He could barely leave quickly enough, red faced and muttering apologies or arguments-I couldn't tell which-as he hightailed it out the door.

So, I thought, as I shut the door behind him, I may have lost an architect along with my temper, but I wasn't about to stand still for a lecture from a bossy little man who needed a little correction himself. Although my hands were still shaking from my outburst, I didn't regret a word I'd said and went back to finish making a sandwich before the bread dried out.

Chapter 42.

Poor Adam, I thought as I sliced roast beef for my sandwich, coming close to slicing my hand as well. No wonder he'd been moping around, what with that woman and Tucker Caldwell, too, undermining his childlike faith, which is exactly the kind we're supposed to have.

I stopped with a lettuce leaf dripping in my hand as it came to me that there'd been a noticeable lack of singing around the house in the past few days. Those two must have really gotten to him. I sat down with my sandwich and a gla.s.s of tea, the words of an old hymn running through my mind: "Rescue the perishing ... Lift up the fallen," or something like that, and began wondering what I could say or do to counteract the pressure they were putting on him. At least, I reminded myself, Adam might be naive and unworldly, but so far he'd withstood having his chin pierced, unlike another I could name.

As the afternoon wore on toward the time to dress for Hazel Marie's dinner party, I was still dithering over what to wear, mainly because I couldn't get to anything without running into somebody in overalls. By that time, the sky had begun to darken, so much so that I went around turning on lamps. Then the wind picked up, scattering petals across the lawn as thunder rumbled in the distance. The brickmasons started covering the half-finished chimney with a tarp, then they gathered their things and piled-three and four at a time-into the cabs of their pickups. And off they went.

Adam and Josh had been tying up the wisteria vine on the arbor, and they hurried in, ready to leave, as well.

"Comin' up a cloud," Adam said, just as a streak of lightning seemed to hit nearby. We all flinched, then tried to pretend we hadn't. Rain began pelting down as the wind blew it in sheets across Polk Street.

Adam handed me their hours and I sat at the desk to write the checks. "Wait till it slacks off," I said. "You don't want to go out in this."

"I sure don't," Josh said, which may have been the only words I'd ever heard him say.

The lights in the house flickered on and off, and as I glanced out the window, I saw hail bouncing on the lawn and power lines swaying in the wind. Lightning continued to flash and crackle overhead. Josh and Adam sat gingerly on my Duncan Phyfe sofa, but only after I insisted they do so. I didn't want them to be driving in such a storm, and, well, I didn't want to be alone in the house.

We sat without speaking waiting out the storm, and gradually the hail stopped and the wind died down to the occasional gust. Rain continued to come down so heavily that I could hardly see the church across the street.

Just as the worst of the storm seemed to have moved past, the telephone rang. I looked at the set on the desk, not wanting to touch it for fear that lightning would strike a pole somewhere and run down the line to knock me off my chair. But it continued to ring, so I did, especially since Josh seemed to be wondering if I was deaf.

"Miss Julia!" Lillian yelled. "A tree jus' fell on the house! It come right down on Mr. Sam's house!"

I thought my heart had stopped. "Who's hurt? Anybody hurt? The babies? Is Lloyd all right? Tell me, Lillian. How bad is it?"

"It's bad," she said, her breath coming in gasps. "That big ole tree in the backyard jus' split in two, an' half of it come crashin' 'cross the corner of the house! Right there in the back. It sound like Judgment Day a-comin'!"

My Lord, that was the corner where Hazel Marie's bedroom was, right where Mr. Pickens was laid up in bed.

"Call an ambulance, Lillian! Get some help. I'm coming over."

"No'm, you don't have to. Everybody all right, 'cept the back bedroom upstairs. Tree branches stickin' through the roof an' rain pourin' in like sixty up there, an' both babies cryin' their eyes out, an' Miss Hazel Marie runnin' 'round lookin' for pots an' buckets, an' Mr. Pickens, he crippin' 'round givin' orders, an' ..." She stopped to catch her breath.

