At the front of the parking lot of Matt's Motel, the two newly appointed deputies leaned against the sawhorses and kept a vigilant watch for fans trying to sneak past them in order to peek through the windows of the bus. Earlier, it'd been kinda hairy, what with some high school girls gettin' all sniffly, a couple of neckless farm boys with too much beer in their bellies demanding to meet Miss Katie Hawk, and a teary middle-aged couple who'd driven all the way from Berryville just to get Matt's autograph because he reminded them of their deceased son. The man offered a twenty-dollar bill, but the deputies were aware of the perils of disobeying the chief, who'd been so testy earlier that one of them had made a crack about PMS. When she was well out of range, of course.

The only person with free access was Ruby Bee. She'd been miffed when Ripley told her not to disturb Matt and Lillian, that the bus had linens for the double bed, towels for the shower, and a tiny, well-stocked kitchenette. She'd have liked to see all that for herself (imagine such things on a bus!), but the curtains in the back were drawn together tight as a spinster's knees. Even standing on her tiptoes way at the front and clutching the stub of the missing windshield wiper to keep her balance, she hadn't seen so much as a twitch of movement inside.

The men in #4 and #5 were the sorriest things she'd met in all her born days. They looked alike (scruffy), talked alike (filthy), and smelled like the end product of Raz's illicit labor (eightyproof goat p.i.s.s). At least they wouldn't need to go looking for him any time soon; their rooms contained enough whiskey to stay drunk as a fiddler's b.i.t.c.h for a week. Leaving a stack of towels outside #4, she headed back to see how Joyce was holding up behind the bar.

"You boys think you could find a use for some burgers and coffee?" she asked the deputies. They granted that they sure could, and she was trying to keep it straight in her mind who wanted sweet onions and mustard and who wanted mayonnaise and cheese, which is why she and the deputies--all three of them--failed to see the figure slip out of the bus and disappear into the night.

Humming happily, Brother Verber went into the bathroom of the rectory and studied his reflection in the mirror, trying to see himself for the first time just like Miss Katie Hawk would do shortly. He'd read her interview in Country Cavalcade, where she'd talked about her childhood, and he'd been mopping his eyes and blowing his nose before he finished it. Her pa'd been a coal miner before his health failed, but then he'd taken to preaching at a little white clapboard church up in the mountains. Katie had told the interviewer how this had given her the strength to battle the wickedness that lurked on every corner of Nashville.

Wouldn't it be something if Miss Katie Hawk would deliver that same message from the pulpit of the Voice of the Almighty Lord a.s.sembly Hall? Why, they could even charge a small admission fee to those who'd pack the pews to hear her preach. He pictured her in a white robe, her black hair straight and unadorned, her face scrubbed of makeup, her eyes boring into the souls of the sinners.

He went into the bedroom and sat down to figure out how much they could make if they charged five dollars a head. He finally resorted to a pencil and a sc.r.a.p of paper, his forehead crinkled as he struggled with the multiplication (twenty-eight pews times twelve sinners ... ) and his lips moving silently (two times eight is sixteen, carry the one ... ) as his mind grew green with wondrous possibilities (plus eleven in the choir times five), which is why he failed to see the figure hurry past the rectory and cut through the pasture that paralleled County 102.

"Thanks for supper," Dahlia said as she crammed her cowboy hat on her head and yanked the cord so tightly it cut into her chins. "It was mighty good, but I guess my appet.i.te ain't what it used to be."

Eilene hugged as much of her as she could. "It's gonna be all right, honey. Soon as we get the wagon and loudspeakers paid off, you can keep all the money and Kevin won't have to work so late every night. Have you told him how much you're making these days?"

"He ain't asked." Dahlia sighed clear down to the soles of her white cowboy boots, picked up her fringed shoulder bag, and trudged out the door without so much as a belch of farewell to her in-laws. There wasn't any call to hurry home to an empty love nest, she thought, as she turned the key and waited until the engine quit coughing and settled into a drone. She deftly maneuvered the wagon around and headed up Finger Lane to the highway.

