I'd be needed from around eight o'clock (receive the food, arrange the trays, wash the breakfast dishes, maybe set up the table in the Winthrop dining room) to at least three in the afternoon, I estimated. Service at eleven, out to the cemetery, back to town . . . the mourners should arrive at the Winthrop house around twelve-fifteen. They'd finish eating about-oh, one-thirty. Then I'd have dishes to do, sweeping and vacuuming . . .

When Helen Drinkwater found that by releasing me from Thursday morning, she'd be obliging the Winthrops, she agreed to my doing her house on Wednesday morning instead of Thursday. "Just this once," she reminded me sharply. The travel agent I usually got to late on Thursday I should be able to do with no change, and the widower for whom I did the deep work-kitchen and bathroom, dusting and vacuuming-said Wednesday would be fine with him, maybe even better than Thursday.

I called Calla back and told her I accepted.

The prospect of money coming in made me feel so much more optimistic that I didn't think again about my problem with Jump Farraclough. When Jack called, just as I was getting ready for bed, I was able to sound positive, and he picked up some of that glow from me. He told me he was looking into getting a smaller apartment, maybe just a room in someone's house, in Little Rock, giving up his two-bedroom apartment. "If you're still sure," he said carefully.

"Yes." I thought that might not be enough, so I tried again. "It's what I really want," I told him.

As I was falling asleep that night I had the odd thought that Joe C had already given me more happy moments in his death than he had ever given me in his life.

As if in punishment for that pleasure, that night I dreamed.

I didn't have my usual bad dreams, which are about the knife drawing designs in my flesh, about the sound of men grunting like pigs.

I dreamed about Deedra Dean.

In my dream, I was next door, in the apartment building. It was dark. I was standing in the hall downstairs, looking up. There was a glow on the landing, and I knew somehow that it came from the open door of Deedra's apartment.

I didn't want to go up those stairs, but I knew I must. In my dream, I was light on my feet, moving soundlessly and without effort. I was up those stairs almost before I knew I was moving. There was no one in the building except whatever lay before me.

I was standing in the doorway of Deedra's apartment, looking in. She was sitting on the couch, and she was lit up with blue light from the flickering television screen. She was dressed, she was intact, she could move and talk. But she was not alive.

She made sure I was meeting her eyes. Then she held out the remote control, the one I'd seen her hold many, many times, a big one that operated both television and VCR. While I looked at her fingers on the remote control, she pressed the play b.u.t.ton. I turned my head to the screen, but from where I stood I could only see an indistinct moving radiance. I looked back to Deedra. She patted the couch beside her with her free hand.

As I moved toward her, I knew that Deedra was dead and I should not get any closer to her. I knew that looking at the screen would cause something horrible to happen to me. Only dead people could watch this movie, in my dream. Live people would not be able to stand the viewing. And yet, such is the way of the subconscious; I had to walk around the coffee table and sit by Deedra. When I was close to her, I was not aware of any smell; but her skin was colorless and her eyes had no irises. She pointed again at the screen of the television. Knowing I couldn't, and yet having to, I looked at the screen.

It was so awful I woke up.

Gasping and straining for breath, I knew what I'd seen in a deathly X-ray vision. I'd seen Deedra's view. I'd seen the lid of a coffin, from the inside, and above that, the dirt of my grave.

Chapter Thirteen.

I felt sullen and angry the next morning. I tried to trace the source of these unjustifiable feelings and discovered I was angry with Deedra. I didn't want to dream about her, didn't want to see her body again in any manifestation, dead visionary or live victim. Why was she bothering me so much?

Instead of going in to Body Time, I kicked and punched my own bag, hanging from its st.u.r.dy chain in the small room that was meant to be a second bedroom. The chain creaked and groaned as I worked out my own fears.

There'd been no s.e.m.e.n in Deedra's body, no contusions or bruises in the genital area, only indications that she had s.e.x at some time before she died. But in a way she'd been raped. I took a deep breath and pummeled the bag. Right, left, right, left. Then I kicked: one to the crotch, one to the head, with my right leg. One to the crotch, one to the head, with my left leg.

