Normally, when Martin returned from a business trip I got to tell him about the kid who threw up on the Berenstain Bears book, or what the plumber had told me when he'd come to repair the hot water heater.

When he walked in the front door late that afternoon, I hardly knew where to begin. As it turned out, Martin had stopped at the Pan-Am Agra plant, so he already knew that Shelby was in the hospital. After his first anxious questions, he settled down to listen with that total concentration that made him such a good executive.

I think Martin was just as shocked by Angel's pregnancy as by Shelby being attacked in our front yard. And when I told him about the ribbon around Madeleine's neck and the deaths of Beverly and Selena Rillington, he had to get up and walk around the kitchen.

It was still raining, and I watched the drops hit the large window by the table where Martin and I usually ate, the window overlooking the side of the garage and the steps up to the apartment, as well as some lovely pink azaleas hidden now by the darkness. The drops might hit at random, but they ran down the glass with monotonous regularity. The rain increased my sense of being stockaded against the danger outside, besieged.

Martin strode through the dining room, out into the living room, back through the archway into the dining room. He circled the table and shot back into the kitchen again, stopping by the window to stare out into the blackness.

"Who sent the flowers?" he asked abruptly, and I glanced into the dining room to see that they were still in their vase on the table. A few blossoms were shriveling, and one or two bits of baby's breath had fallen to the polished surface of the old table.

The delivery of the flowers seemed so long ago I'd forgotten about it completely. Now, when I added it to my list of happenings, Martin gave me a sharp look, one that said effectively, "All this you didn't tell me over the telephone?"

Martin often reminded me of the Roman officer in the New Testament, the one who told Jesus that when he said "Go," people went, and when he said "Come," people hopped to it. Now, he was apparently trying to decide what he could do about this situation, and he was angrily seeing that there was nothing he could do.

"Do you think the little hospital here is the best place for Shelby, can he get the best care available? I could have him moved to Atlanta by ambulance." Martin looked almost happy at this prospect of action.

"I don't believe there's any need of that," I said gently. "Besides, the doctors here are very aware that the city hospitals have things the Lawrenceton Hospital doesn't have, and they would have sent him to the city without hesitation if they thought his situation warranted that. Plus, you know," I said even more gently, "that's Angel's call, not yours." Diverted back to Angel's pregnancy, Martin said what I'd been dreading he'd say.

"I like Angel just as much as you, but don't you think it's stretching belief to have her turn up pregnant when Shelby's had a vasectomy? She worked out with Jack Burns and she's going to his funeral, but she blasted him in public when he gave her a ticket. And she didn't react at all when they turned him over the other day. I don't want to believe anything bad about Angel, but doesn't that all add up?"

"You know, Shelby asked me if I'd seen anyone else out here when he was gone," I said evenly.

"What'd you tell him?" Martin turned to me, hands thrust in his pockets to keep them still.

"I slapped the tar out of him." I looked at Martin steadily, blocking my faintly guilty memory of Shelby's embrace from my mind, so he couldn't read it in my face.

Martin looked back at me, eyebrows up in surprise.

"And--what did he do?" Martin asked faintly.

"He believed that he is the father of Angel's child."

Martin slowly took a deep breath, released it, smiled. "Okay. So is he going to get rechecked?"

"He'll have to if they don't want any more children," I said.

"I can't believe old Shelby is going to be a father," Martin said absently, shaking his head.

I bit my lip and looked down so Martin wouldn't see the tears well into my eyes. He pulled his reading glasses (a recent necessity) out of his shirt pocket suddenly, and went to the wall phone to flip through the tiny Lawrenceton directory.

He punched in numbers and stood waiting, his face in its executive mode: mouth in straight hard line, sharp eyes, impatient stance. I thought it was pretty sexy, providing he dropped the look when he turned to me.

"The room number?" he asked me crisply. I gave it to him, propped my chin on my hand, and watched my husband as he talked to Angel, and then said a few words to Shelby.

"He's still groggy," Martin informed me when he had hung up the phone. "But better. Angel said they want to keep him one more day for observation, then he can come home, providing he stays away from work for a few days." Martin clearly felt better since he'd done something, even if it was only punch numbers on a phone.

