Sixteen

The next morning Harriet was relieved to get back to her own house. Everything seemed much saner in daylight. She had breakfast with Stoney and Anna (they really shouldn’t give that dog scraps from the table) and heard about how J. T. Turner had not been found. She heard, too, how Jim Leland had come around (no one said exactly why) and had scared Anna out of a year’s growth—Jim Leland showing up to act like a policeman finally and she had missed the whole thing. Later, when Harriet got back home shortly after nine in the morning, she felt revived. She was comfortable now, in her own house; all that worry last night was for nothing. This was where she belonged and she wasn’t going to leave this house again—no matter how much Anna McFarland needed company. She was always glad to help a neighbor but this being away from her house was too much to ask. Your house needed you, you needed it; it just didn’t do to be separated from it for too long. William’s aura (which wasn’t what Harriet called it but was nonetheless how she recognized it) still lived in this house and she needed that aura in order to breathe herself. When the aura left, when William was finally gone from the house, she knew she’d be gone too.

She spent the morning cleaning. Marian was due back from Charleston late that night and maybe she’d like to come over tomorrow for some lunch. Despite state regulations, Harriet had been religiously watering Marian’s new garden in the black woman’s absence and she was excited for Marian to see how the new plants had taken hold. Wasn’t just anyone who could make things grow in the middle of a drought. Marian would be pleased. Sometimes Harriet wondered about that woman in the swamps, about what Marian thought about her. Except for being so tall, Maum Chrish sure didn’t look much like Lonnie but it had been a long time since Lonnie left. What did Marian do out there with her all day? Sometimes the thought that the swamp woman really was Lonnie, was Marian’s real mother, brought Harriet up short and she wanted to drive out there and find her and tell her to go away. Wasn’t it enough in life to be usurped by one dead woman, now she had to play second fiddle to a resurrected one?

In the middle of her vacuuming, Harriet abruptly stopped and looked out the window at the bright sunshine. Then, without putting the vacuum up or finishing the living room carpet, she suddenly threw open the front door and rushed down the steps and stumped down the street to Marian’s house and crossed to the back yard to check on the garden. She sighed with relief. The new roses looked good, no sign of bugs. The azaleas were taking hold, the caladiums were flourishing (would Marian remember to dig up the bulbs in the fall, well if Marian didn’t, she would just have to come over and do it for her). And that border of monkey grass was going to be beautiful in another few weeks. Harriet walked in and out among the flowers and the shrubs, surveying her handiwork. Yes, Marian was going to like this. Then the old woman looked up at the skies, wishing for rain. Bet a swamp woman couldn’t grow a garden like this.

In a few minutes Harriet went home again, finished her housecleaning, and put the vacuum cleaner back in the pantry closet in the kitchen. Later that afternoon she rolled out pie crust dough to make a batch of lime pies so she’d have some tomorrow when Marian was home again. Harriet was going to take some to Anna McFarland too. Kneading the dough, Harriet thought about Anna. The younger woman had apparently been quite shaken last night—hearing about that fire, that J. T. Turner was back in town. Harriet paused for a second. She was fed up with being afraid. Of everyone in this whole town being afraid. Maybe what happened all those years ago did matter and maybe it didn’t—but she was going to talk to Marian about it and no matter what Marian said, Harriet decided suddenly, she was going to go to Jim Leland and tell him a few coincidental things that bothered her. She would not keep silent anymore, there was no reason to. She would tell Marian the truth, that she had not kept her word, and if Marian deserted her in favor of her real mother, she would learn to live with that too.

When Harriet had her lime pies in the oven, she untied her apron and walked into her dining room. She stared for a long time at the painting over the fireplace, of the forest fire. And what she saw in it, this time, was an old friend in a fedora.

Harriet went to bed that evening contented. And when—hours and hours later—she woke up to an odd smell, it was William she thought of first.

