”

“And Sarah.”

Stoney wiped sweat off his forehead. “Maybe the same person didn’t kill both of them.”

“Aw come on, McFarland. We haven’t had a murderer in our midst in a hundred years and now suddenly we got two of them at once?”

They picked up their pace again, at Stoney’s insistence. He wanted to get his exercise in too. “So what did you think of the hearing?”

“Nice piece of melodrama.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning it’s pretty farfetched. About Marian Davis and Maum Chrish. But hell, I don’t remember her mother. Do you?”

“No,” Stoney admitted. “But Marian wouldn’t lie; it must be true.”

“I think when we get Turner back here, we’ll get some real answers. He took off when the cop stopped him. Brockhurst gave him some pretty tough grilling, Jim told me.”

“Yeah? He didn’t seem like the type who could take much of that.” Stoney pointed toward a dirt road to the left and the two men turned onto it. They jogged in silence for a few minutes, then Stoney asked, “Did you see the post-mortem on both Sarah and Brockhurst?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Anything similar at all?”

“No. If there had been, I’d have put it in the paper. Two very distinctly different murders—the only thing in common was a knife.”

“Yeah, but Brockhurst wasn’t all cut up like Sarah,” Stoney said as much to himself as to the other man. “That would make you think Sarah’s murder was an act of revenge—didn’t Brockhurst say something about that?”

“I don’t know. Two new SLED agents are scheduled to come down soon, Jim says. To investigate both murders. I gather they’re waiting to see what happens with Maum Chrish.” Bill Jenkins slowed down again. “Hell, I’m not gonna eat that much spaghetti.”

Stoney slowed down also and the two fell into a companionable trot. The skies above them looked like rain and the humidity plastered their running shorts to their legs.

“Makes sense though,” Bill said, “what you said about Sarah and revenge. Odd too about how Sarah had those tiny little marks all in a row.”

“What?”

“It was in Ed’s autopsy report. Most of the wounds were very deep, big things. But on Sarah’s arm were several small cuts in a row, almost a pattern, superficial cuts, maybe made with a razor, the report said. Nothing like that at all on Brockhurst.”

“Maybe he was leaving his signature,” Stoney said half in jest. Then he stopped suddenly and instinctively rubbed the stomach scar beneath his T-shirt. “Jesus.”

Bill looked at Stoney. “What’s wrong?”

“He likes to mark his victims.” Stoney sped up. “Are you sure there weren’t any marks on Brockhurst?”

“Positive. Why?”

“Did you ever get in a fight with Leonard Hansen when you were growing up?”

“Does a dog have fleas? Most of us got over it.”

“Did he—leave any kind of mark on you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Cigarette burn?”

“No, nothing. Hell, it was thirty years ago.”

Stoney thought for a second. “Did you fight back?”

“What?”

“Did you?” Stoney looked apologetic. “Look, most guys didn’t. But it might be important. Did you?”

“Shit no. He broke bones when you did. If you want me to feel like a coward about it this late in life, I’m afraid it won’t wash.”

“That’s it,” Stoney exclaimed. “He hated anyone who fought back. I did and somehow Sarah did too, but Brockhurst didn’t.”

Bill Jenkins laughed aloud. “You are crazy. That’s sheer speculation. You don’t have one damn thing on Leonard that isn’t just in your head.”

Except for the way he was looking at my wife this morning. Stoney looked up abruptly. “I gotta go.” And he turned and started for home, leaving Bill staring after him.

In the end Stoney did not show Anna how to use his rifle that night, thanks largely to Silas. After Anna returned from Marian’s, she left Silas outside and he wandered off for an hour and managed to get into someone’s garbage before coming home smelling of spoiled chicken livers. “Oh yuk,” Anna cried when she bent down to pet him at the back door. “Silas, you big glutton, what have you been into?”