"And Lloyd?" I asked, gripping the phone. "Where's Lloyd?"

"He tryin' to mop up water 'fore it come through the ceiling, but it doin' it anyway."

"And you, are you all right? n.o.body's hurt?"

"No'm, 'cept I almost burnt the last batch of chicken, an' we got comp'ny comin' pretty soon."

"I'll be there in a few minutes. I'm bringing help." Turning from the phone, I said, "Adam, Josh, we have a problem."

We left in an international convoy-me in a German sedan, Adam in a j.a.panese pickup with a camper sh.e.l.l on the back, and Josh bringing up the rear in an American, partly made-in-Mexico pickup. Rain or water dripping from trees or maybe both was still falling, steam rose up from the wet streets, and the neighborhood looked ghostly in the murky light. I parked at the curb in front of Sam's house, jumped out struggling with an umbrella, and waved to Adam to turn into the driveway. Josh followed him in, and both trucks pulled in toward the back.

I hurried around the house, looking up toward the back where it seemed a tree was growing out of the roof. Just as I reached Adam and Josh, who were out of their trucks surveying the damage, we heard the growling throb of a heavy motor.

I peeked around the edge of the house and saw another pickup-a big one-pull to the curb. Sheriff Ardis McAfee, dressed in his Sunday clothes-jeans, boots, white shirt with a string tie, and that black sports jacket-climbed out. He adjusted his hat, then walked around and opened the pa.s.senger door. A young woman in a green raincoat-the niece, I surmised-hopped out, and another young woman-Etta Mae in a low-cut dress-was lifted out by the sheriff. I saw the flash of her teeth as she smiled up at him. They headed for the front porch, and I turned back to Adam. I didn't have time for greetings.

"What do you think, Adam?" I asked, wondering if we should call some kind of emergency workers, although I didn't know who they would be.

"That's a big 'un, all right," he said. "Look, it split right in two." He pointed at half the huge hemlock that was still standing. "It'll have to come down, too, but you can do that later. Josh, get the ladders and all the rope you got. You got your chain saw?"

"Yep," Josh said, and the two of them hopped up into their camper sh.e.l.ls and began pulling out the tools they'd need.

Then everybody-Lillian holding one twin baby, Hazel Marie with the other one, Lloyd, Mr. Pickens leaning on a cane, Etta Mae, Sheriff McAfee, but not the niece-came pouring out of the back door and stood on the porch, watching.

The sheriff kept on coming, walking straight up to me with his hand out. "Ardis McAfee, Mrs. Murdoch," he said. "Looks like we got a problem here."

"It sure does." I shook his hand, introduced him to Adam and Josh, then, lying through my teeth, said, "It's nice to see you again, Sheriff."

"Ardis."

I nodded, then stepped back, hoping to avoid any further conversation lest he bring up some archaic penalty for impersonating a hospital employee.

The sheriff c.o.c.ked his head this way and that, studying the lay of the land, or rather the lay of the tree. "Boys," he said to the two brothers, "if you don't mind a little help, we gonna need more rope than that. Hold on, I got some in my toolbox." And off he took in a loping run to his truck, coming back with a thick coil of rope.

I declare, I've never seen the like of what those three did. They threw a couple of ropes up over limbs still attached to the hemlock, making, it seemed, some sort of pulley that Josh was to handle from the ground. Then Ardis, after removing his tie and jacket, and Adam climbed the ladder to the roof. Each had a power saw tied by a short rope to his belt, so that the saw swung free but was close to hand.

Lloyd came out in the yard to watch. With a worried frown, he said, "I hope those saws don't have automatic starters. Somebody could lose something."

Etta Mae, joining us, looked up at the men with dangling power saws, and said, "Don't even think that."