Stoney and Anna were lying in bed talking about Leonard Hansen’s house. It was almost midnight. The fire of the night before had been troubling Stoney all day long. It did apparently exonerate Leonard in the two murders. Stoney certainly had no “proof” to the contrary, no reason to think otherwise. Then, when Anna told him about J. T. Turner spying on the McCloskey house months ago, he was even more convinced. Maybe he was singling Leonard out because, as Bill put it, Leonard was the kind of Southerner he didn’t like.

So who had been wandering around the McCloskey house last night scaring Anna half to death?

“Why didn’t you tell me about Turner earlier?” Stoney asked. “You could have been in danger.”

“Stoney, I didn’t know who he was. You didn’t exactly tell me about going to Ashboro to talk to him. I thought you were hung up on Leonard Hansen.”

“Eventually I was. I am. Until last night I would have sworn to it. I just wish we’d seen Turner. I’d feel a hell of a lot better if I could just understand why he’s doing this.”

“I’m not sure the why makes any difference.”

Stoney pushed his pillow up. “What do you mean?”

“Killing someone is so beyond our concept of being human—yours and mine, at least—that I’m not sure any explanation of motive ever makes it understandable. That’s what horrifies us, I think—it can never be rendered reasonable. Or undone. Only on television, in movies, is murder made to seem reasonable. Because you’re encouraged not to care, to pass over the reality of it for the sake of entertainment, for the sake of knowing who did it and why. Much more attention is focused on the killer’s motivation than on the effect his acts have on others, on those close to the victim. Media trivializes violence by trying to make it a game—with a neatly tied-up conclusion. When in fact it really isn’t neat. It isn’t understandable. It’s sad and cruel and very scary.”

Stoney looked at Anna for a second. It was the first time she’d talked about how she felt about the Essex murders. Christ, what if someone had hurt her last night? He tried to sound light. “You’re pretty smart, you know.”

She yawned. “Pretty sleepy too.” She reached up and turned off the bedside lamp. “I keep thinking about Harriet Setzler.”

“Why?” Stoney refocused in the darkness, punched his pillow fatter the way he liked it.

“I told you, she was talking so crazy last night. I really thought maybe she was—you know, going a little batty. She was so upset about something she told Sarah and how she felt it might be the reason Sarah was killed.”

“What did she tell Sarah?”

“I don’t know exactly. She kept talking about somebody she called ‘him’ but she never did say who she meant.” Anna paused, thinking about whoever had raped Marian years ago. And moved away afterward.

“You should have said something about this earlier. I’ll go talk to Mrs. Setzler tomorrow, this might be important.”

“She seemed okay this morning. And when I tried to bring this up, she ignored me. God, she snores. She’s kind of funny, though, last night she told me all about when she first started teaching.”

Eyes closed, Stoney reached out and patted his wife on the leg. “Imagine you and Harriet, chums.”

Anna slapped the covers beside Stoney. “Would you quit that? All I mean is, she’s … she can be … interesting.”

“You like her.”

“I do not like her. I think she’s a character.”

“You like her.” Stoney settled into his pillow and closed his eyes.

Anna stared across the room. Then she said, “If you’d just seen how upset she was. I mean, all about how she shouldn’t have told Sarah and Sarah went to ‘him’ and then Sarah felt sorry for ‘him.’ I was really worried she was going to faint.”

Stoney didn’t answer. When Anna looked over at him, he was breathing rhythmically, one arm tucked under his pillow. Sound asleep. Anna watched him for a moment. She still loved the way he looked, that soft thick hair, the fragile cheekbones, those strong shoulders. She turned over and tried to go to sleep. It felt like one of those nights when no amount of saying to herself—“go to sleep now”—was going to work. She thought about Marian for a moment, how odd it was to have met such an unconventional friend here of all places. Who would have believed that a woman who had given up men would turn out to be more honest about sex than anyone? Abruptly Anna remembered a conversation she once had with Stoney, wherein he suggested that many men wouldn’t be as upset about their wives having an affair with another woman as they would be about another man.

“That’s absurd,” Anna had sputtered. Were they driving down M Street? She couldn’t remember. “God! That’s just another male condescension. Of course they don’t feel as threatened—after all, the other woman doesn’t have a mighty penis, does she? And that’s what’s important in sex, right?”