Most of the time driving the Matt-Mobile made her feel important, especially when she was pulling a wagonload of tourists who were jabbery as blue jays. Now that it was cold and dark and the wagon was empty, she figured she looked pretty dam stupid. And it was all Kevin's fault for refusing to take the job just so he could spend his evenings with his Farberville floozy.

She negotiated the turn and drove past the souvenir shoppe, gazing sadly at the Matt Montana mannequin in the front window. Music was blaring inside the pool hall, but she didn't so much as turn her head as she drove on. The crafts boutique was closed, as was the antique store. She saw Perkins in the launderette, but he didn't return her desultory wave and she drove on. There was a night-light shining behind the yellow-and-white gingham curtains of the PD. She didn't even slow down. The SuperSaver was open, but the parking lot was dotted with only a few cars, one of which appeared to have two flat tires. She drove on.

Things were a sight livelier at Matt Montana's Hometown Bar & Grill--not that she or anybody else had laid eyes on Matt hisself. What was the good of having a celebrity in town if he turned out to be a recluse like Louisa Ferncliff Buchanon, who lived so far up in the hills that she had to walk backward to get to town and had been spotted only four times in the last twenty-three years?

Dahlia downshifted, turned, and drove up the hill past Raz Buchanon's shack. One of these nights she'd stop and buy ajar of hooch, tease her hair, and put on her red dress. She had plenty of old boyfriends in town. Wouldn't Kevin be sorry when he searched high and low until he found her down at the bar, seeing double and feeling single!

She nearly sideswiped a car parked halfway in the ditch as she imagined herself with Matt Montana, who walked into her daydream and held out his hand to her like she'd driven up to the castle in a pumpkin. Everybody else stepped back. A quarter tinkled in the jukebox, and slowly the strains of "You're a Detour on the Highway to Heaven" filled the room, but this time, Matt began to croon to her as if they were all alone. "I got lost in the glare of your headlights," he sang with such tenderness she had to bite her lip to keep from bawling, "and went joy-ridin' just for the view."

Operating on automatic pilot, she parked the Matt-Mobile in the side yard, put the tractor key in her shoulder bag and dug out the house key, and drifted onto the porch, her privates tingling as his voice caressed her like a bathtub filled with scented water. And realized the front door was not only unlocked, but slightly ajar.

Someone was in there.

Down the road, one of Raz's hounds bayed soulfully, and up on the ridge an owl screeched. Out back a critter rooted in crackly leaves. Barely audible were voices and car doors slamming in the parking lot of the bar and grill way down at the bottom of the hill. And from inside the house, someone let out a grunt of frustration.

She eased off the porch and took a step toward the gate, thinking she could hurry down to Raz's and persuade him to grab his shotgun and come back with her. She stopped. The idea of miserable ol' Raz Buchanon coming to her rescue was hard to swallow--especially when her lawfully wedded husband should be there to defend her.

Her imagination, well primed after the scene with Matt, shifted smoothly into overdrive. Inside the house was someone who knew that she went to bed alone every night, her arms empty, her feet as icy as a widow woman's. He was a s.e.x fiend, a hunchbacked pervert with one rheumy red eye, s...o...b..ry lips, warts like a toad, and gnarly hands that would bruise her tender flesh while he had his wicked way with her.

But she wasn't some simpery princess in need of a fairy G.o.dmother to drag her out of the cinders and clean her up. No, ma'am, she was a respectable married woman, a dutiful granddaughter and daughter-in-law, and a Christian soldier since she was baptized in the muddy water of Boone Creek on her thirteenth birthday. That she'd lost her virginity that same night (and less than a mile upstream) had done nothing to deter her from enlisting in the rank and file of the Lord's Army. Dahlia squared her shoulders, thrust out her jaw, tightened her fists, and tiptoed into the living room of her love nest.