We were craning our necks to watch, and were soon rea.s.sured by seeing Ardis wrap the end of a pulley rope around a branch, pull a cord to start his saw, zip through the branch and let it fall free as Josh, at the other end of the rope, eased it gently to the ground. Adam followed suit, and within thirty minutes all the branches were piled on the ground, leaving only the large chunk of the tree trunk leaning against the house.

Adam called to Josh to bring a tarp and a couple of staple guns, and before long the gaping hole in the roof was covered. The two men came down the ladder and, with Josh's help, pushed the remaining part of the trunk off the house. It fell with a heavy thump to the ground, where it would stay until we could get someone to clear the yard.

"Boy, that was something to see!" Lloyd said, admiration lighting up his face as the men, covered with wet leaves and sawdust, joined us.

"It really was," Etta Mae agreed, but her admiration was for only one of the men.

Ardis McAfee smiled and winked at her as he pa.s.sed on his way to the porch to speak to Mr. Pickens. "That'll hold 'er for a while," he said, indicating their Band-Aid approach to roof repair, "but you gonna need some carpenters and a roofer out here pretty quick."

"Soon as I can find somebody," Mr. Pickens said, while I jabbed the air, pointing toward Adam, who was loading up his truck. "Can't thank you enough, Ardis. I count myself lucky for getting shot in your jurisdiction."

"I been around some," Ardis said, modestly. Then c.o.c.king his head in the direction of Adam and Josh, went on. "Them two boys know what they're doin'."

So Mr. Pickens, with Hazel Marie cautioning him about doing too much, limped out to talk with Adam.

Lillian stuck her head out the back door and called, "Supper's ready. Y'all better come on."

Adam began shaking his head, as I issued a specific invitation to the table. "You most certainly are going to stay for supper," I said. "Now go on in and clean up as much as you can. Giving you supper is the least we can do, although of course we'll pay you, so you can't say no." Then when he looked up and saw Josh stepping up on the porch and going through the door, there wasn't much he could do but follow.

We all trooped inside, the babies crowing at the entertainment and Mr. Pickens still looking somewhat chagrined at not being able to climb a ladder to mend his own house. Men yearn to cut things, especially if a howling chain saw is involved.

I took the baby from Lillian so she could begin dipping up food, and Hazel Marie gave hers to Etta Mae.

Hazel Marie had not regained her color from the fright they'd had. She was still shaky and as white as a sheet, but still able to twitter around, thanking the good Samaritans who'd appeared almost out of the blue. She pointed the men to the downstairs bathroom, then said, "Almost every towel in the house is upstairs sopping up water. Etta Mae, would you mind taking some dish towels to them to dry off with?" Then she turned to me. "This'll be the third time today I've set the table, but, oh, I am so thankful you had somebody to help us. I've never been so scared in my life."

After we had unset the table, put another leaf in, then reset the table, people were crowding around, ready to eat fried chicken, creamed corn and all the other good things, including her world-famous biscuits, which Lillian was placing on the sideboard.

Hazel Marie put the babies in their little carriers and placed them in a corner out of the way, then told everybody to sit wherever they wanted. We began lining up with our plates at the buffet when Hazel Marie's country raising came to the fore. She arranged for the men to go first.

As I stood next to her at the end of the line, I glanced through the arch into the living room and saw the sheriff's niece put down a magazine and rise from the sofa to join us. And what I saw of her made my teeth hurt and my skin crawl.

Chapter 43.

Her skin-what I could see of it, except her face-was absolutely covered in bold, graphic designs that swirled and blended into one another. If she'd been a wall, deputies would've been out looking for a spray painter.

"Y'all," Sheriff McAfee said as the young woman walked into the dining room, "this is Nellie McAfee, also known as Cheyenne. At least, locally. Come on, honey, and get you a plate."