I glanced down at my watch, and saw to my surprise that it was nearly eleven o'clock. I'd been up almost the whole night the night before, and gone through a great deal of excitement and anxiety since then. Martin's homecoming had given me a jolt of energy, but suddenly I felt as if I'd run into a wall.

"I have to go up to bed," I said, and heard the weariness in my voice.

"Of course, honey," Martin said instantly. "You haven't had any sleep." He put his heavy arm around me and we started up the stairs. "I'll give you your present in the morning," he murmured.

"Okay."

"You are tired."

"Won't be this tired in the morning," I mumbled, I hoped in a promising way. "I am glad you're home."

I pulled off the clothes I'd pulled on so hastily so many hours ago and gratefully slipped into a nightgown, realizing that I had no memory of work that day at all, though I'd gone in and (I supposed) functioned more or less normally. I brushed my teeth and washed my face because I am constitutionally unable to go to bed without that little routine, and I was vaguely aware of Martin unpacking as I sank into sleep.

Before I open my eyes in the morning, I try to remember what day it is. There's always that happy moment when it's finally Saturday, and I don't have to go anywhere I don't want to. I think that's one of the reasons I had wanted to go back to work; otherwise every day was Saturday, and that little happiness was gone.

I opened one eye and looked at my bedside clock. It read nine-twenty. Since that was clearly impossible, I closed the eye again and snuggled into my pillow. But the room certainly seemed light, and I could feel the emptiness of the other side of the bed. Reluctantly, I opened both eyes and wriggled closer to the clock. It was still nine-twenty.

I hadn't slept that late in years.

For ten minutes or so, I basked in the novelty of being still in bed at such a late hour. I was too awake to drift back to sleep. From the lack of movement downstairs, I thought Martin was gone. He often went in to work for a few hours on weekends, especially when he'd been out of town; or maybe he'd gone to the Athletic Club to play some racquetball. Going downstairs in a nightgown this late seemed faintly sleazy, so I took my shower first and pulled on my favorite Saturday jeans and a green T-shirt. To atone for my laziness, I carried down a hamper of dirty clothes and started a load of wash before I even poured my coffee. Martin had made a full pot and left it on for me, with a clean cup waiting invitingly beside the pot. He'd also left, squarely in the middle of the table by the window, a package wrapped in white paper and topped with a blue bow.

I drank my first cup of coffee and read the Lawrenceton paper to postpone the pleasure of opening the package. And the paper dampened my happiness some; the attack on Shelby had made the front page, which was not too surprising. But what was surprising was that the incident of the bow on the cat and the body of Jack Burns landing in the yard were included in the story, tying all the different incidents together in a way that left me disturbed.

I'd been sure Jack Burns had been killed because he knew the identity of a local who was being hidden in Lawrenceton under the Witness Protection Program. I couldn't see what that had to do with Angel's unknown admirer. Combining all these incidents, the story implied my house was radiating evil, as though it was an eminently suitable candidate for exorcism. I wasn't surprised to see a stranger's name on the byline: Sally wouldn't have written it that way.

I tried to regain my relaxed mood by reading the Garden Club meeting report, which was usually a hoot. It didn't fail me today. My old friend Mrs. Lyndower (Neecy) Dawson had wreaked havoc by proposing that the war memorial outside the courthouse be surrounded by ivy instead of having its planting regularly switched by the club. Reading between the Garden Club correspondent's careful lines, one could surmise that the ensuing debate had created bad blood that might last as much as a year, by which time Neecy could have forgotten she'd made the proposal. Or have gone to her great reward in the Garden in the Sky, as the Garden Club membership might have put it.

A flash of white and orange outside caught my attention, and I saw that Madeleine, to whom I'd given scant attention the past two days, had finally been driven to desperate measures. She was stalking a sparrow foraging in the grass. One thing I admired about cats was their focus; I'd never had a pet as I was growing up, so observing Madeleine had been an education for me (one I sometimes felt I could have done without).

However, when Madeleine bothered to hunt, the process was impressive--the intensity of her concentration, the stealth of her approach, the narrowness of her vision. Can birds see color? I wondered.

Whether it was Madeleine's marmalade stripes or her bulk that attracted the bird's attention, this sparrow took off. Madeleine sat up and directed a baleful gaze after the bird, and began to clean her paws in a sulky way. I was recalled to my obligations, and fed her; she did her very best running when she heard me call her for food.