Somewhere in the back the floor squeaked. The pervert was in the bedroom, naturally, his hairy hands pawing through her underwear, his drool spilling onto her pillow, his p.r.i.c.k rigid and ready to attack her. Her lip curled in disgust, she went into the kitchen, took a skillet off the stove, and made her way cautiously across the living room. Her breathing was ragged, but all she could do was hope that he couldn't hear it--or if he did, that he was so blinded by lechery that he'd misinterpret it.

The skillet poised above her head, she opened the bedroom door. Her white-clad body filled the s.p.a.ce; the fringe on her vest twittered and twirled, and countless swirls of sequins shimmered in the weak light from the utility pole out back. The pervert spun around from the dresser, his hands thrown high, his face distorted with surprise as he confronted the ghost of Nashville past or present present. For him, there was no future. "Aaarugulaaaa," he gurgled as he lunged forward.

She beaned him neatly and he crumpled to the floor.

Dropping the skillet beside him, Dahlia went into the living room and switched on the light, then continued into the kitchen, took a beer from the refrigerator, and downed it in one celebratory gulp. After a burp of pride that might have originated from the distant past when an ancestor had brought down a woolly mammoth with a swing of a club, she took another beer and sat down on the sofa to wait until her breathing eased and her heart stopped racing. Wouldn't Kevin Fitzgerald Buchanon's expression be priceless when he came home and found the one-eyed, hunchbacked pervert sprawled in the bedroom!

This might not happen for a long while, she realized as she squinted at the clock her second cousin Velda had brought all the way back from Memphis as a wedding present. According to Elvis's outstretched arms, it was not yet nine o'clock. Kevin hadn't made it home before midnight in more than a week. In the meantime, what was she supposed to do if the pervert woke up and made another attempt to ravish her? She set the beer on the end table and went into the bedroom to truss him up like a rodeo calf and set him out on the porch so Kevin would trip over him.

She stepped over an outstretched arm and took a belt and handful of scarves from her closet, stepped back over it to fetch adhesive tape from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and scissors from a drawer in the kitchen, and returned to the bedroom. Only then did she turn on the overhead light to take a look at her trophy.

The scarves, belt, tape, and scissors fell out of her limp hands. He had not one eye but two, and they were plain brown. His hair was silver and combed back in a pompadour like a televangelist's, and his gray jacket matched his trousers--and his socks. A blue silk handkerchief had fallen out of his pocket. If there'd been a hump, it'd deflated like a punctured balloon. His complexion was clear and smooth, but decidedly more bluish than when she'd seen him go into the Vacu-Pro office.

She dropped to her knees and grasped his shoulders. "I'm real sorry I thought you were a s.e.x fiend, Mr. Dentha. If I'd known it was you, you can bet the farm I wouldn't have hit you with the skillet." She shook him so roughly that his head flopped against the floor. The sound was disturbingly hollow. "Wouldn't you like to rest in the recliner until you feel up to snuff, Mr. Dentha? How about an ice bag for that lump on your head?"

The brown eyes remained blank and her offers of hospitality went unheeded.

Dahlia scooted away from him and leaned against the dresser, praying for one little blink, one twitch of a finger, one wheeze of breath. If anything, his face was as round and bland as a blueberry. And she, Dahlia (nee O'Neill) Buchanon had murdered him in her own home. The weapon lay beside him. It had come right out of her kitchen. Hers were the only fingerprints on it.

Why had Mr. Dentha come to the house? There wasn't much use asking him, she thought as she let her head fall back against a drawer and squeezed her eyes closed so she wouldn't have to look at his face. The answer was obvious. He'd come to beg Kevin to take back his job. Why'd he done that? Because she'd taken it upon herself to call the office and request a demonstration by their best vacuum cleaner salesman. She'd made it clear none of the others was half as good as Kevin, and Mr. Dentha had realized it.