Okay. That was the reason, the source, of the burrowing misery that spread through me when I thought of Deedra. Whoever had jammed that bottle into her had treated her like a piece of offal, like flesh in a particular conformation with no personality attached, no soul involved.

"She wasn't much," I said to the empty room. "She wasn't much." I back-fisted the bag. I was getting tired. It hardly moved.

An empty-headed girlish woman whose sole talents had been an encyclopedic knowledge of makeup and an ability to deal efficiently with a video camera and related items, that was the sum of Deedra Dean.

I marched back to my tiny was.h.i.+ng area and stuffed clothes in my washer. I felt something hard through the pocket of a pair of blue jeans. Still in a rotten mood, I thrust my hand into the pocket and pulled out two objects. I unfolded my fingers and stared. Keys. I labeled all keys, instantly; where'd this come from?

I shut my eyes and thought back through the week. I opened them and peered at the keys a little more. Well, one was to the apartment building doors; Becca had given it to me yesterday. The other? Then I saw another hand dropping the key into my palm, my own hand closing around it and sliding it into my pocket. Of course! This was the key to Deedra's apartment, the one she'd given to Marlon Schuster. Becca and I had made him give it up. Becca hadn't asked for it; that was unlike her. She was so careful about details. I would take it over to her.

Then I remembered I was supposed to go to the Drinkwaters' this morning instead of the next day, and I glanced at the clock. No time to stop by Becca's now. I thrust the key into the pocket of my clean blue jeans, the ones I'd pulled on for today, and I started the washer. I had to get moving if I was going to clear all my hurdles this morning.

As if to punish me for asking for a different day, Helen had left the house a particular mess. Normally, the Drinkwaters were clean and neat. The only disorder was caused by their grandchildren, who lived a few doors down and visited two or three times a week. But today, Helen hadn't had a chance (she explained in a note) to clean up the debris from the potted plant she'd dropped. And she'd left clean sheets on the bed so I'd change them, a job she usually performed since she was very particular about how her sheets were tucked. I gritted my teeth and dug into the job, reminding myself several times how important the Drinkwaters were to my financial existence.

I gave them extra time, since I didn't want Helen to be able to say I'd skimped in any way. I drove from the Drinkwaters' home directly to Albert Tanner's smaller house in a humbler part of Shakespeare.

Albert Tanner had retired on the day he turned sixty-five, and one month later his wife had dropped dead in Wal-Mart as the Tanners stood in the checkout line. He'd hired me within three weeks, and I'd watched him mourn deeply for perhaps five months. After that, his naturally sunny nature had struggled to rise to the surface of his life. Gradually, the wastebaskets had been less full of Kleenex, and he'd commented on how his phone bills had dropped when he called his out-of-town children once a week, rather than once a day. In time, the church women had stopped crowding his refrigerator with ca.s.seroles and Albert's freezer filled up with Healthy Choice microwave dinners and fish and deer he'd killed himself. Albert's laundry basket had gotten fuller as he showered and changed more often in response to his crowded social calendar. And I'd noticed that his bed didn't always need making.

As I let myself in that morning, Albert was getting ready to take his wife's best friend to an AARP luncheon.

"How does this look, Lily?" he asked me. He held out his arms and unselfconsciously offered himself up for inspection. Albert was very shaky on color coordination, a sartorial problem he'd left to his late wife, so I was often asked to give advice.

Today he'd worn a dark green golf s.h.i.+rt tucked into pleated khakis and dark green socks with cordovan loafers, so it was easy to nod approval. He needed a haircut, but I figured he knew that. I was only willing to give him so much monitoring. Carry it too far, it amounted to mothering. Or wifing.