Then I had the pleasure of opening my package. It was heavy, and I wondered how Martin had managed to cope with it on the flight home. I slid off the ribbon and put it aside, and tore off the paper. The box was a plain brown one of thick cardboard, not one of the thin ones that clothes come in.

Not jewelry, not clothes ... hmmmm.

Books. Seven books by some of my favorite mystery writers. Bookmarks from a Chicago bookstore protruded from each one, and I opened the top book, a Sharyn McCrumb, at the marked page.

Each one was signed. Not only signed, but personalized.

I examined each book happily, looking forward to hours of reading, and tried to think of a special place to keep my gift.

While I was still smiling, the phone rang.

There was silence on the other end of the line after I answered. It wasn't empty silence, like when the other person has realized he didn't mean to call your number after all and has hung up-- this was heavy silence, breathing silence. My smile slid off my face and I could feel my scalp crawl.

"Hello?" I said again, hoping against hope someone would speak.

Someone did.

"Are you alone?" asked a man's voice. And the phone went dead.

I tried to slow my breathing, reminded myself that everyone gets prank or obscene calls from time to time (such is humankind's determination to communicate, on whatever low plane) and I should not particularly be upset by this. But I felt so alone today; Martin wasn't here, and the garage apartment was empty, too.

The phone rang again, and I jumped. I stared at it, wondering whether to answer it or not. As it kept ringing, I crossed the hall to the study and waited for the answering machine to come on. Martin had recorded the message, and hearing his voice made me feel better. When the recording ended and the signal beep came, the voice leaving the message was also reassuring.

"Sally!" I stopped the recording and picked up the phone. "What are you up to?"

"I wondered if you were free to take a little ride with me," Sally said. "I didn't know if that husband of yours was in town or not."

"He's in town, but not at home right now, so I'm footloose," I said, relieved at having a reason to leave the house without calling it retreating in fear. "Where are you going to go?"

"I'm going to drive to that airport where Jack Burns was taking flying lessons, the one where he rented the plane before he took his final flying lesson, so to speak. I need an extra person--I have a plan--and since I haven't gotten to talk to you in a coon's age, I thought I'd combine the two goals."

Put like that, how could I resist?

"Want me to drive in and meet you at the newspaper office?"

"That's where I am now. That'd be great."

"Okay. Give me a few minutes, I'll be on my way."

I called the hospital to ask Angel if she needed anything urgently, and she told me that Shelby was much better, but still didn't remember anything about the attack. She sounded a lot better herself. She'd run home the night before to change clothes, and she told me she might come home to take a nap in the afternoon if he continued to improve.

Then I called Martin. If he was at the plant, he wasn't answering his phone. I left a message at the Athletic Club with the intimidatingly streamlined girl who answered the phone, kept the sun- bed appointment schedule, and presided over the check-in book. She sounded quite pleased to have a reason to approach Martin.

I ran upstairs, looked myself over in the mirror, and decided that almost anything was good enough to run an errand with Sally. I brushed my hair quickly, securing it at the nape of my neck with a green band to match my T-shirt, and cleaned my Saturday glasses, huge ones with white-and- purple mottled frames.

Sally made a choking sound when she saw them. "God Almighty, Roe, where'd you get those? You look like a clown." She was shoveling papers and fast-food bags out of the passenger's seat of her car.

Talk about the honesty of friends.

"They're my Saturday glasses," I said with dignity, locking my car and walking over to Sally's even older and more beat-up Toyota. The parking lot which served the newspaper staff was empty except for our cars and a Cadillac in the corner, which I recognized as the property of Macon Turner, owner and editor of the Lawrenceton Sentinel.

"Indicating that on Saturdays you are in a whoopee mood? Carefree and fun-loving?" Sally's voice was muffled as she bent back in. She'd opened a garbage bag and was swiftly sorting through the debris. Between the assorted paperwork, grocery bags, and cardboard cartons, I figured Sally had a whole tree in her front seat.

"Sorry about this," she continued, as she emerged and carried the garbage bag over to the dumpster. "I have to do this under duress or not at all, and asking you to ride with me provided the duress."