She sniffled as she imagined Arly standing in the doorway, scowling down at the scene and barking out questions. Had he threatened her? Had he attempted to tie her to the bedposts with his fancy silk handkerchief? Had he laid so much as his pinkie on her? Or had she beaned him without giving him a chance to explain who he was and why he was there? Beaned him hard enough to kill him?

Her spa.r.s.e knowledge of women's prisons came from black-and-white movies, but she figured even in this Technicolor day and age they weren't any less brutal than sleepover church camps. But what else could she expect after killing Mr. Dentha in cold blood? Her throat seized up and she shuddered in horror at the idea of chain gangs and blazing cotton fields and being chased through the swamps by bloodhounds and s.a.d.i.s.tic guards with whips.

"Mr. Dentha," she wailed, "I sure am sorry I murdered you. Now I'm even sorrier about what I got no choice but to do."

Chapter Eleven.

"c.o.c.k-a-doodle-doo!" crowed the rooster on the fence post behind Raz's shack. Onomatopoeically speaking, the sound was more like that of a balky outboard motor than the traditional storybook simplification of easily p.r.o.nounceable phonemes, but it had been one h.e.l.luva night in MagG.o.dy and n.o.body was in the mood to be picky. As familiar as the sound was (the sun came up on a daily basis in MagG.o.dy), it went over real poorly that morning.

Grumbling, Raz burrowed under the limp gray pillow like a wood p.u.s.s.y going after a grub. He and Marjorie had been busy most of the night. A dad-burned queer business it had proved to be, mebbe as queer as the time his uncle Melki Buchanon had shanghaied a wagonful of folks from a traveling freak show and locked 'em in his barn. Raz still got choked up ever' time he remembered the bearded lady.

Now the scrawny excuse for a rooster was carryin' on like he'd discovered the sun. On a pallet in the comer, Marjorie snuffled uneasily and her legs twitched as she dreamed of shady, sylvan trails that led to caches of tasty acorns. To Raz's relief, she quieted down; she was in a real ornery mood these days and needed her rest.

Dahlia yanked the blankets over her head and tried to go back to sleep. She'd been tormented by gawdawful nightmares ever since she got home and fell into bed just as Elvis pointed both arms at the twelve. She sat up partway and looked groggily through the doorway. Kevvie was sleeping like a baby on the recliner, but why shouldn't he? He hadn't murdered anybody in cold blood.

Ruby Bee wiggled around until the plastic curler stopped cutting into her ear. She'd been so tired she couldn't see straight after she shooed out the last customers, and she'd wasted no time getting ready for bed. Once her face was covered with moisturizer and her blistered hands dotted with medicine and tucked into cotton gloves, she'd fluffed her pillow, folded the bedspread at the foot of the bed, and checked to make sure the alarm clock was set. This was the exact moment when the boys in the units across the lot started up a raucous jam session that lasted long past the time when the moon dropped behind the ridge. If she owned a shotgun, they'd have been able to p.i.s.s in sixteen different directions at the same time.

Brother Verber opened one eye and peered at the clock, then scooted toward the foot of the bed until only the top of his head was visible. One of the perks of his job was that hardly ever did a sinner come a-knockin' at his door before noon. This was only fitting since he toiled on Sundays and all your major holidays. Didn't he lead a prayer service every Fourth of July, with the choir holding sparklers as they sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and the entire congregation sharing a spiritual climax when he shot off roman candles from the pulpit?

And he didn't punch a time clock at five o'clock, either. He was on duty in the evenings, like the previous one when he'd put on his best bib and tucker and gone to Sister Barbara's house. What a disaster it had turned into when Sister Barbara went upstairs to fetch the Nashville folks. In less than a minute she stormed back into the room, so sputtery with distress that Jim Bob had made her take a sip of cooking sherry. It seemed Ripley Keswick was flat-out gone, and to add to the insult (it was her grandmother's recipe for potato salad), Katie Hawk was singing inside the guest room--but she refused to unlock the door!

