A loud sound tore the night.

I lurched and fell against the car door. Straightening, I stared in disbelief at the small hole in my windshield and the cobwebby cracks that radiated from it.

I barely had time to register “shot” when Curt, gloves off and on his knees looking for my keys, grabbed the back of my coat and pulled me abruptly down.

A second shot fragmented the side window above our heads. Little pieces of glass rained down on us, stinging our faces and getting caught in our hair.

“Around the other side of the car,” Curt ordered. “Hurry! We’re too exposed here! And keep down.”

“This isn’t some accident, you know,” I said. “It’s got something to do with Patrick Marten.”

“Who’s Patrick Marten?” Curt asked.

“He’s the dead man I found in my trunk last night.”

GAYLE ROPER

has always loved stories, and as a result she’s authored 40 books. Gayle has won the Romance Writers of America’s RITA® Award for Best Inspirational Romance, finaled repeatedly in both the RITA Award and the Christy® Award contests, won three Holt Medallions, the Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Inspirational Readers Choice Contest and a Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as the Award of Excellence. Several writers’ conferences have cited her for her contributions to the training of writers. Her articles have appeared in numerous periodicals including Discipleship Journal and Moody Magazine, and she has contributed chapters and short stories to several anthologies. She enjoys speaking at writers’ conferences and women’s events, reading and eating out. She adores her kids and grandkids, and loves her own personal patron of the arts, her husband, Chuck.

Caught in the Middle
Gayle Roper

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you.

—Psalms 32:8

For Georgia with great affection

I love your love for the Lord

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

ONE

“It was a dark and sleety night,” I muttered as I slid behind the wheel and slammed the car door, grateful to have reached protection without drowning. I tossed my briefcase onto the seat and shook the water out of my short, spiky hair.

“Merrileigh Kramer, what have you done?” my mother had asked in horror when I’d had my waist-length hair drastically cut at summer’s end on the new-look, new-person theory.

I looked in the mirror and wondered the same thing myself. I hadn’t cut my hair, except for its annual split-ends trimming, since ninth grade. For a woman who hated change, I did a very drastic thing when I entered that beauty parlor. And it had only been step one.

Now I sighed and reminded myself that it’d grow eventually. The only trouble was that I didn’t know what to do with it while it grew. Somehow women routinely got from Halle Berry short to Halle Berry long and looked good in the process. I feared there wasn’t enough mousse in the world for me to accomplish that feat.

I eased my way across the parking lot, uncertain how slippery the millions of needles of icy rain had made things. The others who had been attending the Wednesday evening Board of Education meeting with me moved just as slowly. What had begun as a cold, nasty rain had turned to sleet when we weren’t looking.

When it was my turn to pull out onto the road, I stepped slowly on the gas. The wheels spun for an instant on the thin layer of ice, then grabbed hold.

I hated ice. Every time I drove on it, I thought of my mother and the winter’s day in Pittsburgh years ago when she had been driving me and four friends home from Brownies. I remembered the terrifying spin across the other lane and the oncoming cars scrambling to avoid us. I remembered the thud of our car as it hit a utility pole. I still felt my heaving stomach and tasted the fear. Mostly I remembered the screams and my mother’s white face and the blood from the bashed noses. The fact that no one had been badly hurt then did not ease my fluttery heart tonight.

I drove carefully, watching for trouble. At Manor Avenue and Lyme Street I detoured slowly around a pair of cars half blocking the intersection as they sat with their left headlights locked together. Their drivers stood in the rain doing a good imitation of their cars, noses mere inches apart.

I couldn’t help grinning at them, but I gripped the wheel more tightly. My heart throbbed in my temple.

With relief I turned onto Main Street where traffic was moving more quickly, keeping the road from freezing. When I passed The News office, the lights were still on, and I felt a surge of belonging. I beeped my horn in greeting to whomever was working so late. Don, my fearsome editor? Mac, his lecherous but charming assistant? Larry, the sports guy?

Tomorrow Don would bestow upon me the honor of writing a story about the first ice storm of the season. I knew it. Such stories were favorite ploys of editors, and as new kid on the block, I was certain to get the assignment.

I’d had worse. At least there’d be plenty of material in the police report about all the fender benders. Between the ice storm and the Board of Education meeting, I’d be plenty busy before morning deadline. Then I had scheduled the interview with the local artist. Variety to be sure.

I turned onto Oak Lane and felt the wheels slew.

Hang on, I told myself. You’re almost home.

I took my foot off the gas, gritted my teeth and proceeded slowly between the rows of cars parked against each curb.

Suddenly a car on my right roared to life like a lion scenting its prey. Without looking, it sprang from its parking spot, barely leaving the paint on my fender. I instinctively did exactly what I’d always lectured myself about not doing. I hit the brakes hard on ice.

Of course I went into an immediate skid. My headlights raked across the offending car as it pulled away, briefly revealing a man, hat pulled down over his eyes, collar up against the weather, staring intently ahead, completely unaware of me or anything else.

My stomach became mush and my heart thumped wildly in my ears as I skidded helplessly toward a new blue car parked on the left. I whipped my wheel into the skid just like everyone said you should, but still the shiny blue door panels with their navy-and-red racing stripes rushed at me. My headlights blazed on the chrome; the black windows loomed darkly.

But my real terror was for the man who had suddenly materialized at the front bumper of the blue car, standing like a pedestrian waiting for a clear path to jaywalk. I had no idea where he’d come from.

“Please, God, don’t let me hit him!” I was a Brownie again, panic-stricken.