“Anna, I didn’t say I feel that way. I just think some guys do.”

Being a feminist was much easier if you weren’t living with a man. Invariably when their conversations wandered into sex and gender, she attacked men and he defended them. Over time their bed became a political battleground. Love became war, precisely because they were so honest, and then the war stopped. No winners. Anna tried to think about other things and finally she drifted off but she still felt uneasy and in a couple of hours she awoke from her in-and-out slumber and went into the bathroom for a drink of water. When she returned to the bedroom, she crossed to the window and looked out at the street below, desperately wishing it would rain. Then, abruptly, she wrinkled up her nose. What was that? It must be her imagination. After last night, especially. She leaned toward the window again and breathed in.

Then she whirled around. “Stoney, wake up. I smell smoke.”

An hour later Marian turned off the highway and headed into town. Yawning, she rubbed her eyes with her fingertips. Why had she waited so late to leave? She stretched her thighs languorously, pushed her toes against the floor of the car. Because they’d gone back to bed again after dinner. Which was wonderful—lasted so long, was as ripe with talk as with sex. Wonderfully idle talk. No mention of Maum Chrish, of the murder, of the past, of power, just chat chat chat until Marian dozed off, then woke up and saw it was after nine. She could have just stayed another night but she hadn’t really wanted to; she wanted to see Maum Chrish again and she had told Harriet she would be back tonight.

Main Street was like a tomb as she drove through it, bisecting the triangle that outlined Essex. Nothing moving, no one on the sidewalks, not even another car. Then she thought about Charleston, about Susan, that wonderful old house in Ansonborough, Susan’s two children. Jordan Taylor had introduced them, entirely by accident; he had handled Susan’s divorce. I should have just stayed over, Marian thought, yawning again. But somehow she’d felt she ought to get home. Often she longed for Susan during the week but she was always glad to leave Charleston after a few days too. This was not the same driven love she’d felt for Eileen and it never would be. She would never live with Susan, and it wasn’t just because of the kids. It was because both women preferred living alone. Theirs was a weekend marriage.

Often Marian felt she would spend the rest of her life alone, but the possibility no longer seemed tragic; after all, she had grown up watching a woman live alone, a woman who cast a shadow so long hardly anyone who followed her could fill it. In her way, and entirely unknown to her, Harriet Setzler had prepared Marian for the life she would choose—a life which, if Harriet knew everything, would scandalize her. Strange, Marian thought suddenly, how of all the people she had known for years in Essex, it was Anna McFarland she told. Anna who—it seemed clear now—had a few problems of her own.

Nosing her sportscar toward Aiken Avenue, Marian noticed that all the lights were on in the fire hall and she wondered if the men had a late poker game going. The wives were always complaining about the games; who was going to put a fire out if we ever did have one when those boys were drunk and had been up playing cards all night? Marian turned onto Aiken Avenue and drove slowly, thinking about whether this was the summer to leave Essex. What she had come home for was accomplished. Maum Chrish was or she wasn’t, it didn’t much matter anymore. She existed, that was enough. Probably she wasn’t but she seemed like she was. Maybe that’s what really counted—the people who seemed to be what they ought to be. Marian gazed at the houses on either side of her. If she left this time, she knew she wouldn’t be back.

Then she saw it. Beyond her, down the street, a single flash of yellow and red. Above Harriet’s house.

“What on earth?”

Marian stomped on the accelerator and the car shot out from under her and she took the next few blocks in a matter of seconds. She sailed past her house and braked sharply at the corner, slammed the car back into neutral, tore open the door, and jumped out.

Flames.

A small crowd stood in front of Harriet’s house. Stopped beside it, on the cross street, was the largest firetruck of the Essex Volunteer Fire Department. Hoses ran from it across the back fence and disappeared out of view. Two men in yellow fire-retardant coats also stood atop extension ladders at the front of the house, their hoses aimed at the roof.

Marian started running. Flames licked at all the downstairs windows, ran up the clapboard sides of the structure, and reared out of the top of the chimney. Half of the sleeping porch had already fallen in on itself. The two ladders were now being pulled away from the roof, as other firemen dragged in another hose and began spraying the front porch.

