still trying to preserve a friendly surface, though we were both conscious ofthe disagreement simmering under it. "Dolly wasn't doing well in school.She wasn't happy or popular. Which was natural enough with her parents—I mean,her father, making a shambles of their home together."

"This isn't the backwoods," shesaid as if she suspected maybe it was, "and I thought the least I could dowas see that she got a little help. Even the people on welfare get familycounseling when they need it. So I persuaded my sister to take her into PacificPoint to see Dr. Godwin. He was the best we had at that time. Constance droveher in every Saturday morning for about a year. The child showed considerableimprovement, I'll say that much for Godwin. So did Constance. She seemedbrighter and happier and surer of herself."

"Was she getting treatment,too?"

"I guess she had a little, and ofcourse it did her good to get into town every Saturday. She wanted to move intotown but there was no money for it. She left McGee and moved in with me instead.That took some of the strain off her. He couldn't stand to see that. Hecouldn't stand to see her getting her dignity back. He killed her like a dog inthe manger."

After ten years her mind was still buzzinglike a fly around the bloody moment.

"Why didn't you continue Dolly'stherapy? She probably needed it more than ever afterward."

"It wasn't possible. I work Saturdaymornings. I have to get my paperwork done some lime." She fell silent,confused and tongue-tied as honest people can be by their own deviousness.

"Also you had a disagreement withGodwin about your niece's testimony at the trial."

"I'm not ashamed of it, no matterwhat he says. It did her no harm to speak out about her father. It probably didher good. She had to get it out of her system somehow."

"It isn't out of her system, though.She's still hung up on it." Just as you are, Miss Jenks. "But nowshe's changed her story."

"Changed her story?"

"She says now that she didn't see herfather the night of the murder. She denies that he had anything to do withit."

"Who told you that?"

"Godwin. He'd just been talking toher. She told him she lied in court to please the adults." I was temptedto say more, but remembered in time that it would almost certainly be relayedto her friend the Sheriff.

She was looking at me as if I hadquestioned a basic faith of her life. "He's twisting what she said, I'msure. He's using her to prove that he was right when he was wrong."

"I doubt that, Miss Jenks. Godwindoesn't believe her new story himself."

"You see! She's either crazy or she'slying! Don't forget she's got McGee blood in her!" She was appalled by herown outburst. She turned her eyes away, glancing around the pink room as thoughit might somehow vouch for the girlish innocence of her intentions. "I didn'treally mean that," she said. "I love my niece. It's just—it's harderthan I thought to rake over the past like this."

"I'm sorry, and I'm sure you loveyour niece. Feeling about her the way you do, and did, you couldn't have fedher a false story to tell in court."

"Who says I did?"

"No one. I'm saying you couldn'thave. You're not the sort of woman who could bring herself to corrupt the mindof a twelve-year-old child."

"No," she said. "I hadnothing to do with Dolly's accusation against her father. She came to me withit, the night it happened, within half-an-hour of the time it happened. I neverquestioned it for a minute. It had all the accents of truth."

But she had not. I didn't think she waslying, exactly. More likely she was suppressing something. She spoke carefullyand in a low voice, so that the motto in the living room wouldn't hear her. Shestill wasn't meeting my eyes. A slow dull flush rose from her heavy neck to herface. I said:

"I doubt that it was physicallypossible for her to identify anyone, even her own father, at this distance on adark night—let alone pick out a smoking gun in his hand."

"But the police accepted it. Sheriff Crane andthe D.A. both believed her."

"Policemen and prosecutors are usually glad toaccept the facts, or the pseudo-facts, that fit their case."

"But Tom McGee was guilty. He was guilty."

"He may have been."

"Then why are you trying to convinceme that he wasn't?" The flush of shame in her face was going through theusual conversion into a flush of anger. "I won't listen."

"You might as well listen. What canyou lose? I'm trying to open up that old case because it's connected, throughDolly, with the Haggerty case."

"Do you believe she killed Miss Haggerty?"she said.

"No. Do you?"

"Sheriff Crane seems to regard her as the mainsuspect."

"Did he say so to you, Miss Jenks?"

"He as much as said so. He was feeling me out onwhat my reaction would be if he took her in for questioning."

"And what was your reaction?"

"I hardly know, I was so upset. Ihaven't seen Dolly for some time. She went and married behind my back. She wasalways a good girl, but she may have changed."

© Alexander Sviyash, 2009