When Stoney came home, she was just beginning to wash the dog. The retriever, who was totally enamored of swimming in any stagnant pond he could find, was not fond of bathing. Stoney had once bought a large galvanized tub for the chore but Silas made it very clear, after two attempts, that he would not submit to the indignity of climbing inside it in order to be assaulted with soap and water. Now he would agree to a bath only by standing on the concrete sidewalk in the backyard while someone hosed him down, soaped him up, and then hosed him off again. After which he invariably rolled in the grass to get the water off, arriving at the back door later looking doused with organic confetti. However, a dog covered with dead grass was far preferable to one reeking of rotten chicken.

When Stoney arrived, he stared at the malodorous dog and gave Anna a quick kiss as he reached for the other sponge in the soapy bucket by her side. “Hey,” she teased, “is that any way to kiss the woman you’re hot for? If washing the dog turns out to be anything like washing the cars was the other day, we’re going to be pretty tired by bedtime.”

Still thinking about Leonard Hansen, Stoney just nodded vaguely and began washing the dog. He did not pick up on her cue; he wasn’t sure what it meant or how he should respond to it. Sudden changes always made him uneasy.

Anna stared at him for a second, then turned the water on full blast, mumbling under her breath.

By the time Stoney and Anna finished washing Silas, taking their own showers (always a requirement after washing an eighty-five-pound dog) and having a dinner of leftover tuna salad, some Gouda cheese, and half a loaf of French bread, along with an excellent Savignon Blanc, they were both so sleepy they went upstairs and fell gratefully into bed. Before they went to sleep, Stoney mentioned that he was going to take the day off again tomorrow to attend the rest of Maum Chrish’s hearing.

The next day the hearing room was less crowded than the day before. Maum Chrish was up front again, with the same serene, distant look on her face. The two lawyers, both of whom were quieter than the day before, looked ill at ease and spent most of their time scribbling furiously on legal pads. Marian sat in the front row, waiting to be called to testify. Judge Thompson again asked Maum Chrish to speak in her own behalf which she—again—did not do. After which, the judge called Marian forward. The oath was administered by the clerk-stenographer and Marian took the seat to the left of the judge.

“Since this is a hearing,” the magistrate explained, looking out at the sea of faces beyond him, “I have the option of questioning the witness myself. Either attorney may interrupt at any time, as long as neither does so frivolously.”

Marian took a deep breath, looked at Maum Chrish on the other side of the judge for a moment, and then out at the crowd. She knew instinctively that Harriet had not come today. But Anna and Stoney had.

“Ms. Davis, could you tell us how you came to discover that Maum Chrish is your mother and how you happened to be with her on the night Sarah Rothenbarger was killed?” The judge smiled at Marian briefly. “Take your time. The floor is yours.”

For fifteen minutes Marian explained how she had come back to Essex to look for her mother over five years ago. She detailed her conversations with people in Essex, how she had even once hired a private detective from Savannah who had had no luck tracking down Lonnie Davis. How Marian had virtually given up when she noticed Maum Chrish in town one day. “I have no idea what it was. But I was just drawn to the image of her, I guess. I remember—later on—standing at the window of the church after Sarah’s funeral, the window Maum Chrish climbed out of, and I had that same feeling then. Of course I was beginning to suspect who she was by then.”

It was part fact, part fiction.

Marian described her conversation with Sadie Thompkins, her first visit to the swamps, her inspection of Maum Chrish’s cabin, and her eventual discovery of the amulet she had given her mother as a child. (All of these events, however, she placed in an earlier time frame, and she omitted Anna’s involvement.) How she finally confronted the older woman and had received confirmation that she was right, that the older woman really was her parent.

The prosecutor stood up irritably. “Your Honor, we don’t dispute whether or not Ms. Davis is related to the accused. It doesn’t matter to us. What we do question is the convenient alibi she’s suddenly provided for her.”