His features were indistinct through my rain-washed window, but I could see the O of his mouth as he saw me rushing toward him. He turned to run.

I closed my eyes involuntarily against the crash, shoulders hunched, face screwed up in apprehension. I was probably screaming, but thankfully I don’t remember. Screaming has always struck me as a sign of weakness, and I like to imagine that I react with style even when I’m afraid. And I was afraid.

After a very long, slow-motion moment, my car shuddered to a silent halt. I cautiously opened my eyes and found myself mere inches from the blue car’s front fender, the two cars neatly side-by-side and too close together for my door to open. I could not have parked so well had I tried.

I slid across the seat and flung open the far door. I didn’t think I’d hit the man—I had neither heard nor felt a thump—but I had to make sure he wasn’t crushed beneath my wheels. I pressed a hand against my anxiety-cramped abdomen and climbed into the downpour.

The man wasn’t lying broken on the road. In fact, he wasn’t anywhere, lying or standing, broken or whole. He had completely disappeared.

I leaned against my car, weak with relief, and took deep breaths. I barely felt the icy sleet running down my neck. Finally I was able to move enough to get myself back into the car and, with a strange, shaky feeling, I drove the few remaining blocks home. I couldn’t wait to get there, take a hot shower and relax with Whiskers purring on my lap as I drank a Diet Coke and ate a handful of Oreos. By then my heart would probably be beating normally again.

My snug, cozy, carriage-house apartment had once been part of the estate of Amhearst’s leading citizen, Charlie Mullens, a man who’d made millions in the stock market in the twenties and had built a great mansion to forget his New York tenement beginnings. He had lost his fortune in the Great Crash of ’29 and his life shortly afterward when he drove the new Rolls-Royce he could no longer pay for into the railroad overpass. His heirs, reduced to working for a living, soon sold the gracious, money-eating mansion and moved from Amhearst.

Over the next forty years, the property passed from hand to hand, deteriorating steadily until it was razed in the early seventies. At that time the carriage house, which had sat peacefully behind the mansion unnoticed and unused, was renovated into four one-bedroom apartments, two on the ground floor, two above. A long, narrow drive off Oak Lane gave access to the quaint building, and I turned down the drive, grateful to be home.

It was still somewhat strange to me that this washome. Here I was, all alone in Amhearst, working as a reporter at The News, responsible to no one but God and Don Eldredge, the newspaper’s owner-editor.

I don’t have to do anything, I had understood one evening during my first week in Amhearst. I’m completely on my own. If I want to eat and pay the rent, I’d better go to work, but I don’t have to. And there’s no one here who cares enough to make me.

It had been a strange, lonely and frightening realization. There were no family, no friends, no acquaintances here. It was just me, making my own choices. The next day I went to the animal shelter and got Whiskers, a huge gray-and-white mottled cat with marvelous white whiskers. Now at least I was responsible to one living being. Now I had to fulfill at least one obligation every day, or my shins would be black-and-blue from Whiskers butting them, his special way of asking for his dinner.

Leaving Pittsburgh and home had been hard for me. I like to think of myself as independent, but the truth is that I like to be “independent” surrounded by familiar things.

I’d gone back home after college, moving in with my parents, content to be where everything was known and comfortable. I hadn’t had to find a new doctor or a new dentist or a new church. I’d become a general reporter at the paper where I had worked for three of my college summers, and I’d done very well, even winning a couple of minor journalism awards.

And, of course, Jack was in Pittsburgh: handsome, personable, accomplished, irresponsible Jack.

I had expected to live at home one, maybe two, years at the very longest. After all, I was an independent spirit. I was amazed and appalled when I woke up one day and realized that I had been there four years, waiting for life to happen. Waiting for Jack.

“Just a little more time, Merry,” he’d say. “That’s all I’m asking. Just a little more time.”

Eventually, to save myself from drowning in despair, I came to Amhearst, and my first weeks here were terrible. I hated all the new people, the new streets, the new stores. I got a toothache, probably from grinding my teeth all night in fear, and I had to find a dentist. I hated him, too.

But I made it. I learned to like my job, and I slowly remembered that being alone isn’t the worst thing in the world. I might not be laughing much yet, but I was slowly regaining some self-respect.

“Forgetting what is behind,” Dad said one night on the phone, quoting St. Paul. “Straining toward what is ahead. Pressing on toward a new life. We’re proud of you, Merry.”

Jack spoke to me on the phone a few times, too, and even came to visit me once. I agonized over that visit, filled with equal measures of hope and dread. The reality was dull compared to my nightmares and daydreams.

“Come back when you’re ready to get married,” he told me when he left.

“I’ll come back when I have a ring on my finger and a date on the calendar, not before,” I replied. Then I went into my apartment and cried myself sick.

And so summer became fall, and fall a nasty, sleety, early December night with icy roads, and I was finally home.

I parked, climbed out into the cold and wet, and hurried to my trunk, where I’d stashed a case of Diet Coke. The dim light by the walk barely illuminated the area.

I looked uncomfortably over my shoulder. It was dark and spooky back here even on a nice night, but in the rain and sleet, it was worse than usual. The large lilac at the edge of the house was especially eerie tonight, with its branches creaking and complaining about their icy bath.

I eyed the dripping tree, trying to penetrate it to be certain it wasn’t hiding someone. Come May, those blossoms had better be beautiful and fragrant to make up for my heart palpitations the rest of the year.

Although, I told myself with false bravado, no bad guy in his right mind would be lurking behind a lilac tree on a night like this.

Even so, the last thing I expected to find when I raised the lid of my trunk was a dead body.