Suddenly Marian stopped, her eyes glued to the fence in front of the house. Against it leaned Elizabeth Setzler’s paintings. They lay in haphazard disarray and one was completely overturned, but someone had gotten them out, mostly Harriet’s favorites, the forest fire, the girl in the boat, some others. Marian swallowed. It was okay. Harriet must have gotten out too.

Marian saw Stoney and Jim in the crowd and ran toward them. They would know where Harriet was. Why oh why didn’t I leave Charleston earlier? The question echoed like a mantra, as she lurched forward and grabbed Stoney’s arm.

“Where is she?”

The look he gave her was a year long. He put his arm around her.

“Stoney …”

Marian saw Anna heading toward her through the crowd. She saw Jim Leland staring at her. Even Elsie Fenton turned toward her.

“She got the paintings out. Where is she?”

Finally Jim Leland said, “We think she went back inside again. Maybe to get another picture, I don’t know. Now it’s so bad nobody can get in.”

Marian turned and pushed through the gate and raced toward the house. In a second she was across the grass heading for the steps. A piece of guttering fell off the roof and crashed onto the steps inches from her and she jumped. Then she ran on.

Jim shouted first. “Marian!”

Calling her name, Stoney and Jim both scrambled after her. She was on the porch now, heading for the front door. Ahead of Stoney, Jim reached the stairs just as the remaining guttering fell and it hit him and he wobbled, dazed. Then he threw it aside.

“Stop her!” a fireman yelled. “Don’t let her open that door.”

Jim grabbed Marian from behind just as she reached for the doorknob. She could see the wall of flame through the door’s glass pane as Jim pulled her away. Then Stoney reached for her and threw his arms around her.

The two men led Marian to the bottom of the stairs. Anna rushed over and she and Marian clung to each other as they walked across Harriet’s yard.

Stoney turned to Jim, his voice thick. “You saved her life.”

The police chief looked surprised. He rubbed his bleeding right shoulder. “This can’t be an accident, can it?”

Suddenly both men turned sharply. The firemen shouted warnings and ran for cover as a massive live oak, blackened and smoldering, teetered and then toppled over onto the ground.

Harriet Youmans Setzler had the last great funeral ever held in Essex.

We use it, we use her now, to date time. Such and such happened before Harriet was killed, that boy was born after Harriet passed away, hadn’t seen the likes of that since Harriet’s big funeral. People came from everywhere, from neighboring towns (who knows how many people had eaten those lime pies at one time or another?), from the farms, from the shacks out in the country, and even from inside the swamps. The airport in Charleston did an unusually brisk business, what with all the family arriving. Harriet had had six siblings and her three youngest sisters were still alive and they flew in from Florida. Her daughter and the daughter’s husband and their two children arrived from New Hampshire in time for the inquest; her son Billy and his family drove in from Denver and they got to town the day before the funeral, and Jackson Setzler, with his new wife and three teenage girls in tow, finally got to town the day of the funeral. Cousins descended from Brunson and Belton and Ashboro; some hadn’t seen Harriet in years but all remembered her. Emma Thomas had her boy Harry drive her up from Tallahassee. The Fenwicks came in from the farm—even Martha, who was almost never seen in public anymore, walked into the cemetery on Tex’s arm. We were a mighty bunch. Some of us figured that’s why it was such a downright pretty day for a funeral—warm but not unbreatheable, brilliant pink morning sunshine but low humidity for a change, we even had a little rain before sunrise. We figured Harriet somehow knew all these people were in town to pay their respects. She hadn’t had that many of her family and friends together since the Setzler family reunion about ten years back—and even that gathering was a poor turnout compared to this. We figured Harriet was pleased about all the to-do in her honor and so she’d ordered up a nice day for it.