Sally was wearing slacks, which she seldom did on weekdays, but her bronze curls and careful makeup were unchanging. Sally hadn't altered much in the years we'd been on-again, off- again friends. She'd had a wonderful but brief episode of gourmet cooking, tried marriage the same way, and now was back to Chick-Kwik, burgers, and the single life, without gaining a pound or wrinkling a crease. The only thing that made Sally look her age (which I estimated to be fifty-one) was her son, Perry.

I watched while Sally went down a mental checklist, giving a tiny nod as she reviewed each point on a list only she could see. Then she slid behind the wheel and said, "Coming?"

Soon we were flying down the interstate, for Sally believed the speed limit was just a guideline. This belief accounted for Sally's knowing every highway patrolman in the area by his first name. But today, we weren't stopped, and we arrived at the Starry Night Airport having exchanged only a modicum of gossip.

We had left the interstate just five minutes east of Lawrenceton and had taken a state highway north a couple of miles, passing the usual seven million pine trees. Sally turned onto a road that scarcely deserved the name. It had been paved at one time, but that had been long ago. This alleged road terminated at the romantically named Starry Night Airport.

It was evident that Starry Night was a marginal business. Rendered invisible from the highway by a strip of pines and a ridge, the little airport had been carved out of the woods a long time ago. There were two runways, and even to my ignorant eyes it was apparent they were suitable only for small planes. Very small planes. The parking lot was small and graveled, delineated by landscape timbers. A concrete sidewalk led to the office, a little building about half the size of the ground floor of my house. This green-painted cement-block building had windows running nearly all the way around. Though the windows were curtained, the curtains were all wide open.

If you didn't turn off the sidewalk to enter the office, you continued past to the hangars. There were two. From the office, only the first few feet of the interior of each hangar would be visible. While both hangars were in use--I thought I could detect at least three tiny planes in the first, and two larger ones in the second--I couldn't see any people at all. Nothing moved.

I surveyed the grounds again. "Now, wait a minute," I said. Sally, who hadn't moved at all, looked at me with a little smile. "You're wondering how the murderer got Jack's body to the plane?" she said.

I nodded. It would be brazen to carry the body to the plane past the open windows of the office, no matter how deserted the place seemed to be.

"Look," she said, pointing out her window at a narrow gravel road, just wide enough for one vehicle, leading out of the parking lot and running up the ridge that rose behind the hangars.

"What about tracks?" I asked.

"No rain here for three weeks before Jack's body was dropped," she said. "The ground on either side of the gravel was rock-hard, so if there were tracks, they wouldn't amount to much. Now that we've had rain, it would be a different story."

Instead of hopping out and going to the office, as I expected, Sally turned to me and said, "Now, here's the reason I brought you along."

I felt a warning bell go off in the "better sense" area of my brain.

"Let's hear it," I said, the caution in my voice making Sally purse her lips in exasperation.

"Well, Dan Edgar, the kid who wrote the story on the attack on Shelby, was too lazy to get out of bed this morning to help me, and the other reporters are all gone or sick this weekend."

"So naturally you thought of me." I raised one eyebrow, but possibly this effective expression was invisible behind my big glasses.

"Yes," said Sally without a trace of irony. "Actually, I did. You're small, you're quick, and if your husband's out of pocket, you're bored."

"Well," I said blankly, for want of something better.

"Anyway, this won't take long. Do you want to be the sneaker or the diversion?"

"How much trouble ran I get into?"

"Oh, hardly any. I'll take responsibility."

I tried raising the eyebrow again.

"Oh, okay, maybe yelled-at trouble, not jail trouble."

I opted for the sneaker. I figured I already had so much trouble, a little more wouldn't make any difference.

"Okay," Sally said. "Now, here's what you have to do. When I was out here doing the story on Jack Burns, of course I asked the owner, an older guy named Stanford Foley, how it was possible for Jack and someone else to get in a plane without him even seeing it. He said it just couldn't happen, that he was here the whole time. The police can't make heads or tails of that, and I can't either."

"Your story said Jack had rented the plane himself."

"Yes, I said that, but I was counting on Foley too much. It turns out, Jack had reserved that time and that plane, but I don't think Foley saw him at all. I think Jack was brought here dead--he certainly wasn't killed in the plane, the cops tell me--and loaded into that plane by his killer. Jack's car was parked at the police station and nothing was wrong with it, so he didn't come here on his own and he wasn't killed in his own car."