TWO

Instinctively I slammed the lid down. I stood, shocked, until a sudden, stout gust of wind made the lilac creak alarmingly. I jumped and swung around, but of course no one was there. We were alone, the corpse in my trunk and I.

It can’t be true, I thought. It simply can’t be. Things like this don’t happen to real people, just people in mystery novels. My mind is playing tricks on me because I’m tired and had such a nerve-racking trip home.

I looked at the dark outline of my trunk lid. The slight illumination from the light by the walk glinted on my keys still dangling in the lock.

I raised the lid just far enough for the light to come on, then bent cautiously and peeked in.

There was a body, all right. A man. He had on a green, down-filled jacket, and he was lying on his stomach, his face turned away.

I slammed the lid again and made it to the porch just in time to sit before I fell. I put my head between my knees and stared blankly at the wet cement.

There was a body in my car!

When I could move again, I stumbled into my apartment and called the police.

“Please come quickly!” I hardly recognized my shaky voice. “Please.”

I got out of my wet clothes and into my heaviest sweats. I toweled my hair and went to wait numbly at the front door, my breath frosting the glass of the storm sash.

When the first flashing light turned down the alley, I ran to the parking area. Soon I was standing under my gray umbrella surrounded by men in dripping, bright-orange slickers with POLICE written in black on their backs.

“First question,” said one. “Did you touch anything?”

I shook my head, horrified at the thought.

“Okay, then,” he said. “What happened?”

“I was going to get a case of sodas out of my trunk. I opened it and there was this body.”

He looked at me, eyebrows raised, waiting for more. “That’s it?”

I looked back, aghast. “A body isn’t enough?”

He smiled. “Open the trunk for us, please.”

Obediently, I did. “See?” I pointed helpfully at the corpse sprawled on top of a cardboard box filled with two dozen cans of decaf Diet Coke.

I swallowed convulsively and looked away. My stomach was teeming with acid, and my mouth tasted like metal. The flashing lights and the crackling car radios did nothing to ease my tension.

The policeman, a beefy man with a heavily seamed face, studied the body.

“Who is he?”

I stared at the policeman, thunderstruck. “How should I know?”

“It is your car,” said the policeman reasonably.

“Well, it isn’t my body!”

“Oh.” The policeman’s voice was neither believing nor disbelieving. “Then you’ve looked at him well enough to know you don’t recognize him?”

I swallowed hard a couple of times against the thought of studying the man. “Are you kidding? I haven’t gone near him. See me? I’m standing with my back to the car so I don’t have to look at him.”

“Then how do you know you don’t know him?”

“I just know.”

“Uh-huh. Well, why don’t you tell me exactly what happened here tonight.”

I had never felt so unreal in my life. My car was now bathed in bright light supplied by portable generators rumbling in a van with RESCUE in red-and-gold letters on its white side. Two policemen were trying to arrange a plastic tarp to shield the whole area from the weather. One tied some ropes to the creaky lilac, and the other hammered some pegs into the macadam of the parking area and looped ropes around them.

The vanity license plate my brother, Sam, had given me for my birthday mocked the intense scene. MERRY, it read.

“So you’ll remember who you are, and so you’ll remember to be happy,” he said when he gave it to me. What he wasn’t saying was that he wanted me to forget Jack, but I knew. I had looked at the plate, knowing the love and concern that went into his ordering it, knowing he couldn’t have foretold that my romantic trials would force me to decide to move just when he planned to give it to me. But the truth was that MERRY was a heart-piercing reminder of the un-Merry person I had become.

Now my car, my trunk, my parking lot, even MERRY had become police business.

I sighed as I watched another heavy peg pounded into the macadam. Hopefully my landlord would understand that it was the police who had made the holes in his parking area, not me. Somehow, knowing Mr. Jacobs, I doubted it.

“Miss Kramer, please tell me what happened here tonight,” the policeman repeated.

I forced my eyes from the activity and looked at him. “Nothing much happened here,” I said. “I opened my trunk, and there he was. I closed my trunk, hoping he’d go away. I opened my trunk and he was still there. I called you.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

A car squealed into the alley behind the official cars. A man climbed out and walked authoritatively toward the open trunk. He leaned under the protective plastic and around the men taking photographs, studied the situation, then walked to the policeman and me.

As he watched the approaching man, the policeman snorted, little puffs of foggy breath erupting from each nostril. “The press already! That’s all we need.”

“Don!” I said as I flung myself at the man. He ducked to miss the points of my umbrella and patted me comfortingly on the back.

“It’ll be okay,” he said as though to a crying child. “It’ll be okay.”

Suddenly I realized that I had thrown myself at my boss, a man with whom I had only the most superficial of working relationships, a man I had on a pedestal. Ever since I’d gone into journalism and realized what editors did in putting together a newspaper every day, I had been in awe of them. And here I was, hanging all over my editor like a Southern belle with the vapors. I pulled back in embarrassment but was glad when he kept a comforting hand on my shoulder.

“Don, there’s a body in my trunk,” I said.

“I noticed. Who is he?”

I glared at him. “Why does everyone think I know him?”

“It is your car.”

“That doesn’t mean I know him! I suppose you think I put him there, too?”

“Did you?” asked the policeman.

I blinked, my anger gone as quickly as it had come.

“You don’t really think I did, do you?” I could feel the handcuffs already.

The policeman shrugged. “Someone put him there.”

“Well, it wasn’t me.” I hoped I sounded confident. “If he were really my body, I’d put him in someone else’s car.” I looked from the policeman to Don. “That only makes sense, right?”

