was simply to pass the time and keep in practice, I'd left my shoes on. It was a nippy day, and I didn't want to catch a cold, especially since I was just messing around. "You know, Tolliver, men didn't used to die of heart attacks."
"That so?"
"That's what I heard on the news the other day. Oh! This guy was crushed by a tree he was cutting down."
Tolliver didn't bother to look up. "Um," he said, so I gathered he wasn't listening. I moved to my right. "Asthma attack," I muttered. "Blood poisoning from a knife cut. Scarlet fever. Smallpox. Flu. Pneumonia." I shook my head. So many of these things could be cured, or at least eased, now. I couldn't fathom people who longed for the past. They weren't thinking about the absence of antibiotics, that was for sure.
The next grave was one of the oldest. The tombstone had broken in half, and someone had tried to set it back together. I couldn't read the name.
"Hey, gunshot wound," I called to Tolliver.
"That's Lieutenant Pleasant Early," Hollis Boxleitner said, from about a yard behind me. "He was shot during the Civil War."
If there'd been an open grave, I would've jumped into it. Tolliver looked up sharply and lay down the clipboard. "Where'd you come from?" he asked, in no very friendly tone.
"I was weeding my great-grandmother's grave over there." Hollis inclined his head toward the north side of the cemetery; sure enough, there was a bucket full of weeds and a trowel beside a grave with a leaning headstone.
"During a murder investigation, you have time to weed?" Tolliver's voice was sharper than necessary.
"It relaxes me." Hollis's broad face remained calm. "And the state guys are in town."
A gust of wind blew dry leaves across the graves. As they crossed the graveled drive that wended through the cemetery, they made a hissing sound. I liked it.
"So, is this kind of... recreation, for you?" Hollis asked, indicating the graves around us.
"Yes. Just kind of keeping my hand in." People always expect me to be embarrassed by what I do. Why?
"Have you ever been to a really old graveyard? Like in England?"
I ducked my head. "Not often. There are the Indian mounds, of course, and even more ancient people. Those are pretty interesting. And we went to a very early American one. In Massachusetts."
"Was it the same? Does the length of time they've been dead make a difference?"
I was pleased at the question. Not many people want to know too much about what I do. "Yes, it does," I said. "I get fainter pictures, less exact knowledge. Someday I want us to go to Westminster Abbey. And Stonehenge." Lots of ancient dead people there, for sure.
"You think you could get any more information by going back to Helen Hopkins' house?" The policeman had switched back to the here and now, putting an end to our conversation.
"No," I said. "I have to be with the body." I didn't want to go through that, not at all. It was very unpleasant, seeing the death of someone you'd known.
"The state police have taken over the investigation," Hollis said, after he'd retrieved his bucket of weeds. "I just answer the phones on my shift. There's a hot line number."
It took me a second to understand that he'd been banished from the investigation.
"That sucks," I offered. I've met enough cops to know that the best of them like to be in charge. The best ones have that confidence.
He shrugged. "In a way. I'm just a part-time cop, it's true."
"She was your mother-in- law."
"Yes," he said heavily. "They're waiting for you."
For a second, since I was standing on a grave, I was sure he meant all the dead people; and I already knew they were. Then I realized his meaning was much more mundane. The lawyer, Paul Edwards, and a uniformed man I'd never seen, were standing by the car talking to Tolliver. I was glad I'd left my shoes on. I took a breath and began walking toward the men.
"Good luck," said Hollis, and I nodded. I knew he was watching, and he would see.
W E had a dismal time at the police station. The state police thought I was a blood-sucking leech. I'd anticipated their attitude as we drove into town, but it wore me out anyway. The male faces followed each other in slow succession. Thin, heavy, white, black, intelligent, dense; they all shared an opinion of me they didn't take any pains to hide. I guess they thought Tolliver was the enabler of the blood-sucking leech.
I don't like being treated like a confidence trickster, and I'm sure Tolliver likes it even less. I retreat inside myself, and I don't let them touch my quick. Tolliver tries to do that, too, but he is less successful. He gets very upset when people impugn our honor.
"We looked into your file," said a thin man with a greyhound face and cold, narrow eyes. The interrogation room was small and beige. They'd taken Tolliver into the one next door.
