years."

"Can you prove it?"

"Of course I can prove it. It wasstolen from my house before Constance was shot. Sheriff Crane theorized at thetime that it might have been the gun McGee used on her. He still thinks so.McGee could easily have taken it. He knew where it was, in my bedroom."

You didn't tell me all this this morning."

"I didn't think of it. It was only theory,anyway. You were interested in facts."

"I'm interested in both, Miss Jenks.What's the police theory now? That McGee killed Miss Haggerty and tried toframe his daughter?"

"I wouldn't put it past him. A manwho would do what he did to his wife—" Her voice sank out of hearing inher throat.

"And they want to use his daugher tonail McGee again?"

She didn't answer me. Lights went oninside, and there were sounds of movement culminating in Godwin's opening thedoor. He shook his keys at us, grinning fiercely.

"Come inside, Miss Jenks."

She stamped up the concrete steps. Godwinhad cleared the front room of everyone but Alex, who was sitting on a chairagainst the wall. I stood unobtrusively in the corner beside the silenttelevision set.

She faced him, almost as tall in heels ashe was, almost as wide in her coat, almost as stubborn in her pride. "Idon't approve of what you're doing, Dr. Godwin."

"What am I doing?" He sat on thearm of a chair and crossed his legs.

"You know what I'm referring to. Myniece. Keeping her cooped up here in defiance of the constitutedauthorities."

"There's no defiance involved. I tryto do my duty, the Sheriff tries to do his. Sometimes we come into conflict. Itdoesn't necessarily mean that Sheriff Crane is right and I'm wrong."

"It does to me."

"I'm not surprised. We've disagreedbefore, on a similar issue. You and your friend the Sheriff had your way onthat occasion, unfortunately for your niece."

"It did her no harm to testify. Truth istruth."

"And trauma is trauma. It did her incalculableharm, which she's still suffering under."

"I'd like to see that for myself."

"So you can make a full report to theSheriff?"

"Good citizens cooperate with thelaw," she said sententiously. "But I'm not here on the Sheriff'sbehalf. I came here to help my niece."

"How do you propose to help her?"

"I'm going to take her home with me."

Godwin stood up shaking his head.

"You can't stop me. I've been her guardian sinceher mother died. The law wifi back me up."

"I think not," Godwin said coldly."Dolly's of age, and she's here of her own free will."

"I'd like to ask her that question formyself."

"You're not going to ask her any questions."

The woman took a step toward him andthrust her head forward on her neck. "You think you're a little tin god,don't you, masterminding my family's affairs? I say you've got no right to keepher here under duress, making us all look bad. I've got a position to keep upin this county. I spent the day with some very high-level people fromSacramento."

"I'm afraid I don't follow yourlogic. But keep your voice down, please." Godwin himself was using theslow weary monotone that I had first heard on the telephone twenty-four hoursbefore. "And let me assure you again, your niece is here of her own freewill."

"That's right." Alex cameforward into the verbal line of fire. "I don't believe we've met. I'm AlexKincaid, Dolly's husband."

She disregarded his hand.

"I think it's important for her tostay here," he said. "I have confidence in the doctor, and so has mywife."

"I'm sorry for you then. He had mebamboozled, too, until I found out what went on in his office."

Alex looked inquiringly at Godwin. Thedoctor turned his hands out as if he was feeling for rain. He said to MissJenks:

"You graduated in sociology, I believe."

"What if I did?"

"From a woman of your training andbackground, I'd expect a more professional attitude toward the practice ofpsychiatry."

"I'm not talking about the practiceof psychiatry. I'm talking about the practice of other things."

"What other things?"

"I wouldn't soil my tongue with them.But please don't think I didn't know my sister and what went on in her life. I'vebeen remembering things—the way she used to primp and preen Saturday morningsbefore she came in to town. And then she wanted to move here, to becloser."

© Alexander Sviyash, 2009