The policeman shrugged.

Don smiled.

I shivered. “I think I’ll go inside.”

I sat forlornly in my living room for a few minutes seeing the bright light from the generators through the tall windows. That was a nice thing about old buildings—tall windows.

Restless, I got up, went to my minuscule kitchen and put some water on to boil. People would be in soon, and hot drinks would be welcomed. Personally, I still wanted my Coke and Oreos, but there was no way I had the nerve to get a can from the trunk, even if they let me.

Ten minutes later, the policeman, whose name was Sergeant William Poole, sat carefully in my blue wing chair, his hair hanging damply on his forehead and his shirt gaping a bit about the belly. A mug full of coffee sat on the end table beside him, and he had a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other. “All right, Miss Kramer, tell me all about it. In fact, why don’t you tell me about your whole day.”

I nodded. “Okay.” I cleared my throat nervously. “This morning I drove my car to Taggart’s garage for its annual state inspection. Jolene Meister, the secretary from work, picked me up at the garage at six forty-five.”

“Where do you work?”

“At The News.”

“Then he’s your boss?” Sergeant Poole nodded at Don Eldredge, who was sitting comfortably on the sofa.

“Yes, he’s my boss.”

“You been at The News long?”

“About three months. I started just after Labor Day.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a general reporter and feature writer.” Which sounded more glamorous than the gofer I often felt like.

“Have you lived in Amhearst long?”

“Since Labor Day weekend.”

“Where do you come from?”

“The Pittsburgh area.”

Sergeant Poole nodded. “Did you leave a family in Pittsburgh?”

“My parents and Sam, my younger brother, who’s at Penn State.” And Jack, I thought. And Jack.

“So you took your car to be inspected this morning. Why’d you go to Taggart’s?”

“The people at work recommended that garage. No huge bill for unnecessary work, you know?” I noticed I was picking nervously at my cuticles and forced myself to stop. “Lots of garages like to bleed single women, but they told me Mr. Taggart wouldn’t do that.”

Sergeant Poole nodded like he knew Mr. Taggart and agreed. “When’d you get your car back, Miss Kramer?”

“Jolene dropped me off on her way home. I hadn’t expected to be able to leave by five because of a late-afternoon meeting I was to cover and write up, but the meeting was canceled.”

I gulped some tea, then continued. “Mr. Taggart wasn’t around when Jolene dropped me off, but my car was waiting, the new inspection stickers on the window and the bill on the seat, just like we’d arranged when we thought I’d be late.” I shrugged. “I just climbed in and drove off. After dinner at Ferretti’s, I covered the Board of Education meeting at the high school. Then I came home.”

“Did you have dinner with anyone?”

I shook my head. “I ate alone.”

“You didn’t stop for those sodas sometime between picking up your car and coming home?”

“No, I bought them yesterday. I just hadn’t taken them out of the trunk.”

Sergeant Poole nodded. “Did anything else significant happen today?”

I realized that, in place of my cuticles, I was playing with the string from my sweatshirt hood. I tucked it inside so I couldn’t fiddle with it anymore and said, “I almost had an accident on my way home when some guy pulled out in front of me over on Oak Lane. But I didn’t.” I paused, thought, then shrugged my shoulders. “That’s it.”

Sergeant Poole chewed the tip of his pen for a minute, wrote something down, then asked, “Does the name Patrick Marten mean anything to you?”

“Patrick Marten?” I thought for a few minutes, then shook my head. “I don’t know anyone by that name. Why? Is he the man in the trunk?”

Sergeant Poole nodded.

Patrick Marten. I sighed. Was there a Mrs. Patrick Marten somewhere waiting for him to come home? Were there kids? Certainly there was a mother and a father. A girlfriend? Obviously there was an enemy.

By the time Sergeant Poole capped his pen and hefted himself to his feet, I was feeling more normal. I almost smiled as the gaps in his shirt slid shut. After all, I was used to talking with people in living rooms. It was just corpses in the rain that bothered me.

And I had finally realized that I was in the middle of the biggest story of my fledgling journalism career.

“I’m sure we’ll be talking again, Miss Kramer.” Sergeant Poole pulled on his still-dripping slicker. “Maybe tomorrow when you stop in to sign your statement.”

“Whenever you want, Sergeant Poole.”

He stopped and turned at the door. “By the way, we’re going to have to impound your car for at least a few days.”

I stared in consternation. “My car?” How could I investigate a murder without a car?

Don spoke for the first time. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning, Merry, and take you to one of the local car dealers who leases as well as sells. We’ll charge it to The News.”

I nodded as I almost pushed Sergeant Poole out the door. What other unforeseen complications hunkered down just out of sight, eager to pounce?

But who cared about complications? I had a story!

“Don,” I began.

“Yes?” His voice was full of suppressed emotion. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought he was laughing at me.

I glared at him. “You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

“Of course I do,” he said. “I sat on your sofa and watched you go from scared victim to professional reporter. You want to cover this story.”

“You bet I do! It’s the story of a lifetime, and I’m the perfect one for it! Who better?’

“Do you think you can handle it?”

“Can I handle it? Of course I can!” I was too excited to be mad at the suggestion that I couldn’t.

Don grinned at me as he patted his carefully barbered graying hair. Everything about him was neat and precise, even the tidily folded scarf resting on the chair back. He shook it out and draped it about his neck, making sure the ends were even.

“To be honest, as soon as I heard the call on the police scanner at the office, I knew we had a winner. If you have any trouble as the story develops—” He held up his hand at my indignant look. “If you have any trouble, Mac can help you.”