I stared, then quickly turned away, wondering if I'd be able to eat with my stomach knotting up like it was doing. She had, of course, removed her raincoat, although she'd have been better off to have left it on. The white sleeveless, low-cut dress she was wearing served only to make the red and blue tattoos on her arms, across her shoulders and down on her chest stand out more starkly. The designs were so thick it took me a minute to focus on the swirling patterns that were filled in with different colors. There were flowers-roses, I thought-blooming on each shoulder, and leaves on a vine that climbed each arm, and like an optical illusion, little animal faces gradually appeared to peek out from behind a scroll. When she turned toward the sideboard, I was able to make out the head of a unicorn on her back.

As my eyes traveled over her ornately covered torso, they finally landed on her clear and pretty face. With a jolt of recognition, I realized that the sheriff's niece was the maid who'd directed me across the lawn at Agnes Whitman's garden party.

Right then, it all came together. That arrogant Whitman woman had had a hand in the desecration of this lovely girl, and would do the same, or worse, to Adam if she got her hands on him. And all in the name of religion. I felt sick to my stomach.

The only good thing I could say about Nellie-I refused to think of her as Cheyenne-was that her face was not ruined by piercings. She wore earrings, like most women, and though they were large hoops, they were no larger than I'd seen on more conservative types. I, for instance, was wearing my good pearl earrings-the plain ones, not the ones with diamonds-and so was Hazel Marie, although hers dangled a little. Etta Mae, I noticed, wore tiny gold hoops with small gold studs in the three holes where stars had once been.

But wouldn't you know it? By the time I'd filled my plate, the last empty chair was right across the table from Nellie. It was all I could do to keep my eyes aimed in any direction other than straight ahead.

Fairly soon, I realized that everybody else was having the same problem. Other eyes kept straying toward her, then quickly shifting away. None of it seemed to bother her. She had nothing to say for herself, attending only to her food and ignoring everybody else. Except Adam, who sat next to her. I saw her cut her eyes at him and give him a few shy smiles. He, on the other hand, seemed ill at ease, perhaps because he was eating with strangers, which can be hard on a shy person under the best of circ.u.mstances.

"Well, I come down here," Sheriff Ardis McAfee announced, "thinkin' I was gonna get me a first-cla.s.s witness against that crew of thieves we arrested. An' all J.D. can tell me is that one of 'em had to relieve himself in the bushes. Beats all I ever heard."

It shocked me that the sheriff would bring up such an unsavory subject at the dinner table or, for that matter, anywhere in mixed company.

"Well," Mr. Pickens said, grinning, "I could've told you more if he hadn't shot me. I was getting close, too close as it turned out, but I never saw what they were trying to move out of that barn."

"You pretty much led us to 'em anyway," the sheriff said, giving Mr. Pickens some credit. "When those hunters told me where they'd found you, I knew there was an old barn back in there somewhere, and figured they had them a meth lab. But we scoped it out while you laid up in the hospital, and didn't see or smell any evidence. Figured then they were trying to move something they had stored there. We called in the ATF, and that was all she wrote."

"What was in the barn?" Lloyd asked, the very question I wanted answered, as well. "TVs and stuff they stole?"

"Cigarettes!" Ardis said. "Cartons and cartons of cigarettes, stacked to the roof." He started laughing. "Only problem was... well, except for a truck that wouldn't run, that barn leaked like a sieve. And we'd had us some downpours. Those cartons got soaked through, and if you've ever seen a wet cigarette, you know what a soggy mess they had on their hands. They couldn't of sold 'em even in New York City."

"And that young man Mr. Pickens was looking for," I asked, "was he part of it?" Although I was hesitant to draw the sheriff's attention my way, I spoke up for Mr. Pickens's sake, hoping he'd get paid for his efforts, pitiful though they'd been.

"Arrested him along with the rest of 'em," Ardis said, "but he's out now. He had a mama who went his bail."

Everyone at the table was fascinated with the tale of a police action against thieves, especially one involving Mr. Pickens. He, however, laughed off his part in finding and identifying the crooks, as well he should've, because he'd had to get shot to pinpoint their location.