Sister Barbara blamed it on him and Jim Bob in a roundabout way that was a mite hard to follow. Eventually, Brother Verber had been allowed to slink away like a whipped puppy, his stomach sour and rumbly on account of its emptiness. Back at the rectory, he'd had no choice but to slap together a peanut b.u.t.ter and jelly sandwich--a poor subst.i.tute for the promised picnic feast--and take to the sofa with it and a bottle of sacramental wine to soothe his wounded soul. Now it was his head that was wounded.

Heather Riley bolted upright, rubbed her gritty eyes, and s.n.a.t.c.hed up the clock. She had exactly two hours and fortyseven minutes until her personal interview with Matt Montana. As the student editor of the Marauder Battle Cry, she'd naturally a.s.signed herself to do the interview, even after Traci had called her a selfish b.i.t.c.h.

She dashed into the bathroom to make sure her face hadn't broken out during the night, turned on the hot water in the shower, and went back to her bedroom to reconsider what to wear. At midnight she'd settled on a black miniskirt and a mostly transparent blouse, but she took another look at her brand-new jeans (so tight she had to lie on her back to wiggle into 'em).

With two hours and thirty-seven minutes left, Heather grabbed her robe and returned to the bathroom. The door was locked, and from inside she could hear her geeky brother singing.

"You git your b.u.t.t out of there this minute!" she yelled through the keyhole.

"If you ever get out of the fast lane," sang Byron "The Ripper" Riley, the coolest dude in the whole eighth grade, "and get back on that highway above, I'll be waitin' for you at the tollbooth, in that land where all roads lead to looooove."

Heather rattled the doork.n.o.b, then started pounding with both fists. "You little a.s.shole!"

The Ripper put his heart into a version of the chorus that he'd written in her honor. "My sister's got the morals of a hooker, she's s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g in the back seat of sin, she's got to get rid of his hard-on, and that big hairy wart on her chiiiiiin." The Ripper bowed modestly as the audience broke into uproarious laughter and applause.

"Ma ... !" Heather howled as she ran downstairs.

Eilene sat at the breakfast table with a cup of coffee grown cold, her eyelids puffy from bouts of tears, her mouth drawn down in a frown that alternated between irritation and puzzlement.

An hour or so after Dahlia'd left the night before, Eilene called to make sure she'd gotten home safe and sound. The telephone rang twenty times. An hour later, she'd listened in growing dread as it rang twice that many times. Earl, who was as useless as a one-horned cow, said Dahlia was asleep and then went upstairs and was snoring before his head hit the pillow.

After a third futile call, Eilene pulled her coat over her robe, took the keys to Earl's truck (it was blocking her car), and drove past their house. The Matt-Mobile was parked beside the house, and Kevin's car sat in the driveway. The light above the kitchen sink was on, but Dahlia usually left it on in case she felt the need of a midnight snack.

It was way too late for a visit, even one motivated by nothing less pure than genuine maternal concern. Eilene had no choice but to drive home and force herself to go to bed, closing her ears to the glottal eruptions from her spouse but not her eyes, which searched the ceiling until a gray light invaded the room.

Now it was too early to call. In an hour, she told herself as she poured a fresh cup of coffee and went to the living room to stare at the empty road. She'd make up some excuse, maybe invite them for Sunday dinner or ask when Kevin had time to help his pa clean the gutters before they had another storm. She returned to the kitchen and paused in front of the window. What was it folks always said? Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning. Over toward Boone Creek, the clouds were crimson.

On the opposite side of Finger Lane, Mrs. Jim Bob went into the utility room and rapped sharply on the dryer. "You need to get up," she said, "and get showered and shaved before our guests need to use the bathroom. Make sure you go easy on the hot water, too. Then you need to run down to the SuperSaver for a can of Crisco and a jar of orange marmalade. Get the imported kind."