Don took his mug to the kitchen, and I heard him rinse it out. I stood in the middle of the living room and grinned like an idiot. I had a story!

I made myself act professionally as I walked Don to the door. I even made a pretty speech. “Thanks for being here when I talked to Sergeant Poole, Don. Something about a policeman always makes me feel guilty even when I’m innocent, which is all the time—except for the time I got a speeding ticket for going forty-five in a twenty-five mile zone.”

Don laughed. “You’ve got nothing to worry about, Merry. I’ll vouch for your character if they ever begin to suspect you.”

“And my whereabouts,” I said, suddenly remembering Don eating spaghetti at Ferretti’s, talking intently with some unknown man. I hadn’t approached him because the two of them looked so involved. In fact, I deliberately sat with my back to him. “That is, if you saw me like I saw you.”

Don hesitated, then shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”

I shrugged. “Oh, well, I doubt it matters. Thanks again for being here.”

I watched him drive up the alley, then locked my door carefully. I washed my mug and Sergeant Poole’s and decided there was no way I was going to take the trash out. I didn’t care that the police were still in the parking area. I was in for the night!

I checked and rechecked the doors and the windows, the tall, breakable windows that suddenly seemed less wonderful than usual. It was when I tested them for the fourth time that I noticed the moon peeking through the running clouds. The storm was over.

I got into bed with Whiskers and plumped the pillows carefully against the headboard. When I leaned back with my lined pad on my lap, Whiskers promptly climbed onto the pad.

“Not now, baby,” I said, lifting the heavy creature and setting him down beside me. “I’ve got to write everything down before I forget it. Who knows?” I grinned at him. “Maybe I’ll even write a true-crime book about this someday.”

Whiskers yawned hugely, and I tickled him beneath the chin. I had selected him at the pound because he kept coming to me to be petted, purring whenever my hand even reached toward him. Now he lay close against me, a comforting presence after an unbelievable night.

I turned to my pad, feeling ghoulish as all my journalistic juices flowed and excitement coursed through me—now that I didn’t have to look at the body again. Admittedly, what had happened was a great tragedy, especially for Patrick Marten. But a great story is a great story and deserves to be written about, I told myself hard-heartedly. In all great stories people suffer. If I could just get the information together, find the motive, the means, and the murderer, certainly I would reduce the suffering for Patrick Marten’s family and friends. If Don was hugely impressed with my work, that was just a small extra.

Satisfied that I had manipulated my motives well, I wrote:

1 Took car to Mr. Taggart’s. Spoke with him for a few minutes about its tendency to overheat.

2 Jolene picked me up. She never got out of her car. We were five minutes late for work.

3 Spent the morning opening mail and running dumb errands for Don and Mac. Felt trapped without my car.

4 Went to the mall in Exton with Mac to look for a camera over lunch. He made a pass. I rejected it. He asked me out. I said no. We laughed. I don’t think he’s mad even though he’s famous for his grouchiness. Certainly he’s not mad enough to put a body in my trunk. I bought the automatic-focus digital camera he recommended, which pleased him. I’m now broke.

5 Mac dropped me at Premier Medical, the new private emergency service, for an interview. Spent an hour with Drs. Mitchell and Wenger. Learned lots of new terms and used my new camera. The pix look good.

6 Called a taxi. Went back to the paper. Did telephone interviews with the head nurse at the hospital’s trauma center and with three doctors in private practice. I really ought to find a doctor. What if I get sick?

7 Wrote up the story. Gave it to Don. He didn’t moan too much.

8 Walked to Mayor Trudy McGilpin’s office to observe a meeting between her, the water authority people and the recreational people. The meeting was canceled because Trudy’s sick. I walked back to The News. Is Trudy as good as a lawyer as she appears to be as a mayor? How old is she? Forty?

9 Since I had no meeting to write up, I left much earlier than I’d planned. Jolene, the chatter queen, dropped me at Taggart’s at about 5:20.

10 Got my car. I saw no one at all at the garage. I just took the car and left.

11 Stopped at Ferretti’s Ristorante for some spaghetti. Delicious. Saw Don but he didn’t see me. Did the Philadelphia Inquirer crossword puzzle while I ate. I couldn’t decide whether I’m still lonely or not—which I guess is a good sign.

12 Went to the Board of Education meeting at the high school and arrived on time! High drama when the man in charge of the athletic committee started yelling at the woman in charge of the curriculum committee because she wanted too many books and accelerated classes. She will ruin the school and the budget that way, he said.

13 Left the high school about 10:25.

14 A wild ride home. Almost hit a man on Oak when some guy pulled out in front of me. What if I’d had an accident with that body in the trunk?

15 Got to my apartment about 10:45.

16 Found Patrick Marten at 10:47.

17 Got the shakes at 10:49.

18 Cops arrived at 11:05.

19 Questions:

 Was the body in the trunk when I got the car at the garage? It must have been.

 Who put it there? Mr. Taggart? A nice old man like him?

 Why did someone put it in my car? Because he/she doesn’t like me? No one around Amhearst knows me well enough yet to dislike me. And no one’s ever disliked me like that my whole life.

 Or maybe he/she doesn’t like The News? But who would know that my car was the car of a News reporter? There’s nothing written on the doors or anything.

 Maybe it just happened because the car was handy? That means it was someone at Taggart’s, doesn’t it? Or was it someone driving by who happened to need a place to get rid of a body? It was dark even before I got there. Winter solstice approaching and all that. He could have just dumped Patrick and run. But how did he get the trunk open? My extra set of keys was locked in the car. Did the murderer lock the keys in the car after he left Patrick, and I just assumed Mr. Taggart put them there?

