Don

embarrassed when she got caught! Everyone knew. Then she started raisin' hell about Dr. St. John. That's 'cause he's the one blew the whistle on her.' Her voice softened slightly. 'She was off her head about that Farley boy dyin'.'

'Eugene Farley?'

'Yeah. I met him once. Handsome as the devil. Manners like you've never seen. Treated me like a real lady. He had class.' She shook her small head with its helmet of pin curls. 'I knew he'd never stay with Dee. She was way outta her league. I told her over and over.'

I'll bet that did a lot for her ego, Nick mused with a twinge of sympathy for Dee.

'When he gave her the heave-ho, I thought she'd lose her mind,' Mrs. Fisher went on. 'Like to scared me to death 'cause I was already gettin' sick, and if Dee went to pieces, who'd look after me? Gave me quite a few sleepless nights, I can tell you.'

Because you were worried about yourself, not your daughter, Nick thought scornfully. If Paige had been on the verge of a breakdown, the last thing her mother would have been worried about was her own welfare. He forced himself to sound polite. 'But everything turned out all right and Dee is taking good care of you.'

'Good care? Hah!'

'She's not taking good care of you?'

'If she was, would I be sittin' here all by myself at night? She's always out lately.'

'With Hysell?'

'Who? Oh, that deputy. He won't marry her either. I told her. But she's not with him. I know 'cause he called here for her not half an hour ago. There've been other times he's called when she's out.'

'You don't know where she goes at night?'

'No. She makes up excuses, but I can always tell when she's lyin'.'

'How long has this been going on?'

'A week. Maybe two. She's been havin' lots of hush-hush conversations on the phone, too, and they ain't with that deputy.'

'Then who?'

Mrs. Fisher shrugged. 'Beats me.' She pointed at the television. 'There's Rhoda in one of them scarves! Can't she see herself in a mirror? Doesn't she know how stupid it makes her look?'

And don't you know this is a TV character from almost thirty years ago, not a real person? Nick thought. How reliable was anything she said if she couldn't distinguish fiction from reality? 'Mrs. Fisher, do you think your daughter is going off at night to meet a man?'

'How should I know? Seems like the kind of trashy thing she'd do, though. Be just like her to start seem' someone respectable like the deputy and then sneak around behind his back.' Her face contorted and she fell into another coughing fit. Nick rose nervously as she convulsed forward, sounding as if she were going to spew forth her lungs.

'Mrs. Fisher, please let me call the E.M.S.'

'Wo!' she choked. 'My show's on!'

'You're turning blue! I am calling the emergency squad.'

Her tear-filled eyes looked huge as she glared through her bifocals. 'You do and I'll tell 'em you broke in here and tried to rape me!' she snarled in a cough-ragged voice. 'They'll believe me, young feller out prowlin' late at night, me here all alone and barely dressed!'

Good God, Nick thought. What was wrong with the women in this town? First Alison demanding he not touch her, now the irresistible Mrs. Fisher in her faded flannel and pin curls threatening to yell rape. She was spluttering to a halt. 'All right, ma'am,' he said in a placating voice. 'I was just worried about you. I didn't mean any harm.'

'You're gettin' on my nerves.'

'I'm sorry. I'll leave now.'

'Good,' she rasped. 'You got a cigarette on you?'

Nick looked at her, astonished. 'No. I don't smoke.'

'Well, hell.' She sighed as if at the general unfairness of life. 'Even if you had one, you probably wouldn't give it to me, like it would make any difference.' Nick gazed at her silently. 'All right. Before you go, Mr. Policeman, the least you can do is get me a beer.'

Obediently Nick fetched a cold can of the cheap beer and popped the top. When he placed it in Mrs. Fisher's heavily veined hand, she didn't glance at him or the beer. She was smiling happily at the imaginary world on her television.

Paige hung off the bottom branch of the oak tree, then dropped. 'You're getting better at climbing,' Jimmy said.

Paige blushed with embarrassment, both from the compliment and from the memory of the first time she'd tried it and fallen on her head at Jimmy's feet, promptly bursting into tears. 'Thanks. What's the big emergency?'

'We were going back to the Saunders house and take a picture of the serial killer. I got my Dad's Polaroid.' He held it up proudly.

'You want to go tonight!'

'Sure. We can't wait forever. He could kill more people.'

'Well, yeah, but…'

'But what?' Jimmy asked impatiently. 'Your dad's car isn't here, so you don't have to worry about him.'

'He called and said he'd be late. Mrs. Collins got all huffy. Not to him, but she called one of her friends and went on about how she can't spend so much time here because she's got all this church work. They're getting a new preacher and there's gonna big this big dinner for him-'

'I don't care about the church party!' Jimmy turned his head. 'Oh, great,' he moaned as headlights flashed across the yard. 'Duck!'

They both hit the dirt. 'It's my dad,' Paige hissed. 'He'll come right upstairs to check on me.'

'Then climb up the tree and get in bed. I'll wait for a while.'

'And if I don't come down you'll go without me?'

'I'll have to think about it,' Jimmy said importantly. Ac tually he had no desire to revisit the creepy Saunders house by himself, but he'd never admit it. 'Hurry. Your dad's going in the house.'

Paige jumped, grabbed the low branch, and began a quick ascent. She'd come a long way since she first started climbing the tree, Jimmy thought proudly as if he'd had something to do with her progress. He sat down in the shadow of a tree to wait.

Paige was clambering over the window sill when she heard her father explode, 'Dammit, Ripley!'

She tore across her room and down the hall. 'What's wrong, Daddy?'

Nick rubbed his neck while Ripley sat in humped, green eyed wariness halfway up the stairs. 'Your pain-in- the-ass cat jumped off the newel post onto my back.'

'Daddy, he is not a pain in the ass, and Mommy used to tell you not to say things like that around me.' She rushed to Ripley and cuddled his stiff black body. 'You've hurt his feelings.'

'His claws hurt my back.'

'He's sorry, but it's his favorite trick.'

Nick looked at his daughter's beautiful, distressed little face and melted. 'Okay, I'm sorry I yelled. But I wish he'd find another trick.'

'We'll work on one,' Paige assured him earnestly.

Mrs. Collins hovered near the door. 'I guess I'll be on my way, Sheriff. It's very late-' She was warming up to complain, but Nick's stormy face stopped her cold. 'I'll see you tomorrow, Paige.'

'Yeah, bye,' Paige said absently as her father closed the door behind the woman. 'You look awful tired, Daddy. Are you going to bed?'

'It's not ten o'clock yet.' Nick's eyes narrowed slightly. 'Why the rush to get me out of the way?'

'It was just a question.'

'Yeah, sure.' Nick rubbed his neck again. 'I'm staying up. I have some things to think over. It's time for you to get ready for bed, though. I'll be up in a little while to tuck you in.'

Fabulous, Paige thought dismally. How long was 'a little while'? Paige slumped up the stairs holding a reluctant