"So, what do you want me to do?"

"While I go in there and talk to Foley I want you to sneak in that hangar and get in a plane. Actually, the plane that you saw that day, the one that transported the body, may be back here. It's one Mr. Foley keeps to rent out to whoever wants it. Jack had actually flown it several times." Getting in a plane didn't sound too hard.

"According to your theory, the killer had Jack's body in the car and drove close to the hangar," I said, feeling sure there was more to come.

"Well, right. Actually, that's what I want you to do, get the body to the plane. Just to prove it can be done without Mr. Foley knowing anything at all. I want you to drive my car to the back of the first hangar--that's the one the plane Jack reserved was in--and drag the bag in my trunk down to the hangar. I want you to load that bag in a plane and get in yourself. You don't know how to fly a plane, do you? It would be great if you could actually take off without him knowing."

"You should have asked Perry. He's taking lessons," I reminded her, and she grimaced as if she'd bitten a lemon.

"Perry wouldn't do it, he'd just think of something else he had to do urgently," Sally said. "I don't know if Perry's so much learning how to fly a plane as learning how to fly Jenny Tankersley."

I wasn't going to touch that one.

"So, just get the bag out of the trunk, down the hill, and into the plane," Sally prompted.

This sounded trickier and trickier. "How heavy a bag?" I asked, stalling for time.

"Oh. Pretty heavy--after all, it's supposed to be a body."

"What if someone comes?"

"We'll just--tell them what we're doing!"

Sally seemed to think that would take care of everything. I was far from sure that was the case.

"Okay," I said, hearing the doubt dripping from my voice.

"Good," Sally said happily, gathering her purse and notepad. "I'll meet you back here. You have ten minutes, okay? And the object is not to let Foley see you. Or anybody else."

Sally had made it sound like a kind of game, maybe a macabre version of hide-and-seek. But as soon as I began the experiment, it felt all too real. While Sally entered the office and hopefully began an intense conversation with Stanford Foley, I drove her old Toyota out of the parking lot and up the little graveled trail. The car lurched as I navigated it through the ruts, and my stomach began to match its motion.

I was up behind the first hangar in no time. I parked and got out, Sally's enormous bunch of keys hanging from my hand. No one ran out of the hangar or the office to demand an accounting of what I was doing. If I looked hard I could see Sally's head through one of the back windows of the office.

Time for phase two. I unlocked the trunk and stared at its contents with dismay. When Sally had said "bag" I'd thought of a garbage bag filled with laundry or yard rakings. What Sally had wedged in her trunk was an actual punching bag that she'd appropriated from someone's garage. The chain it had dangled from was still attached to three rings on the top of the bag, coming together to link on one large ring.

"Son of a bitch," I said from the bottom of my heart.

That certainly didn't mean anything in the context of my predicament, but it really made me feel better. "Okay," I said, trying to bolster my courage and muscle power. "Okay, here we go." And muttering further encouraging things and heaving with all my might, I got the punching bag out of the trunk.

If the chains hadn't been attached, Sally's little experiment would have ended right then and there. The only other way I could get the bag, which I estimated to weigh seventy pounds, down the slope would be to roll it. That would work with the bag, though the trip downhill might be rather uncontrollable, but with Jack's body it would not have done at all.

So I grabbed the chains, for after all, Jack could have been grabbed under the arms, and I dragged the bag downhill, feeling toward the end that my arms were going to come out of their sockets. I was quite certain that Sally owed me in a major way.

Halfway down the hill I achieved some self-knowledge. I would never have done this if I'd been single, because of the embarrassment of possibly being seen and questioned. But now that I was married to Martin, I was not so concerned. He gave me the confidence to do what I wanted to do, though it might be incredibly stupid. Like pulling a punching bag down a hill behind a very obscure little airport in northeast Georgia.

Then my foot touched concrete, and I realized I'd made it to the hangar. There was an enormous door right in the middle of the wall and it was wide open. Mr. Foley was not a man to worry about security, despite what had happened the week before. Before I tried to get the bag in, I reconnoitered. The hangar, which felt cavernous, was full of shadows. The plane closest to the back door was green, but there were two little red-and-white ones, both with a Piper logo, either of which might have been the plane that dumped Jack Burns so unceremoniously into my yard. Though the concrete floor certainly had stains on it, the hangar was surprisingly neat, a credit to Mr. Foley. There were shelves on the side, a little room in the corner, and metal drums holding rags and things I couldn't identify.