A huge yawn interrupted my note taking. I didn’t bother to smother it even when Whiskers looked at me askance.

I glanced at my clock—1:45 a.m. I groaned. Morning would be here all too soon. I turned out my light and lay down. Whiskers came to sleep in the depression between my shoulder and the pillow.

I closed my eyes and saw a man in a green jacket lying on cases of soda. Instantly I was wide-awake, afraid to close my eyes again. I stared unhappily at the ceiling and jumped every time Whiskers moved.

“Stay still, baby,” I said, scratching his ears. He purred happily and began grooming himself. The bed shook with each slurp.

I put my hand between his tongue and body. “Not now, Whiskers.”

He purred again and began licking my hand. I pulled away from the rasping wetness, and the cat continued on his paw without missing a beat.

I sighed. The sensible thing would be to kick the animal out of bed, but much to my surprise I felt a strong need for his warm presence.

I reached out and turned on my light. In the brightness, my shoulders relaxed, and the world righted itself.

I looked around carefully, finding exactly what I knew was there: nothing. I lay back and flicked off the light again. I turned it back on immediately.

“Don’t tell anyone,” I told Whiskers as he blinked at the brightness, “but we’re sleeping with the light on.”

THREE

Last night’s storm had indeed blown itself out to sea, leaving behind a thin coating of ice that caused a one-hour delay in school openings and a massive slowdown for morning commuters.

True to his word, Don picked me up and took me to arrange for a rental car. He solidified his place in my heart when he said, “Charge it to The News.”

“I need your piece on the murder by nine,” Don said as we left the car dealer. “Make it personal, real human interest. Mac will write a parallel news piece. You’ll both be front page.”

I nodded. The News was a twelve-to sixteen-page afternoon paper, which meant we scheduled news deadlines at nine, editing deadlines at ten, and it was printed and ready for delivery by noon. Don took personally any news that broke between ten and three because it couldn’t make the paper, yet readers expected to see it there.

“The Board of Education stuff?” I asked.

“Anything scandalous?”

“Just fighting over where to spend the money.”

He nodded. “So what else is new? Write it up for tomorrow. And don’t miss that interview with that artist.”

I groaned inwardly. A personality puff piece was the last thing I wanted to do now.

“Hey, his upcoming exhibit is going to be a big civic occasion.” Don apparently detected my mood. “Mayor McGilpin would be very unhappy if we overlooked it. Got to show Amhearst in a good light, you know.”

I nodded, grinning. “Especially after a murder.”

Don grunted. “And give me another human-interest piece for Friday about the murder. Interview the family. Find a wife or parents or brothers or sisters. Find out what a wonderful guy he was or what a louse he was. Is he local? If so, find teachers and old friends. If not, find out how he came to be here in Amhearst.”

I nodded again. Three angles or points of view, an old reporter had told me when I first started working back in Pittsburgh. For any human-interest story or information piece, find three perspectives on the story to give it enough depth. Parents, teachers, friends? Wife, employer, brother? His past, present and lack of future?

Of course, those interviews would have an emotional cost, both for those who had cared about Patrick Marten and for me, but I put that thought out of my mind as soon as it appeared.

I drove my rental to the office, thankful for a heater that worked quickly, because the sun, though shining brightly, had little warmth. I scanned the clear blue sky when the radio weatherman announced that another storm was due tomorrow. Chicago was already snowed under, he reported in the cheery voice of a committed skier, and the formidable flow of frigid Canadian air showed no signs of weakening before it reached the East Coast. I could practically hear him rubbing his hands together in anticipation of driving to the Poconos over treacherous roads for the thrill of throwing himself down mountains on strips of wood or whatever composites skis were made of these days.

I should live in Florida or Arizona so I need never be cold again. Even if I stayed in Pennsylvania, I had promised myself I would be intelligent about it and never, ever, ski.

Finally I settled down at my desk. Murder, I typed, is a distant crime that involves other people. Last night, to my utter surprise and distress, it involved me.

I looked at my CRT and reread my opening. Don was a stickler for a hard lead on news pieces, the traditional, journalistic inverted pyramid of who, what, where, when and why. But he seemed at ease with soft leads on special pieces like mine was to be. One thing was certain: he’d tell me if he was unhappy.

I had my copy on his desk before nine, and then I gave my mom a quick call. It was only a matter of time before she and Dad heard about last night, and I thought they should hear the story from me.

“Merry! Oh, Merry!” Mom was predictably distressed.

“I’m fine, Mom. I’m absolutely fine. And safe. Believe me.”

There was a small silence, and I could hear her skepticism zip clearly across the miles from Pittsburgh to Amhearst.

“Well, I’ve got to go,” I said quickly. “I’ve got an important interview.” And I hung up.

Sighing, I forced myself to begin planning my interview with artist Curtis Carlyle. I could hardly resist smiling every time I said his name. It was too perfect to belong to anyone other than an artist or a movie star or some other arty, public person. Had his mother been prescient, or did she just like alliteration? Was he named after a rich uncle, or had he made up the name to create a persona?

As I jotted my notes, I thought how incredible it was that I should do something as bizarre as find a body one night and something as routine as interview some local artist the next morning. Variety like this was one of the reasons I loved newspaper work.