There was only one thing we didn’t talk about as we gathered together to see Harriet off. We didn’t talk about the inquest. It was held three days after the fire, which totally destroyed the house before it was over. Harriet’s body had been removed from the dining room just before the roof caved in, through the heroic efforts of fireman Jesse Morney. At the inquest it was determined that the fire resulted from arson; the rubble yielded an open gasoline can somewhere in the vicinity of the sleeping porch. Harriet, it was surmised, had been awakened by the smoke and had initially tried to save some of her belongings. Fifteen of the forty or more oil paintings survived, including eight which had been damaged. Apparently Harriet had gone back into the burning house and had been overcome by smoke. She couldn’t call anyone; her phone line had been cut outside the house. No one could tell, from the rubble, whether anything had been taken. When the body was recovered, Harriet was wearing her customary jewelry—except for the diamond she wore on her right pinky finger. The conclusion of the inquest was that the arsonist was guilty of premeditated homicide.

Harriet’s daughter Betty was taken aback by the funeral her stepmother’s will requested. Harriet didn’t want a service at the Lutheran church as everyone had expected. No, a graveside service was all she required—on a pretty day, of course. But she did want her casket pulled through town on a horse-drawn wagon first—it would deliver her to the cemetery like in the old days. Betty honored her mother’s request for a closed coffin, but she would probably have forgone the wagon ride had it not been for Stoney and Marian, who insisted upon it and arranged the whole thing. And so, on the morning of Harriet’s high-noon funeral, we stood on our sidewalks and watched her go by. Almost everyone in town. Marian in front of her house, Stoney and Anna in front of theirs, Elsie Fenton, the Loadholts, the Wilsons, Seth and his parents, up and down the street we were thick as flies on a picnic basket; many people from Willowbrook drove over to the old part of town so they could see the funeral wagon, and they brought their children. Some children threw flowers at the wagon but they were somber too, as though they knew they wouldn’t see the likes of this again.

Some of us remembered FDR and JFK, when tragedy made a nation a family for an instant. As with national leaders, we had never truly believed Harriet would die. People with the soft, sweet soul of an Emmas Thomas or a Sadie Thompkins died. But not legends. Legends were eternal, immune to mortality. The only possible reason Harriet Setzler was dead was because someone had killed her. Otherwise, she would never have succumbed; she would not have allowed it.

We watched the chestnut horse in its polished brass bridle pull the newly painted Fenwick wagon past us. Amos Tumley, who had once worked for both the Fenwicks and Harriet, held the reins, sitting straight and tall in a black suit. Behind Amos loomed that solitary bronze coffin, covered with an embroidered purple-and-white altar cloth made by the Lutheran Church Women’s Circle. (Harriet’s will said she wanted no flowers, that no florist ever grew any as pretty as those in her own front yard.) That morning Marian had given Amos a white rose for his lapel from the bushes Harriet had planted in Marian’s back yard. It was the only adornment on the wagon, save for the coffin itself, which gleamed in the morning sunlight. As we stood and watched Harriet go out of our lives forever.

When the wagon had passed, however, our mouths tightened with anger, with a monstrous hatred for Harriet’s killer. Harriet had been our yardstick. We always measured ourselves against her strengths and weaknesses, and so her presence gave us balance, equilibrium, at times a sense of grace. Without her we listed at a tilt.

Seth Von Hocke said it best. His parents released his bicycle on the day of the funeral, and he left his mother and father after a while and rode over to watch the wagon go down Laurens Avenue. Finally he ended up on the sidewalk with Stoney and Anna. Just as Harriet’s coffin passed the McCloskey house, Seth looked up at Stoney and said, “It’s a big wagon.”

At the cemetery we lined up just outside the wrought-iron gates, the family and some of the older townspeople at the front, led by Heyward Rutherford. Behind them, the second line began with Marian in a cream silk suit, Stoney and Anna behind her along with other young couples whose step was lighter. The older group marched in evenly, but the second was a more disjointed, fragmented column. The Setzler plot was covered with a green canopy and we gathered beneath it for the short, traditional ceremony Harriet had mandated. Within a half hour the white-robed minister was making the sign of the cross above the casket. He reached down and scooped up a handful of Low Country dirt and drizzled it across a corner of the casket. “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change the body of our low estate, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”