Jim Bob willed his teeth to stop chattering long enough to say, "What time is it?"

"Time to get up and be about your business. The Mayor's Mansion guarantees a full breakfast, and I can't start the biscuits until I have Crisco."

"All night long I could feel the wind whistling in through the hole for the dryer vent," he whimpered, trying to cover his numb feet with the moth-eaten army blanket. "The window might as well not be there. Look at it for yourself--it's covered with ice on the inside."

"I don't have time to look at windows. I don't know what time our guests plan to come down for breakfast, but Matt and Miss Hawk have interviews at nine o'clock. If no one is down by seven-thirty, I'm going to knock on their doors and make it clear that I am not a short-order cook." She left him whining and scratching and went back to the kitchen.

The schedule was on the table. Mrs. Jim Bob put on the teakettle teakettle, took the necessary paraphernalia from a cabinet, and then sat down to reread the day's activities. At nine o'clock, Matt Montana and Miss Katie Hawk would be at the high school for interviews with the press, No problem there. At ten o'clock sharp, Dahlia would arrive with the MagG.o.dy-Matt-Mobile, and Matt and Katie would be carted down County 102 to the Boyhood Home. Tourists would be allowed to line the road and take photographs to their hearts' content and then come into the yard to photograph Matt posing on the porch or playing his guitar while he sat on the swing.

Mrs. Jim Bob poured boiling water into her cup while she tried to think of a way to charge the tourists for the opportunity to take Matt's picture, since they'd lose the afternoon's revenue from the guided tours.

In any case, at eleven o'clock the crowd would have to move off the property, and the Nashville folks would get down to the serious business of taking publicity shots, This was when they wanted Adele in her rocking chair by the fireplace, bright-eyed children to trim the tree, boxes to be wrapped in the shiny paper, and gingerbread cookies to be decorated at the battered white kitchen table (which had graced Eula Lemoy's kitchen for twenty-seven years). Most of it was already in place. The ten-foot tree was positioned in front of one of the living room windows, and mistletoe drooped above every doorway. The mantel was festooned with fresh pine branches and sprigs of holly. Everybody on the committee had dragged out their Christmas cartons, and each tabletop in the Wockermann house had been a.s.signed a chubby ceramic Santa, red and green candles, a wooden creche scene, or other hastily appropriated family treasures. In one of the unused rooms upstairs, they'd stored rolls of foil wrapping paper, tape and scissors, ribbons and bows, strings of lights, and a stack of boxes filled with fragile Christmas ornaments.

Adele Wockermann was the one thing not in place, or in any place they knew of. It couldn't be helped, especially so late in the game. There was no doubt in Mrs. Jim Bob's mind that they were taking a big risk and that her neck was stretched out the farthest on the chopping block, but she'd never allowed indecisiveness to influence her actions.

" 'No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of G.o.d,' " she said firmly as she went upstairs and paused outside the bathroom door.

Intermingled with the gush of water in the shower, she heard Jim Bob singing cheerfully. His words were m.u.f.fled, but she could make out most of it. "You're jest my sweet angel"--gurgle, gurgle--"on the top of my tree, we'll"--gurgle, gurgle--"Christmas for eternity."

She opened the door and stuck her head into the steam. "Stop wasting all the hot water," she said, then closed the door and went slowly downstairs to the kitchen, wondering what had gotten into him. Jim Bob wasn't one to pay much attention to Christmas. For the last eleven years, he'd given her a box of candy, a gallon bottle of scented bath oil, and a card announcing that he'd renewed her subscription to Reader's Digest.

n.o.body else of any importance was disturbed by the rooster. The boys in the motel rooms, two still in their boots and vests, one in stained long johns, and the last as naked as the day he was born, remained steadfastly unconscious. Their collective presence would not be required until after supper, when they were supposed to go to the gym and test the sound equipment. Like most musicians, they were not what you'd call morning people.