Well, the floor being clear was the main thing. I pulled the bag, which I was beginning to hate with all my might, across the smooth, floor to the nearest of the red-and-white Pipers. It was unlocked, to my astonishment. I peered into the tiny cabin, feeling a little curious even though I knew I was supposed to be hurrying. I'd never seen the inside of a plane so small.

I hadn't been able to figure out how one person could fly the plane and dump the body out at the same time, but now that I could see the cabin, it was obvious that it would be easy. The pilot could lean across the body, which would be propped into the passenger's seat, open the passenger door, and give a good push, and the thing would be accomplished. It gave me the willies when I put Jack's face on the passenger, pictured it actually taking place.

Suddenly the loneliness of the hangar felt threatening rather than reassuring. I wanted to get the hell out of there. What was a nice girl like me doing in a place like this? With a strength born of sheer exasperation, I hauled the bag to an upright position, squatted, embraced the bag, and lifted. I almost got it in the passenger's seat, but my height was the problem. Jack's assailant too must have had a terrible time unless he was at least a foot taller than me--lots of people were, of course.

I looked around desperately. There, some wooden pallets were stacked against the wall. I ran to get one, put the bag on it, stood on it myself, and with the extra height I managed to wrestle the bag into the plane. It was not sitting up neatly in the passenger's seat; it leaned awkwardly over into the pilot's side. But it was in the plane, as Sally had specified.

I returned the pallet, wiped the bag with a rag to remove my fingerprints (wondering all the while why I felt that was necessary), threw the rag back in the metal drum, and hightailed it out of the hangar.

I had to back down the track until I came to the point where it led down to the parking lot. There I was able to maneuver Sally's car to face downhill. Once I had her car back in its original position, I looked at my watch. Ten minutes, most of which had been absorbed by extricating the bag from the trunk, and hoisting the bag into the plane.

It felt like double that. I closed my eyes, scrunched down in the passenger's seat, and wondered if I could go to sleep. No, here came Sally accompanied by an older man who had a fine head of gray hair and an orange jumpsuit that looked quite good on him. An earphone set was around his neck, the little gray pads looking like buds on the ends of the metal arc. Wires led down to a tape player strapped to his waist, like the set Angel listened to so often while she did yardwork.

Sally was smiling and Stanford Foley was smiling, and I wondered if I was seeing the start of a Good Thing. The tall older man caught sight of me in the car, and said something to Sally, something on the order of "Why didn't your friend come in?" because I could see the question on his face. Sally said something with a conspiratorial smile and he began laughing. I decided Sally's debt had just escalated.

She said a few more words, then traipsed down the sidewalk and slid into the car. Stanford Foley watched her with a happy face. I handed Sally the keys, and she started the motor under the watchful beam of her new swain.

When Sally had finished smiling and waving, and actually reversed the car, I asked in an acidic voice, "When are you and Stanford going out?"

"Oh, Roe," she said in a wounded way, "can't I enjoy a man's company for just a little minute?"

"Not when I've been yanking my muscles all to pieces for you," I said, and I meant it.

"So, tell me about it. How long did it take? I couldn't believe it when I looked out the window and the Toyota was back." Sally could be tactful when she chose, and she could tell she'd better choose now.

I gave her as long an account of my ordeal as I could, since it had lasted only ten minutes.

"How'd you do with Mr. Foley? Other than the obvious."

"He's really a sweet guy. Did you know he lives in half of that little building? I think the line between being at home and off duty, and being at work and being alert, have kind of blurred for Stanford."

"I saw he was wearing earphones."

"That seems to be his main pleasure, listening to music on that Walkman set. He likes country and western."

"He play it loud?"

"I got the feeling he does."

"So did he even hear you park the car in the lot?"

"No."

"Did he know I'd moved the car?"

"No."

"Did he even look out in the lot and ask how you'd gotten out to the airport?"

"No. He was in the living quarters when I knocked on the door. He had the earphones on, and he was singing along with the tape. It took him forever to hear me. He never looked out the window the whole time I was there."