After the benediction people spilled out from under the canopy and gathered in small tight knots, some intersecting from time to time, to talk. Many people went over to say hello to Harriet’s children and cousins; several stopped and spoke to Marian and Stoney about what had happened. Almost everyone seemed reluctant to leave. After a while Marian, who was surrounded by several people, noticed that the funeral home attendants were preparing to lower the casket into the gaping hole between William and Elizabeth. Marian glowered at the men. How dare they be in such a hurry. She gazed around and saw that no one else was paying attention to what the men were doing. It was over; in a way everyone was relieved. But it isn’t over, she thought, looking back at the triple headstone. It isn’t over at all. Abruptly she strode over to the gravesite. Someone should be there. Someone should be Harriet’s witness.

Two men were kneeling beside the casket, adjusting the winches on the pulley which would lower the coffin into its vault. They looked up at Marian as she approached. She stopped at the foot of Harriet’s casket, turned her head and eyed the flat tombstone with its military insignia perched at Elizabeth’s feet. The men finished with the winches, and one of them got up and nodded at the other. Marian’s hand shot out. Both men stopped instantly. Silent tears streamed down Marian’s cheeks and she reached out and laid her hand on the coffin, just held it there against the cold metal for a moment. Then, because there was no other choice, she let go. She stepped back, still at the foot of the casket, and looked at the men again. Released by her eyes, they knelt down and turned the winch. And slowly Harriet’s coffin disappeared into the earth.

Finally Marian turned and walked toward Jim Leland. She touched him on the arm and said, “Could I talk to you in your office tomorrow morning? Ask Bill Jenkins and Stoney to come if you would, and Anna McFarland too.”

Stoney and Anna went to dinner that night at Fairfield Plantation. They hadn’t planned to go out but at the last minute it just felt like the right thing to do, to get away from Essex for a few hours, especially away from their neighborhood, where it seemed the smell of smoke might linger forever. Stoney had gone to work that afternoon but it had been a wasted day; even Sumter Brownlow had been quiet and subdued. Anna had spent the afternoon with Marian but had finally left, sensing that Marian really wanted to be alone. Now Stoney and Anna sat in semidarkness overlooking the Salkhatachie River, the half-eaten prime rib still in front of them, the cabernet almost gone, as he reminisced about Harriet Setzler.

“You know, she scared me to death as a kid. I even think Dad was afraid of her.” Stoney paused, smiled slightly, then added, “I never knew anybody who could be so kind and so intimidating at the same time. I can’t imagine an Essex without Harriet Setzler.…” he trailed off. Then he added bitterly, “We’re going find who did this—he is not going to get away with it. Not this time.”

The dark look in Stoney’s eyes matched the one Anna had seen in Marian’s eyes earlier that afternoon.

“Let’s go home, Stoney.”

They drove back in silence; there wasn’t anything they could say to each other that helped. Upstairs later, in the bathroom, Anna thought about going back downstairs and getting a drink and sitting in the living room to listen to Mozart or the Pachelbel “Canon,” as she sometimes did when depressed or unable to sleep. When she emerged from the bathroom, Stoney was already in bed, staring up at the ceiling. Anna sat beside him on the bed, in the silk gown he’d given her for their anniversary. She leaned down and kissed him. “Think I’ll get a drink and go down and work for a while.”

He put his arms around her and held her. “Don’t stay up forever.”

About to rise, Anna turned instead and leaned down and kissed him again slowly, gently, tenderly. She reached up and ran her lips over his forehead and down the bridge of his nose. “I am so sorry, Stoney.” Over and over again she traced the contours of his face with her fingers, touching him again and again with softness, as though she might be capable of massaging the pain away.

They didn’t speak. Anna just touched his face and he held her. After a while, unhurriedly, he leaned up and kissed the edges of the V-neck above her breasts the same slow way, almost ritualistic in his touch, as though partaking of a sacrament. Slipping the smooth silk from her shoulders, he turned her onto her stomach and ran his fingers and lips up and down her back, across her rounded hips, down the backs of her legs to her feet, his hands holding her soles, running his finger back and forth against the soft underskin there. He turned her over and looked at her with visible longing. He ran his tongue over her breasts and down her stomach with mounting passion. His fingers circled her abdomen and she floated on the languid sensuality of his hands. All movements were dreamlike; even when he was inside there was no urgency, only a sense of natural ease. No one searched for the meaning of life; instead, they savored the experience of life. They moved gently, and she grew warm and he grew warm and suddenly all she could feel was the need to share this warmth, to give it back to him until he felt nothing else.