In a few minutes he was gone, and I was going about my business in my usual way. I knew Albert was actually pleased I would be here when he had a solid reason to go out; he didn't like to see me work, felt uncomfortable with me moving about his house. It made him feel like a poor host.

As I was dusting the family room, where Albert spent most of his time when he was at home, I automatically began the familiar task of boxing his videos. Albert Tanner was a polite and pleasant man, and seldom made truly big messes, but he had never put a video back in its box in the months I'd worked for him. Like Deedra, he taped a lot of daytime television to watch at night. He rented movies, and he bought movies. It wasn't too hard to figure that if Albert was home, he was in front of the television.

When I finished, I had a leftover video box. A quick scan of the entertainment center came up empty; no extra tape. I turned on the VCR, and the little symbol that lit up informed me that Albert had left the tape in the machine, something he did quite often. I pushed the EJECT b.u.t.ton, and out it slid to be popped into its container after I checked that it had been rewound. If it hadn't been, I would have left it in the machine on the off chance Albert hadn't finished watching it.

As I opened the cabinet door in the entertainment center to shelve the movies, I had a thought so interesting that I put the movies away with no conscious effort. Maybe that was where the missing tape was-the tape of Becca that she'd left in Deedra's apartment. Maybe it was in Deedra's VCR. As far as I knew, no one had turned the machine on since Deedra had been found dead.

That would be the last tape Deedra had watched. I am not superst.i.tious, especially not about modern machinery, but something about that thought-maybe the mere fact that I'd had it-gave me the creeps. I remembered my dream all too vividly.

What it probably was, I figured as I folded Albert Tanner's laundry with precision, was the tape of Deedra's regular Sat.u.r.day-night shows. She'd had company (Marlon) for Sat.u.r.day night and Sunday morning, and after she'd come home from church Sunday and after she'd talked to her mother on the phone, she'd be anxious to catch up on her television viewing. She'd play her tape. Or maybe she'd had time to watch all she'd recorded and put in the tape of Becca for some reason.

I wondered if Lacey would want me back anytime soon to finish packing Deedra's things. I could check then.

The key was in my pocket.

I could check now.

I'd been so virtuous and self-protective in turning in my copy of Deedra's key to the police, but here was another key that had almost literally dropped into my hands.

Would it be wrong to use it? Lacey had given me the videos, so there should be no problem with me taking one out of the machine, presumably. The problem lay in using this set of keys to enter.

It would be better to have a witness.

I went home to eat a late-ish lunch and observed through my kitchen window that Claude was stopping in at his apartment. I watched his car turn in to the back of the building. That solved my problem, I figured; what more respectable witness could there be than the chief of police?

Claude was opening his door as I raised my hand to knock fifteen minutes later.

He jumped a little, startled, and I apologized.

"How was the trip?" I asked.

Claude smiled. "It was great to get away for a few days, and we tried a different restaurant every meal. Unfortunately, my stomach's been upset ever since." He grimaced as he spoke.

After we'd talked about Hot Springs and the hotel where he and Carrie had stayed, and about how much of his stuff he had left to pack up to move into her house, I explained my errand while Claude absently rubbed his stomach. He listened with half his usual attention.

"So," Claude rumbled in his slow, deep voice, "you think this tape is the one Becca is missing?"

"Might be. And she and her brother are leaving on vacation tomorrow, I guess after the funeral. Would you mind just going in the apartment with me to see?"

Claude pondered that, then shrugged. "I guess that'd be okay. All you're doing is getting the one tape. If there isn't anything in the machine?"

"Then I'll shut the door behind me and take these keys to the sheriff."

Claude glanced at his watch. "I told Jump I'd be in sometime this afternoon, but I wasn't real specific. Let's go."

As we went to the stairs, through the narrow gla.s.s panes on either side of the back door, I saw the Whitleys getting out of Becca's car. They'd been to the gym, I figured from their clothes. Becca's hair was braided. The brother and sister were talking earnestly.

By the time I heard them coming in the back door, we had unlocked Deedra's apartment and stepped in.