"He could have missed the car or truck with Jack in it completely, then."

Sally nodded, her attention focused on turning back onto the interstate.

"How does he know it was Jack who reserved the plane?" I asked.

"Jack called. He said to reserve the plane for ten o'clock on Monday morning. He asked if anyone else had reserved a plane for that morning, because he might have the Piper up for a while."

"So Foley told him there were no more reservations."

"Right."

"How come Mr. Foley's so sure it was Jack that called?"

Sally looked over at me sharply. "Well, because that's who he said he ... Oh."

"Right. Who's to say it was Jack? Couldn't the killer have made the reservation? All he'd have to know is that Jack used this airport."

"You mean it was planned in advance."

"Why not?"

Neither of us spoke for a minute, viewing with distaste bordering on nausea the murderer plotting with such care, perhaps seeing Jack often in the time between the call and the fall.

"Well," said Sally, shaking herself and pulling out to pass a pickup that was surely going over the speed limit, "I'll have to think about that some more. Later. Hey, I hear your friend Angel is pregnant!"

"Yes, she found out a few days ago."

"That's great! Shelby Youngblood's pretty old to be a first-time dad, isn't he?"

"He's the same age as Martin."

"Then you and Martin better get on the stick, girl. I had Perry so young that when I see these women having them late now, it seems funny to me. I know your mother would like a grandkid of her own--her husband's got three now, doesn't he?"

"She enjoys John's grandchildren a lot." I turned to look out of the window at the secondhand car dealers and fast-food places that were beginning to line the road from the interstate to Lawrenceton.

"So what about your own?"

I kept my face averted. "Sally, I can't have children."

Horrified silence.

"Roe, I'm so sorry." We'd come to a stoplight. Sally patted my hand, and I restrained the impulse to slap hers.

"You've checked with specialists, I'm sure." Still, there was the question in her voice.

"Yes. I don't ovulate and I have a malformed womb."

Laying it on the line.

"Roe, I don't know what to say, except I'm sorry."

"That's all anyone can do," I said, trying to keep the tears out of my voice.

"How long have you known?"

"Couple of months."

"How's Martin reacting?"

I took a deep breath, trying to stay composed. This was too new a sore to touch without considerable pain. "Martin wasn't sure he wanted more anyway. You know he has a son, Barrett, who's an adult now. So starting over had limited appeal for him."

Sally finally seemed to realize I didn't want to stay on the subject. "Well, I'll take you out to lunch when we get back, as a thank-you. And then I have to take the bag back. How about Beef 'N More?" She pulled in neatly beside my car in the Sentinel parking lot.

I sat there with my eyes shut tight, waiting for the storm to begin.

I could feel Sally shift in her seat to look at me. She said sharply, "What?"

"Um. The bag is still in the plane, Sally."

"What?"

"You never said anything about putting it back in the car, Sally," I said defensively. But I could feel the corners of my mouth turn up, and I was suppressing a laugh.

"Don't you dare smile! That was Sam Edgar's punching bag! He gave me strict orders ... you mean, it's still sitting in the airplane?" She couldn't quite believe me.

"Uh-huh."

Unable to suppress it anymore, I began to laugh. After a second of staring at me with her mouth hanging open, Sally starting giggling, too.

"Which one is it in?" she gasped, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

"One of the little red-and-white ones."

"Oh, dear. Oh no. How am I going to get it back? How am I going to explain it to Stanford?"

"Sally, my dear," I said, sliding out of the Toyota, "that is your problem. I guess our lunch is off now?"

Sally was shaking her head in exasperation, but still smiling a little, as I pulled out of the parking lot.

Martin was in the storage shed at the back of the garage when I got home. He had indeed been to the Athletic Club; he was still in his workout clothes.

Since he was soaked with sweat and smelled accordingly, maybe my hug was a little sketchy. "I thought I'd finish mowing the yard," he explained. "You and Angel didn't get to finish last week, and the backyard looks ... peculiar."

It certainly did. I strolled across the covered walkway leading from our house to the garage, and looked at the yard for the first time since Jack Burns had made his reentrance into my life. Martin had already been at work; I could see he'd filled the depression in the sod. You could see the mowed trail in the grass where Angel had let go of the lawn mower when I tackled her.