Seth Von Hocke again sat on the back row of the conference room. He had lied and told his mother he was going to Donny’s; he was lucky to have thumbed a ride with the Jamersons or he’d have had to walk the whole way, since his bike was now locked up in the storage building behind his house. He didn’t particularly like defying his parents, but he just had to be here. He felt like he had to be present in case the schoolteacher needed help. In case she couldn’t do it. Weird how it was really wrong, what she was saying, but seemed right. And anyway, if she didn’t do it, then he’d have to tell everyone how he and Donny were there that night.

Marian was talking again. More about how she’d begun to believe Maum Chrish was her mother and had gone out to the swamps to get proof before confronting her, how she went out there several times and just spied on the other woman, to see what she could find out, only often Maum Chrish was not at her house. How on the night Sarah was killed, she couldn’t sleep so she had driven out there to see Maum Chrish again, she was determined to talk to her, she got out there and this time Maum Chrish was home, was there in her cabin, alone, shortly past midnight.

“This is preposterous,” Emmett Atkins shouted, rising to his feet. “We are to believe Ms. Davis just happened to go spying on Maum Chrish in the middle of the night Sarah Rothenbarger just happened to be murdered? We are to believe a woman alone was not afraid to go into those swamps at night?”

“If you’re not afraid of racist rumors about voudou,” Marian countered, “why would you be afraid of the swamps?” She looked around the room. “What is there to be afraid of out there—snakes? Or is it black people who believe something different, is that the danger?” Marian turned to the judge. “The funniest thing is, Maum Chrish doesn’t strictly believe in voudou.”

Audible disbelief made its way around the room. Marynell Pittman snorted loudly.

Marian looked at Judge Thompson. “What I mean is, I think she practices voudou to scare people so they will stay away and leave her alone. The drawings on her walls indicate an interest in many different beliefs—astrology, tarot cards, Christianity, cabbalism.”

“What?” Judge Thompson squinted. “I’m not sure I know what that last one is.”

“Your Honor, since discovering Maum Chrish is my mother, I’ve tried to research everything on the walls of her cabin. The Hebrew alphabet is there, yes—but I don’t think it necessarily has anything to do with Sarah Roth. A long time ago some Jews were also mystics. In the Jewish Cabbala, the alphabet can be used to divine, to ascertain spiritual meaning. Perhaps Sarah and Maum Chrish did share this sometime—they were both outcasts in a way, it must have been lonely to be the only Jewish person in town. And that might explain why Maum Chrish showed up at Sarah’s funeral, because the two of them had this in common.”

The prosecutor got to his feet again. “It truly is remarkable,” he said to Marian, “how you have the answers for everything.”

“Yeah,” someone shouted from the gallery. “That’s a fact.”

The judge looked up, ready to grab his gavel again, when Marian’s voice took over in its stead.

“I think what makes everyone fear Maum Chrish,” she said, staring at the assemblage in the folding chairs, “is not how backward she seems. It’s not even her color. It’s how progressive she is. Because she apparently believes in many philosophies, because in her mind differences must complement rather than divide, we call her crazy. Maybe she reminds us of our own shortcomings.”

Marian stopped and stared across the room at Maum Chrish. “Who is it that decides one set of beliefs is backward superstition while another is enlightened truth? Freemasons put a triangle on their lodges to represent the Christian trinity; voudouists put a triangle on the center-post altar in their temples to represent their trinity.” She turned and gazed at the townspeople. “We accept one without thinking—and we fear the other without thinking. Why can’t we accept both?” Then Marian stopped; she looked at the judge and added quietly, “That’s all I have to say. I was there. She didn’t kill Sarah.”

Judge Thompson thought for a moment and then said to Marian, “May I ask why you didn’t come forward sooner?”

“I didn’t think it was necessary until now.”

“You are positive you were with Maum Chrish on the night of April 12th and that you did not see her leave her house?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Then I will take your testimony under advisement.” The judge looked over at the two lawyers. “Even though this is only a preliminary hearing, in view of this development, I feel I should offer you the opportunity to cross if you wish.”