I breathed in, breathed out, looked at the wall behind his ear.
"You and your ‘brother' have been questioned lots of times," he said. His name tag read,
Since there was nothing to respond to, I did some of my own waiting.
"No one's ever put you behind bars," he said.
This was another indisputable fact, and I did some more waiting.
"Of course, they should've."
Opinion. Didn't call for a response. My parents hadn't been lawyers for nothing.
"You know what they say about people from this neck of the woods," Green said. "The kind of people who go to family reunions to get a date? "
Green was from somewhere else, I assumed. I slid lower in the plastic chair.
"I figure you and your brother are people like that," he said, with a most unpleasant smile.
Another opinion, and one he knew was based on incorrect information.
"He's not really your brother, is he? "
"Stepbrother," I said.
He was taken aback. "But you introduce him as your brother."
"Simplification," I said. I crossed my legs the other way, just to have a change. I was ready to eat lunch. Tolliver and I would go to a restaurant, or we'd get something at the grocery store to heat up in the little microwave we carried with us and plugged in at motel rooms. We'd talked about buying a little house outside of Dallas. We would have a bigger microwave there, or maybe I'd learn to cook. I liked to clean; that is, I didn't exactly love the process, but I did love the result. I might subscribe to a magazine, something it had never been practical for me to do. Maybe
"... hearing a word I say?" Greyhound Green's face was drawn with anger.
"No, I haven't. I'm ready to go now. You know I didn't kill that poor woman. You know Tolliver didn't, either. There's not a reason in the world we'd want to do anything to her. You just don't like me. But you can't put me in jail because you don't like me."
"You prey on the grief of others."
"How?"
He glared at me. "They're grieving, wanting closure, and you and your brother turn up like crows to pick at the carcass."
"Not so," I said briskly. I was on sure ground, here. "I find the body. Then they have closure. They're happier." I got to my feet, feeling my legs prickle after sitting so long in the same chair. "We'll stay in town as long as you want. But we didn't hurt Helen Hopkins. You know it."
He stood, too, and tried to think of something to say that would stop me from leaving, convict me of some crime. But there was nothing, and he had to watch me leave. I knocked on the door of the next room. "Tolliver," I called. "Let's us go."
After a pause, Tolliver opened the door and stepped out. I looked up at him, and saw his eyes were filled with rage. I gently put my hand on his cheek, and when a moment had passed, he relaxed. Together, we walked out of the tiny Sarne police station and over to the car. The grass around the courthouse was starting to brown, and the big silver maple leaves cartwheeled across it exuberantly.
Following the path of one leaf, my eyes lit on Mary Nell Teague. She was waiting for us, her face eager. No, she was waiting for Tolliver. I was clearly a shadow walking beside him, in her eyes. She'd parked her little car right by ours, which must have been difficult. It was a Saturday, and the town was busy.
A group of teenage boys was clustered around the war memorial. They could have been teenagers from anywhere in the United States—jeans, T-shirts, sneakers. Maybe their haircuts weren't cutting edge, but that wouldn't bother anyone here. I wouldn't have had a second look at them if I hadn't realized they were watching us. They didn't look friendly. The tallest one was glaring from Nell to Tolliver.
"Hmm," I said, wanting to be sure Tolliver had noticed the boys.
"Psychics are all crap," the tallest boy said, loud enough for us to hear. Of course, that was his purpose. He was probably on the football team, probably class president. He was the alpha wolf. Handsome and brawny, he was wearing sneakers that had cost more than every stitch I was wearing added together. "The devil is in people who say they talk to the dead," he said even louder. Mary Nell was probably too far away to hear him, but she was glancing back and forth from the pack of boys to us, and she looked, in turn, indignant, horrified, and excited. I thought we had us a little love triangle going on here: Alpha Boy, Mary Nell, and Tolliver. Only, Tolliver didn't know about it.
I was becoming antsier by the second. The boys were moving to intercept us. Tolliver had gotten the keys out of his pocket and pressed the pad to unlock the doors.
Mary Nell, moving swiftly, intercepted us just before the boys did. "Hey, Tolliver!" she