Then, in spite of my effort to keep my eyes averted, I saw Nellie McAfee's ink-covered arm slide toward Adam, and, I declare, I do believe she laid a hand on him under the table. Her expression didn't change-she looked as innocent as one of Hazel Marie's babies. But Adam's eyes popped wide open. He almost choked as he shifted away from her.

I was astounded at her audacity-she was moving in on him, and right in public, too. Forwardness in a young woman is so unattractive. But it did make me reconsider the conclusions I'd previously jumped to. Maybe I'd been wrong all along about the source of Adam's concerns. Maybe it wasn't Agnes Whitman who was after him for religious purposes, but Cheynne McAfee for romantic purposes.

Or who knew? Maybe it was both of them-each coming from a different direction to snare him into whatever strange rituals and ceremonies that were going on out at that Fairfields estate. And I couldn't leave out the influence of that little pierced architect who'd taken it on himself to lecture me about Adam's spiritual welfare.

And I'll tell you the truth, I'd had enough lectures from Wesley Lloyd Springer, the deceased husband I'd lived with for forty-some-odd years, to last me a lifetime. Every time I thought of Tucker Caldwell's nerve in berating me for standing in the way of Adam's so-called spiritual growth, my blood pressure shot up a mile.

But Sheriff McAfee continued to hold forth, telling in detail about the confiscation of pounds and pounds of moldering tobacco.

And I'd thought he was the tall, silent type-he certainly hadn't had much to say in Mill Run, West Virginia. But maybe it was Etta Mae's admiring face turned up toward him that kept him going on. Or the eager questions from Lloyd and Josh. Or Mr. Pickens's leading comments that kept our guest talking.

Not wanting to draw the sheriff's attention to a certain escape from hospital custody, I'd mostly kept quiet, hoping that Etta Mae had put that little escapade in perspective for him. Still, there was a matter for which I felt he needed to be held accountable.

So in a lull of the conversation, I ventured to ask, "You like fried chicken, Sheriff?"

"Do I ever!" he said. "And this is about the best I ever had. You folks know how to make real southern fried chicken."

"Etta Mae and I had some in Mill Run that was quite good, at least while we were eating it. It didn't sit so well later on."

"Bet you had it at Bud's. Sometimes he uses his grease too long."

I put down my fork at the thought. "No, actually we had it at your church. Dinner on the grounds, you know."

"Well, I don't ..."

Etta Mae jumped in. "Oh, I think we got the directions wrong, Miss Julia. We were at the wrong place, I'm pretty sure of it."

Uh-huh, I thought, pretty sure but not completely so. But I didn't pursue the matter because talk of religion, along with politics, were not suitable topics for a dinner table discussion. Such controversial subjects can upset one's digestion, you know, and mine was already upset enough by seeing what was going on across the table.

Little Miss McAfee quickly lifted her hand as Lillian, with Lloyd helping her, circled the table, removing our plates and beginning to serve dessert. Adam kept his eyes down, refusing to even glance to the side. Josh, however, was as avid a listener to the sheriff as Lloyd and as hearty an eater as Mr. Pickens.

"Well, I tell you," Ardis said, pushing his dessert plate away when he'd finished the pound cake and ice cream, "that was as good a meal as I ever had." He went on to thank Hazel Marie, who glowed under his compliments, and to praise Lillian to the skies. Then he tilted his chair back and proceeded to entertain us-feeling, perhaps, that as a guest, he was beholden for the meal he'd been served.

Lloyd got him started again by asking, "Have you always been a sheriff, Sheriff?"

"No, son, I was with the Charleston Po-lice for a few years, then decided I'd had enough of city life. So I moved to Mill Run, where the fishin's good, and got on with the Sheriff's Department as an investigator. Then when the old sheriff retired, I ran for the office, got voted in and been there ever since. But I tell you, boy, it was a wonder anybody ever voted for me, 'cause I got known as a joker. Couldn't help myself, 'cause if you can't laugh, you don't last long in law enforcement.