Curtis Carlyle. Artist. Watercolors. One-man art show scheduled for Friday night and Saturday in the Brennan Room at City Hall in Amhearst. Chester County scenes his specialties, notably winter scenes with old stone barns and houses, wonderful skies. Former gym teacher. Still coached high school soccer and tennis.

Usually interviews intrigued me, and I looked forward to them. Finding out what made people tick was like opening locked doors. Always a new room appeared, and sometimes unexpected treasure. Today’s was an exception. How could an artist—even one with a name like his—compare with a murder? I found myself wishing I could skip him and get back to my murder investigation.

The last of the ice was melted by ten in the morning when I pulled up in front of Curtis Carlyle’s house, odd puddles the only reminders of the bad weather.

I studied the brick-faced ranch, looking for clues about its occupant. It looked much like the other houses in the neighborhood, not the retreat of an artist of some stature.

Thin sunlight patterned the roof through the barren branches of the beech and poplar that formed a semicircle around the lawn. Brown, frosty, winter-killed grass tufted the deep front yard. On the half acres to the right and left were other ranches very similar in appearance. Across the street a pair of three-year-olds made fat and unbendable by their snowsuits stared at me from the porch of yet another ranch.

I looked again at Carlyle’s house and shrugged. It told me nothing.

I rang the bell and waited. No response. I rang again as I checked my watch. Ten o’clock. That was the time we had agreed on. Could he have forgotten? Sure, he was probably busy with last-minute arrangements for his show, but I was as important to him as he was to me. If I could tear myself away from a murder investigation to make time for him, certainly he could return the compliment. After all, he needed the exposure as much as I needed the article.

I rang a third time. Maybe he was hard of hearing. It seemed to me that anyone who retired from teaching must have lost something through the years of dealing with kids. I would have thought it would be sanity, but hearing was a distinct possibility.

Suddenly the door imploded and a huge bear of a man filled the opening. A great smile lit his face, crinkling his eyes to slits behind their dark-framed glasses.

“Merrileigh Kramer from The News, right?” he asked as he threw the storm door open for me. “Hi. I’m Curt Carlyle.”

I nodded as I stepped by him, quickly revising my erroneous preconceptions. “Former gym teacher” obviously didn’t mean what I had thought. Curt Carlyle was no retiree; he was a man in his early thirties who exuded energy, whose mass of curly dark hair was a far cry from the sparse gray I had anticipated.

“Do you mind if we talk downstairs?” he asked. “I’m finishing up some things for tomorrow.”

He led the way downstairs and as we descended, he began to whistle “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” I grimaced.

Unexpectedly, a huge, bright room greeted me. The rear wall of the walkout basement was exposed by the downward slope of the lawn and had been lined with glass. The lemon light of winter was aided by great lights hanging over Carlyle’s worktable. Shelves lining the front wall of the room were filled with art supplies from paper and paints to huge rolls of popcorn plastic used for packaging. It was a roll of the wrap that he was working with now, swathing a framed picture four feet by three for safe transport.

I pulled out my new camera and began snapping him as he worked. He was happy to pose at his worktable and stood easily beside a wonderfully detailed watercolor of a stone barn backed by a brooding, stormy sky, dark clouds streaked dramatically with the brilliant oranges and yellows of an angry setting sun.

“This is the original of the picture I’m offering prints of this year.” He wiped an imaginary speck off the glass before he began wrapping it in plastic. “I select one picture a year to reproduce, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how successful the prints have been.”

“How many prints do you make?”

“Five hundred. Each numbered and signed.”

“I know you’re a former gym teacher,” I said. “How did you end up being a watercolorist?”

“I’ve always loved painting, but it didn’t seem like a very practical way to make a living. So I went with my other love, sports, and taught. In my late twenties I became very dissatisfied. I had visions of me rolling out the ball for the rest of my life while others played.”

I imagined him stalking the sidelines like a tethered grizzly, frustrated and unhappy.

“My sister, Joan, was the one who encouraged me to take the leap.” He nodded toward the portrait of an attractive woman I had assumed to be a wife or girlfriend. “So what if I had a couple of lean years, she said. I had only myself to feed. Our parents had left us this house, and since Joan was married, she urged me to live here and go for it.” He shrugged and grinned happily. “I did, and though I’ve been hungry a few times, I don’t regret it. Life’s exciting again.”

“Your sister must be very proud,” I said.

His smile disappeared. “I’m sure she would be, but she died two years ago, just before things really started to move for me.”

“Oh. I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t feel bad, Merrileigh. It’s okay. She was a strong Christian, and that thought comforts me.” He smiled and began to whistle again.

I listened to him for a minute, then said sharply, “Do you know what you’re doing?”

He looked at me in surprise.

“You’re whistling,” I said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Everyone does it, and it drives me crazy.” I tried not to grind my teeth. “Though most people usually sing.”

“What in the world are you talking about?” Curt asked.

“What were you whistling?” I demanded.

He thought a moment. “‘Merrily We Roll Along.’”

“Right. And what were you whistling when we came down the steps?”

“I don’t know,” he said patiently. “What?”

“Row, Row, Row Your Boat’!”

Curt looked at me as though I were unstable.

“It drives me wild,” I said. “Sometimes I’d like to strangle my mother.”

Suddenly Curt’s face cleared and he began to laugh. “Merrily/Merrileigh, right?”

I nodded. “Most people do it subconsciously, though some people actually do it on purpose just to bother me.”

Jack had been one of those people, and I’d never understood why he intentionally did something I disliked so much.

“It doesn’t matter whether you think I’m overreacting or not, Jack,” I said to him once. “Just please believe me when I say I hate it!”