Ben Estes declined. However, Emmett Atkins got to his feet at once. “Ms. Davis, do you have any documented proof that Maum Chrish is your relative—blood tests, old photographs, birth certificate, anything like that?”

“No.”

“Was anyone else aware of your nocturnal visits to her house, of the relationship you were allegedly forging with her?”

“I didn’t think it was anyone else’s business.” Marian gazed at Anna for a moment.

The prosecutor resumed, “You say you got to her cabin shortly past midnight on April 12th. What time did you leave?”

Unprepared, Marian answered, “I don’t know exactly.”

“Can’t you at least estimate how long you were there?”

“An hour, maybe a little longer.”

“So you left a little after one in the morning?” When Marian nodded, the district attorney said, “You must answer out loud, please.”

“Yes, I think I left about one or a little after.”

“You drove all the way out there in the middle of the night to stay for one hour, is that correct? All because you couldn’t sleep?”

“Yes.”

“Would you say that’s normal for you? Erratic behavior like that?”

“No, of course not.”

“Could any of your testimony be construed as the action of an intelligent, educated teacher—spying on someone who is supposedly her mother, telling no one about her, allowing her to be arrested without coming forward until the last moment?” Emmett Atkins turned his eyes on the spectators rhetorically.

The judge intervened. “Counselor, the witness is not on trial.”

The prosecutor shrugged. “No more questions at this time.”

“Then I’ll see both attorneys in my chambers,” the magistrate concluded. “We stand in recess for now.”

Marian got up and stepped down from the dais, prepared to go back to her seat. But before she left, she crossed to Maum Chrish and bent down and touched the older woman on the cheek. And for just an instant she saw something move in those old old eyes. Then Marian walked back down the aisle. But she didn’t stop at her seat; rather, she moved on toward the rear door of the room, her gait slow and tired, as though she were exhausted by the weight of the old skin being sloughed off. She moved alone, a woman who took on a deeper hue as she moved into the shadows at the back of the room. At the door she hesitated, stood very tall and thought for a moment about Harriet.

She reached for the doorknob, but a small hand shot out in front of her and opened the door for her. Marian looked down at Seth, then she walked through the door.

When Marian got back to Essex, she drove straight to Harriet’s, got out of her car, and walked up the steps and rang the bell. Harriet opened the door, her eyes uncertain. “I sure could use your help in my garden,” Marian said. “Could you come over this afternoon?”

Harriet looked down, quickly blinked her eyes. “I think I can spare the time today. Let me get on a housedress and I’ll be down directly.”

They worked together in the dirt all afternoon, Harriet giving orders and Marian heeding those she truly thought were sensible, about what to plant where and how to fertilize it. Together the two women turned up a lot of earth under that perpetually hazy sky. They spoke of nothing else but growing things. When it was finally dusk, Harriet got up to go home, her cotton housedress black with Low Country dirt. For a moment Marian almost asked her to stay to dinner but then, in the end, she didn’t. Instead, she stood in her driveway and waved as the old lady walked home.

Later Marian took a long bath and climbed, naked and aching all over, into bed. She closed her eyes tiredly, wanted only to sleep even though it was not completely dark out yet. But the white walls of the room were too bright and aggressive, and she lay there restless and strained.

A few minutes later the phone rang and she picked it up to hear Stoney McFarland’s voice, “Maum Chrish was released about an hour ago; the judge dismissed the whole case. Bill Jenkins just called and he said Emmett Atkins really put up a fight but Judge Thompson didn’t agree.” Stoney paused. He still wondered why Marian had not said anything about Maum Chrish before, but he didn’t think this was the time to ask about it. “Anna says she’ll see you tomorrow. If you need anything, we’re here.”

Marian held the receiver for a few minutes after Stoney hung up. Then she placed a call to Charleston and talked for a few minutes. After which she got up and closed all the blinds in the room and drew the drapes. The sweet darkness settled in around her and soon she slept.