Afterward, he lay on his side like a saved man, with one arm around her, and stroked her arm for a long time without speaking.

Bill, Stoney, and Anna gathered in Jim’s office the next morning at ten. Marian was late, because of a trip to Harriet’s grave. Jim and Stoney both stood when Marian entered. She sat in one of the two seats across from Jim’s desk. Anna, sitting in the other, reached over and squeezed her hand.

“Thanks for coming,” Marian whispered to Anna. “I need you here.”

Stoney crossed his arms over his chest and stood against the wall behind Jim’s desk. Bill Jenkins perched on the low bookshelf behind the two seated women. Jim Leland looked at Marian for a second and then said, “I’ve been thinking about this all night, Marian. I called the SLED chief in Columbia and they’re sending two guys down at the end of the week. If Turner is anywhere around here, we will find him. That’s a promise.”

“It isn’t Turner, Jim.” Marian took a deep breath. “I believe Leonard Hansen killed Harriet. And Sarah.”

Stoney bolted forward.

“You’ve been listening to him, haven’t you?” Jim said, indicating Stoney.

Marian looked at Stoney. “I wish I had.”

“Well, I already know what Stoney thinks about Leonard, but we don’t have one shred of evidence. An old scar Leonard gave him a hundred years ago doesn’t prove a thing.”

“For Christsake, Leland, let Marian talk.” Bill Jenkins sighed and picked up his notepad.

Abruptly Marian unbuttoned her blouse until the top curve of her bare breasts was visible. Embarrassed, the men looked down. Marian stared at Jim. “You mean like this?”

Stoney looked up first. Between Marian’s breasts was a tiny thin scar, about two inches long.

“Leonard,” Anna exclaimed suddenly. “Oh God. It was him?” She looked at the scar on Marian’s chest.

“He used a razor blade,” Marian explained when Jim finally looked at her. She buttoned her blouse. “This was to frighten me into keeping my mouth shut.”

“About what?” Jim asked.

“About rape.”

Stoney walked over to Marian. “Why didn’t you say something before?”

Marian stared at the floor. “I honestly didn’t think it had anything to do with Sarah. I had suspicions but nothing concrete. I didn’t figure out a connection until yesterday, when Anna told me what Harriet had said about telling Sarah something she shouldn’t have. As far as I knew, Leonard was reformed; like all of you, I knew he had been a brutal teenager, I also knew he had blackmailed and raped me. But when he came back to town, he treated me with distant politeness, he stayed away from me mostly, and he never made even the vaguest reference to what had happened years ago.”

“But you should have told us anyway,” Jim said. “This puts an entirely different light on things. Beating up people as a kid is one thing. Rape is another.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Marian cried. She gazed over at Anna. “You think a woman who’s been victimized likes to talk about it, likes to bring it up? I don’t even like to think about it. And as long as it didn’t have anything to do with Sarah’s murder, I saw no reason to put myself through this.”

No one said anything for a second. Finally Stoney said, “Marian, we’re sorry. We don’t mean—”

“Oh Stoney, stop it. Stop trying to make up for the world’s sins. It’s presumptuous. And it’s giving you gray hair.”

“Here, here. Next thing he’ll be fat,” chimed Bill Jenkins. “That’s what happened to me.”

For a second everyone laughed nervously. Then Jim said, “I still don’t see what this has to do with Sarah. Why do you think this is proof Leonard killed Sarah?”

Marian hesitated and looked at Anna again. She was suddenly glad Anna knew the parts of the story she was going to omit. “After Leonard raped me,” Marian began, “I turned for help to the only person I had. I went home to Harriet’s one night in torn clothes, bleeding. She bandaged me up and I told her what had happened. She was outraged.”