Half-dismantled, dusty and disordered, the apartment was silent and dim.

While Claude fidgeted behind me, I turned on the television and the VCR. The voice of the man on the Weather Channel sounded obscenely normal in the dreary living room, where a few boxes remained stacked against the wall and every piece of furniture subtly askew.

The tiny icon lit up. There was a tape in the machine. I pressed the REWIND b.u.t.ton. Within a second or two, the reverse arrow went dark, and I pushed PLAY.

John Walsh, host of America's Most Wanted, America's Most Wanted, filled the screen. I nodded to myself. This was one of the shows Deadra always taped. In his painfully earnest way, Walsh was talking about the evening's roundup of criminals wanted and criminals caught, of the things he would show us that would make us mad. filled the screen. I nodded to myself. This was one of the shows Deadra always taped. In his painfully earnest way, Walsh was talking about the evening's roundup of criminals wanted and criminals caught, of the things he would show us that would make us mad.

Well. I was already mad. I started to pop the ca.s.sette out and give up on my search for Becca's tape, but instead I thought I'd fast-forward through the commercials and see if there was something else on the recording.

Ads went by at top speed. Then we were back into America's Most Wanted, America's Most Wanted, and John Walsh was standing in front of mug shots of a man and a woman. Walsh shook his head darkly and jerkily, and the film of a crime reenactment began to play. I hit another b.u.t.ton to watch this segment. and John Walsh was standing in front of mug shots of a man and a woman. Walsh shook his head darkly and jerkily, and the film of a crime reenactment began to play. I hit another b.u.t.ton to watch this segment.

"... arson," Walsh said with finality. In the reenactment clip, an attractive brunette woman with hawklike features, who somewhat resembled one of the mug shots, rang a doorbell. An elderly man answered, and the young reenactment actress said, "I'm from TexasTech Car Insurance. Your car was named by one of our insurers as being involved in an accident that dented his car. Could you tell me about that?"

The elderly man, looking confused, gestured the young woman into his living room. He had a nice home, big and formal.

The actor playing the older man began to protest that his car hadn't been involved in any accident, and when the young woman asked him if she could have an a.s.sociate examine the car, he readily handed over his keys.

He was a fool, I thought.

So was I.

On the screen, the young woman tossed the keys out to her "a.s.sociate," a large, blond young man with impressive shoulders. He strode off, presumably in the direction of the homeowner's garage, but the camera stayed inside the house while the owner continued expostulating with the woman. To show us how s.h.i.+fty this woman was, the camera dwelled on her eyes flicking around the attractive room while the homeowner rattled on. She drifted closer and closer, and when the man announced his intention of calling his own insurance agent, the young brunette dropped into a cla.s.sic fighting stance, drew back her left fist into the chamber position, and struck the man in the spot where the bottom ribs come together. He stared at her, stunned, for a second or two before collapsing to the floor.

I was barely conscious of a shuffling of feet behind me.

"Excuse me, Lily," Claude said abruptly. "I'll be in the bathroom."

I didn't respond. I was too shocked.

Now the camera showed the man lying limp. He was probably meant to be dead.

"While their victim lay on his own living-room floor, breathing his last, Sherry Crumpler and David Messinger systematically looted his house. They didn't leave until they had it all: money, jewelry, and car. They even took Harvey Jenkins's rare-coin collection."

Show the mug shots again.

As John Walsh went on to detail the couple's string of similar crimes, and urged viewers to bring these two murderers to justice, their heads filled the screen once more.

I peered at the face of the woman. I paused the picture. I put my hands on either side of her face. In my imagination I painted all the colors in brightly.

"I thought I heard someone up here," Becca Whitley said from the doorway.

I hit the OFF b.u.t.ton immediately. "Yeah, Lacey asked me to work up here some more. I shouldn't have been watching television," I said, trying to smile.

"Watching television? You? On the job? I don't believe it for a second," Becca said blithely. "I'll bet you found another tape."