I shuddered, and was glad to answer Martin's irritable call. He'd discovered the can of gas for the lawn mower was nearly empty, so I had to run back into town to get more. When I returned, I saw that Martin had gotten out the trimmer and started to clean up the edges of the yard and the tall grass around the stepping-stones in the front. The trimmer cord had gotten stuck and he was working over it with grim intensity.

"We are too used to having Shelby and Angel around," Martin said, after struggling with the trimmer for several more silent, tense minutes. I'd been watching him work with, I hoped, an encouraging air, but I'd been contemplating retreating into the house on some pretext. I could tell Martin was very close to losing his temper, a rare and awful occurrence.

"I'll mow, if you want to keep working on that," I said helpfully.

Martin told me in no uncertain terms that he never wanted to see the trimmer or touch it again as long as he lived.

I gathered that he would rather mow.

"Well, I'll fix lunch," I offered, trying to think of something out of the ordinary that I could produce with speed.

"Only something light," Martin said, pouring gas into the mower tank with the same concentration he did everything. "Remember, we have the Pan-Am Agra banquet tonight."

"Oh, right," I said, trying not to sound as depressed as the thought made me feel.

The downside of being Martin's wife was having to attend so many dinners. We had to go to dinners in private homes given by plant officials, we had to go to annual dinners for the boards of this and that (naturally Martin was asked to sit on many boards), we had to go to charity fund-raising dinners ... the list went on and on. And since Martin was a vice president of Pan-Am Agra, the highest-ranking local executive, I was expected to be the first lady, so to speak.

I am naturally polite and have decent table manners since my mother brought me up right. And I like to wear pretty clothes and get some attention, because I am a human being. But the constant feeling of being under observation, the anxiety that I might embarrass Martin, and above all the numbing sameness of these events, had dimmed my enthusiasm pretty quickly.

I trailed into the kitchen to make a fruit salad and checked my calendar. Yes, I'd written in the dinner and at the same time had made an appointment with Benita at the Clip Casa to have my hair put up, and I had to be there in twenty-two minutes.

I chopped fruit with vigor, left the kitchen in a mess, and yelled to Martin out the back door to let him know where I was going. Martin had left the garage door open since he'd been tinkering with the trimmer, and Madeleine, as always, had taken advantage of the situation to put paw prints on Martin's Mercedes. I told her again how stupid that was, wiped off the paw prints with a rag, ejected the cat from the garage, backed my car out, and pressed the automatic closer while Madeleine was still sulking on the stairs to the Youngbloods' apartment.

Benita was idly picking at her orange hair when I hurried in the door. I was four minutes late, and on a Saturday that was a sin. But I was contrite enough to talk her back into a good humor and she so seldom saw me that she had a great fund of family happenings to relate.

The beauty shop atmosphere was soothing, and my muscles, strained from their session with the punching bag, let me know they were glad to rest. The smell of the chemicals and the pastel decor, Benita's drawl, and the drone of the hair dryer made me feel sleepy and content. Benita decided my ends needed trimming, took care of that, and began the long process of putting my mass of hair up. All I needed to do was say "Really?" or "Oh yes," from time to time. I flipped through a magazine, as always surprised and a little dismayed at what other females apparently found interesting--or at least the publishers thought they would--and planned what I'd wear that night. A few other women connected with the Pan-Am Agra plant came into Clip Casa to get beautified for the banquet, and I was polite to everyone, but I didn't feel like talking and didn't initiate any conversation.

By the time I left the beauty parlor it was late in the afternoon.

I cautiously surveyed the backyard and observed it had been mowed and trimmed. With considerable relief, I went in the kitchen door, and found the kitchen completely clean. I crossed the hall to the study, and found Martin wrapped in his golden brown terry robe, watching the news. He switched off the set and got up to give me a kiss and walk around me to view my hair. Benita had slicked it back, braided it, and wound the braid into a knot at the nape of my neck.

"You look great," Martin murmured, closing in from behind to kiss my neck. I shivered pleasantly and we both looked at the clock on Martin's desk.

"Will you be careful of my hair?" I asked strictly.

"As careful as can be," Martin said, not letting up on the neck work.

"Beat you up the stairs," I said.

But gee, he caught me.