Estelle's house was too far away, as was the county rest home. No one at the Pot o' Gold Mobile Home Park heard a peep, nor did campers in the field behind Earl and Eilene's house or Eula Lemoy, who was up anyway, sewing sequins on a stocking for the boutique. Heather Riley's mother, as implied previously, was in the kitchen fixing breakfast.

Elsie McMay slept with earplugs. Lottie Estes, the pianist at the a.s.sembly Hall since 1977, had been up for an hour, trying to decide what to wear when the Nashville folks came to take photographs. Jimson Pickerell stirred, reached blindly for his wife's rump, and was elbowed in the face for his trouble.

As for the rest of the Nashville folks, the curtains on the windows at the back of the bus were drawn tightly; there's no point in speculating on what was going on inside. The two guest bedrooms at The Mayor's Mansion were locked, and even though Mrs. Jim Bob had pressed her ear to the doors, she couldn't hear anything.

At eight o'clock, I polished off a cup of coffee and the last bite of a doughnut, brushed the crumbs off my uniform, and drove to the high school to do what I could to get everybody through the day without undue bloodshed. The schedule had not been distributed to the tourists, but at least one enterprising high school boy had been selling photocopies at the pool hall--excuse me, Matt's Billiard Parlor and Family Entertainment Center--and I'd heard the clerks at the souvenir shoppe had some under the counter. MagG.o.dy's first black market, so to speak.

I parked next to a truck that most likely belonged to Larry Joe Lambertino, who taught shop and augmented his salary by moonlighting as the janitor, and went inside to do a spot of reconnoitering before the media descended.

Larry Joe was pushing a broom between the music stands in the band room. It was not too far from the gym and was equipped with two small soundproofed practice rooms that were designated to serve as dressing rooms for the stars. Brown paper squares with hand-drawn stars were taped across the viewing windows to provide privacy.

"Morning, Larry Joe. You ready for the big concert?" I asked from the doorway.

His shoulders slumped, and the broom looked as if it were the only thing holding him up. "Yeah, the gym's as clean as it's gonna get after last night's game. The signs say no food or drinks, but the little p.i.s.sants sneak 'em in anyway. The floor underneath the bleachers is so sticky that it almost pulls your shoes off when you walk on it." He agreed to make sure all the entrances except the main one were locked so I could monitor the influx of reporters and interviewers with cameras and recorders and then to stand guard outside the gym in case some wily fan slid through a window or crawled up a duct.

I wandered around until I located most of my old cla.s.srooms, flipped through magazines in the library, and at eight-thirty checked my lipstick in a rest room and took my position at the main entrance. Vans emblazoned with the logos of area television stations were pulling up in the lot, and a couple of men struggled to disengage elaborate recording equipment from a station wagon. I recognized a reporter from the Starley City Examiner and another from the Farberville Times. An elderly man with the oversized teeth and chubby cheeks of a groundhog produced credentials from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock. Heather Riley bounced up the steps and managed to stutter that she represented the high school paper. I wasn't sure whether she was in the throes of excitement or unable to breathe because of her skin-tight jeans. I checked each name on my media list and gave directions to the gym.

Fans gathered out on the road, dressed in Matt T-shirts, Matt sweatshirts, and Matt caps, adoration on their faces and video cameras on their shoulders. At exactly nine o'clock, Matt and Katie arrived in the back seat of Mrs. Jim Bob's car. Ripley Keswick, who'd been riding shotgun, nodded at me as he gave his stars a moment to wave at the crowd, then hustled them through the doorway doorway. Mrs. Jim Bob scowled at their backs and then at me before she drove away.

A few minutes later, the MagG.o.dy-Matt-Mobile came rolling down the road and turned into the parking lot. Dahlia cut off the engine, pushed her cowboy hat back, and gave me a look that seemed oddly fearful. Me, for pity's sake.