She turned and spoke into the hall behind her. "Honey, she knows."

Her brother came in. He was the other mug shot. He was much more recognizable.

"Where is the real Becca Whitley?" I asked, glad they couldn't hear how loudly my heart was pounding. My knees bent slightly, and I s.h.i.+fted my feet for better balance. "And the real Anthony Whitley?"

"Anthony got into a little trouble in Mexico," David Messinger said. "Becca is a pile of bones in some gulch in Texas hill country."

"Why did you do this?" I asked. I waved my hand to indicate the apartment building. "This isn't riches."

"It just dropped from heaven," the woman I still though of as Becca said. "David had been romancing Becca for months when he had to leave the country for a month or two. Things were getting too hot for us to stay together. David talked Anthony into going with him. Becca was a real straight arrow, but Anthony was a bad boy. You ever wonder why the apartment building was left to just Becca? Because Anthony was in jail. In fact, that's where Dave and Anthony met. While they were down in Me-hee-co, the guys went boating together, and when the boat came back in, why, there was only one man on it. And that man had all Anthony's papers." Becca smiled at me, her hard, bright smile that I'd grown nearly fond of. "I'd remade myself, as you can see. The best wig I could buy, and a lot of makeup. While I was hanging around with Becca in Dallas, being her best friend since I was gonna be her sister-in-law, she thought, her uncle died here in Shakespeare. She'd told me about him, about his apartment building and his little pile of cash. And she told me about the great-grandfather, too. I needed a place to be, a quiet place where no one would bother me. So after she'd quit her job and given up her apartment to move here, Becca and I took a little drive together."

Her smile was genuine and bright.

Sherry Crumpler and David Messinger were between me and the only door, and as I watched, David shut the door behind him. He was really big. She was really good at combat.

They were wary.

"What about the keys, did you take the keys?" How long would Claude's stomach be upset?

"I knew I'd have to give mine up to the sheriff, at least temporarily, and I couldn't be sure Deedra hadn't left some kind of message. So I stole the whole purse, and I took her extra key from the umbrella in the car stall. I came up here right when I got back from the woods, and took the TV Guide, TV Guide, because it was marked. But people started coming back from the weekend then, and I had to stay in my apartment. After that, I had a chance to come up here twice trying to find any trace she'd left about us, but I decided she hadn't left anything. Until I saw you carry out all the tapes. Then I realized she'd probably taped the show. I was watching AMW that night. You can imagine how I felt. But I was sure no one would recognize me. Then I saw Deedra on the stairs the next morning when she left for church. I was shocked when I could tell she knew who I was." because it was marked. But people started coming back from the weekend then, and I had to stay in my apartment. After that, I had a chance to come up here twice trying to find any trace she'd left about us, but I decided she hadn't left anything. Until I saw you carry out all the tapes. Then I realized she'd probably taped the show. I was watching AMW that night. You can imagine how I felt. But I was sure no one would recognize me. Then I saw Deedra on the stairs the next morning when she left for church. I was shocked when I could tell she knew who I was."

"It's incredible how much difference the makeup makes," I said, as they split up and began to approach me from both sides.

"You know, I hate the stuff," Sherry said frankly. "And I hate this d.a.m.n wig. At least I could take it off to sleep, but during the day I have to wear it every minute. That time you dropped in and I was in the shower-if I hadn't trained myself to put it on perfectly the second I could, I would've strolled out of the bathroom in my bare head. But I've got discipline, and I had my hair on and my makeup in place."

She'd gradually been easing into a fighting position, her side turned toward me, her knees bent, her fists held ready. Now she struck.

But I wasn't there.

I'd stepped to the side and kicked her right knee.

She made a gagging noise, but she recovered and regained her stance. David decided to slip up behind me and circle me with his arms from behind, and I threw my head back and caught him on the nose. He staggered back and Sherry attacked again. This time her strike hit me in the ribs, and through the pain I grabbed her fist and twisted.