Stoney interrupted, “Did Leonard know you told Harriet?”

“No, I don’t think so. Not then. See, I swore Harriet to secrecy. I knew many people wouldn’t believe me—a black girl accusing a white boy, no one did believe such things then. What I didn’t know until after Harriet was killed was that she didn’t keep her promise. She told Sarah Roth what Leonard had done to me. Sarah told Leonard’s father, I believe.…”

“Who marched ‘him’ downtown,” Anna finished, her eyes wide.

“And made him join the Marines,” Stoney added almost at once. He looked at Anna for a second, then back at Marian. “But how did Leonard find out it was Sarah who told his father?”

“I don’t know.” Marian gazed toward the window, thinking of Harriet. Her eyes misted and she blinked.

“Sarah could have told Leonard when he lived with her,” Bill suggested.

Marian’s eyes were clear again. “She had him stay there out of guilt, I think. She always wanted to reform people. My guess is she felt guilty for having been responsible for Leonard being sent away in the first place.”

“But why would Leonard decide to get even now?” Jim stared around the room. No one said anything for a moment and then Jim jumped up and opened his mouth.

Bill Jenkins was also on his feet. “The money,” he said before Jim could get it out. “The money his father didn’t leave him.” Bill looked from face to face around the room. “Don’t you bet finding out your son is a rapist might sour you on him forever? We all know Joe Hansen and Leonard never made up while they lived here. What if they never reconciled and that’s why Joe didn’t leave Leonard a dime—Joe made all that money and Leonard’s mother is dead but Joe left all his money to a guy who worked for him. Why? Because he never forgave Leonard!”

Stoney walked toward Bill, matching the other man’s thoughts the same way they matched strides when jogging. “Leonard came back to town to get the only thing his father did leave him. An old house he couldn’t even sell. Worth maybe $20,000 tops. Whereas the old man’s estate”—Stoney looked back at Jim for confirmation, recalling a conversation they’d had about this several months ago—“was about $300,000, wasn’t it? Leonard had to fix the house up just to get anything out of it and so he’s been out there stewing about who’s responsible for him losing out. Remembering why his father never forgave him. And who told his father.”

Jim said, “If you’re right, why did he kill Brockhurst, why cut up parts of a goat, why set fire to his own house?”

“To protect himself,” Stoney said with vindication. “I knew it. I knew he did it. He never changed, he just made us think he had.”

Then Bill added, “He must have known Turner was spotted in Beaufort. So he made us think Turner was here by setting fire to his own house. Which gave him the perfect cover to kill Mrs. Setzler—the other person he would hold responsible. We were to believe Turner killed Mrs. Setzler.” Bill’s voice rose to a pitch. “Leonard has had us all fooled. Except Stoney.” He turned to Marian. “You’re in a hell of a lot of danger.”

Marian patted her purse with the derringer inside. She had carried it for years in honor of the man who had raped her. “I’ll be okay. I’ll be fine once he’s arrested.” She looked away again, thinking of Harriet. “If only I …”

Anna reached over and touched Marian’s shoulder. “If only we’d all really understood what was happening.” Then she looked at Stoney and he held her gaze for a long time.

Jim cleared his throat. “You know, this makes sense, we could be right. Or we may be just guessing—and Turner may still be around somewhere and he was only trying to rip Mrs. Setzler off and he set the fire to cover his tracks. It is hard to figure out why Leonard wouldn’t have first gone after you, Marian. What I think is—”

Stoney exploded. “For God’s sake, Jim. Is he gonna have to kill Marian too?”

The police chief held up his hand. “You might let me finish. I do think it’s time I had a talk with Leonard.”

Mollified, Stoney said, “You can’t go out there alone.”

Jim nodded. “Thanks.” Then he smiled. “Maybe you are the prodigal after all.”

It was a moment before Stoney answered. “No, I don’t think so.”

Shotguns stored in the patrol car, Stoney and Bill and Jim sped out of town to pick up Leonard Hansen, while Anna and Marian walked home together to wait for it to be over.