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But better than any of that, he is writing a book. Name’s Cecil Hawke. ” I looked at Bill. He shook his head. “Me either,” I said. ” He got up from his chair, unfolding slowly. “Well, for that part you’ll have to go to dinner with me. I won’t say a word unless it is over a glass of merlot …” Bill stood, obviously wanting both of us out of his office. “Great idea. ” He pushed up at his heavy glasses, giving me a get-this-guy-out-of-here look. ” I nodded, pulled my notebook from my purse, then stopped a minute as Jackson waited patiently, eyebrows raised in expectation.

Not a word since she’d requested changes months before. I’d done everything she’d asked me to do and got the manuscript back to her in record time. Still waiting. I shut the mailbox door as Sorrow romped ahead down the road. Old Harry Mockerman—my handyman, neighbor, and teacher of woods smarts—was out on his usual morning quest, bent over at the far side of the street with a shovel and a coal scoop in his hands, a silhouette in the streaming sunshine. He was salvaging a dead raccoon—road kill from the night before.

The officers would be very careful, collecting evidence, recording finds, impressions, names of people at the scene—what each had done, when they arrived and left. Dolly had studied police procedure recently, through an online program, and was into dotting every I and crossing every T. “So those bastards’ lawyers can’t trip me up in court,” she’d groused and slapped her log book against her thigh. She motioned me to hurry as she made her way toward the house. The first thing to hit me inside was just what I’d always imagined about abandoned houses: the overwhelming stink of mold and dust caught in dead, wet heat.