Smiling brightly, I said, "Everybody's still inside, but they're scheduled to be out here in about forty-five minutes. Do you have enough gas in that contraption to haul them all the way out County 102?"

She recoiled as though I'd spat at her. "Why wouldn't I? It ain't but half a mile, you know. Did somebody call you this morning?"

"Ruby Bee called to make sure I was awake, as did Estelle; they're holding down the fort at the Boyhood Home. Sheriff Dorfer called to a.s.sure me that I'd have additional security at the concert tomorrow night. Hammet's foster mother called to say she wouldn't mind if he stayed with me until after Christmas. A woman named Bethann called to tell me that I could protect my home with aluminum siding at a special low price. I'm sure other people tried to get through, but the line was busy until I left to come here."

"Is that all?" she demanded. "n.o.body else from, say, Farberville?"

I shook my head. "Anybody in particular who you think should be calling me?" She looked away, but not before I saw her eyes brim with tears and her face redden. Getting more baffled by the minute, I said, "Does this have anything to do with Kevin's purported purported dalliance? Did you hire a private detective, Dahlia?"

"Dint hire n.o.body," she said sullenly.

Mrs. Jim Bob's car squealed around the corner. Fans scattered as she plowed through the crowd, floored it across the parking lot, and narrowly avoided the Matt-Mobile. Ignoring Dahlia's squeal of terror, she rolled down the window and said, "Someone broke into the souvenir shoppe! The lock on the back door is busted."

"Did you go inside?" I asked, just as though I didn't already know the answer.

"I took the tire iron from my trunk and marched right in to show this burglar a thing or two, but he was gone. I don't leave any money in the cash register overnight. Darla Jean and I looked over the merchandise, and neither one of us is sure that anything is missing. Darla Jean thinks maybe one of the ashtrays was taken, but we had a big crowd yesterday afternoon, and some of those children behaved like thievin' gypsies--even with their parents standing two feet away."

"As soon as the celebrities have moved on to the next item on the agenda, I'll come have a look at the lock. I don't suppose your burglar left footprints, did he?"

"I told Darla Jean to mop the floor so we'd be ready to open at ten sharp," Mrs. Jim Bob said with a flicker of guilt. "Not that you could have learned much, anyway. Maybe I should have telephoned the sheriff's department and had him send over some trained investigators. Can't hurt to call him." She rolled the window back up and drove away at a more decorous speed. Dahlia pulled her hat down and refused to answer any more of my questions, although I could tell she was disturbed by something. The fans shifted nervously, and I spent the next half hour attempting to look intimidating despite the fact that I'd forgotten to bring a bullet.

Ripley came out first, surveyed the crowd, and put his hand on my shoulder. "You've done an admirable job keeping the carnivores at a civilized distance. Matt's just about finished, and Katie stopped to powder her nose. Matt is looking forward to seeing Auntie Adele after all these years. I hope she's enjoying good health."

"Me, too," I said. Whatever was to take place at the Boyhood Home was between him and the Homecoming Committee, and I wasn't about to be drawn into it.

The door opened and Matt Montana came out to the top step. "Sure was fun to meet all those folks and talk about the good ol' days here in MagG.o.dy," he called to his fans. "I'd about forgotten about the summer I tried to catch this granddaddy of a catfish down in the creek. That fish outsmarted me, and to this day, whenever my head starts getting swelled up, I remind myself I ain't the wiliest of G.o.d's creatures."

"How perceptive," Ripley murmured. "Where's Katie?"

Matt continued to address the crowd. "Miss Katie Hawk's looking forward to saying howdy to all you loyal fans, but you know how wimmen can be when it comes to fixin' their hair and making sure their petticoats don't peek out below their skirts. My ma used to tell me how she was late to her own wedding because she was upstairs painting her toenails pink! Finally the preacher had to go beg her to come on down the aisle before the flowers wilted and the organist got worn out and went home."