And he’d smiled his knee-weakening smile and sung back to me to the tune of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”: “Calm, calm, calm yourself. Don’t get so upset. Merrileigh, Merrileigh, Merrileigh, I don’t like to see you fret.”

I looked stormily at Curt Carlyle, who smiled unrepentantly back.

“I’ll try to resist,” he said. “If I do slip, tell me, and I’ll shape up right away. Do people call you something besides Merrileigh to help then deny the word association?”

I was suddenly embarrassed about my outburst and how childish I sounded. It must have been last night’s shock.

“People usually call me Merry,” I said, and sighed. “I’m sorry, but if you’d lived with those songs every day of your life since the teacher first called your name aloud in kindergarten, you’d have developed a complex, too.”

“I’m sure I would have,” Curt agreed amiably.

He seemed to be studying me. My hand went to my spikey hair, but it stuck out above my head as it should. I glanced down at my gray slacks, jade sweater and navy blazer. They weren’t covered with Whiskers’s hair, so they looked all right to me. I sucked discreetly at the gap between my teeth. I hadn’t eaten anything since I’d brushed, but I always worried since the spinach-in-the-teeth fiasco eight years ago. I cleared my throat self-consciously.

“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” Curt asked.

I lifted an eyebrow and looked at him in surprise. “Isn’t that line a bit old?”

“I’m not giving you a line,” Curt said earnestly. “I honestly think I know you from somewhere.”

“Oh. Well. I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ve only lived in Amhearst since the beginning of September.”

He shook his head and squinted at me.

I flipped my notebook open and asked, “Don’t you find painting and coaching a strange combination?”

He took the hint and got right to the issue at hand.

“Painting and coaching are good foils for each other if you think about it. Painting is creative and energizing and sedentary and solitary. Coaching is restorative and repetitious and active and social.”

By the time the interview drew to a close thirty minutes later, I knew Curt laughed a lot, talked with his hands and had a lot of work still to do for tomorrow night’s opening.

“This article will be in Friday’s paper,” he told me, as if it was his choice. “Right?”

“Probably Saturday’s edition,” I said.

“I’d like it to be in tomorrow’s.”

“I don’t think you get to choose. It’s the editor’s call.” I smiled so I wouldn’t sound defensive, but I hate it when people try to tell me what to do with the articles about them, especially since I have no control over when anything is printed, only when it’s written. “If it comes out Saturday, I can cover the opening tomorrow night and people can read about it in time to stop in Saturday if they wish.”

He nodded, not overly happy but wisely recognizing that he had no say in the issue. “Why don’t you come and see the chaos tonight or tomorrow morning? Then by contrast, the professionalism of tomorrow night will really impress you—I hope.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll have to see. I know I can’t come tonight, but maybe tomorrow. It depends on what else I’m assigned to do.”

“Tell Don I said to let you come,” said Curt.

“You know Don?” I asked.

Curt’s smile dimmed. “Yes. I know Don.”

FOUR

I returned to The News to find the office in an uproar. Don was waving his hands as he talked to Mac Carnuccio. Mac was listening intently, looking like the proverbial thundercloud. Larry Schimmer, the sports guy, and Edie Whatley, the family and entertainment editor, were deep in conversation at Edie’s desk. Edie was wiping at tears that continued to flow despite her mopping efforts.

I stopped at Jolene’s desk. She was staring at her computer screen, the earplug for her transcriber in place, but she wasn’t working.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Jolene transferred her blank stare to me. She had gorgeous skin, great brown eyes that she dramatized expertly, and enough hair to make Dolly Parton jealous, though Jolene’s was a rich chestnut. “Oh, Merry, isn’t it terrible?”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Trudy McGilpin. She’s dead.”

“Trudy? Trudy the mayor? But all she had was the flu! At least that’s what they told us yesterday evening at her office when she didn’t show up for the meeting.”

Jolene nodded. “But she died sometime last night. We got a call about it just a few minutes ago. She didn’t keep her morning appointments, and her secretary couldn’t reach her by phone. She got worried and went to Trudy’s, and—” Jolene paused, then continued with great drama. “And there she was.”

I sympathized with the unknown secretary. I knew that finding bodies could take the starch out of the crispest individual.

Jolene, whose husband had just left her, took a long and shaky breath. “That just shows what happens when you live alone.”

I blinked. “I doubt that living alone did her in, but she must have been a lot sicker than anyone realized.”

“A lot,” agreed Jolene as she coughed delicately and leaned toward me. “I don’t feel like I have a fever, do I?”

I looked at her carefully made-up face and her clear eyes.

“You look fine to me, Jolene.”

She leaned forward some more, one hand raising her bangs off her forehead. “I don’t know. Check for me.”

I placed a couple of fingers on her cool forehead and looked thoughtful.

“I knew it,” she said, distressed. “I’m getting sick.”

“You’re fine,” I said.

“But you frowned.”

“I was thinking about Trudy,” I said.

“Well, think about me. Do I have a fever?”

I shook my head. “You do not.”

She didn’t believe me. “But I know I’m getting sick.”

“Merry!” Don’s voice boomed across the room. “Come here. And, Mac, I need you, too.”

Thank you, Don! I eagerly left the sick bay.

The News office space was cramped, old and reeked of smoke in spite of the fact that no one had been allowed to smoke in the room for at least five years. The desks were battered and scarred, the linoleum pattern had worn off decades ago and the file cabinets were dented and scratched. Only the lighting and the computer system were modern, and they were both state-of-the-art.

The other highly unique aspect of the newsroom was the greenery. Plants sat on every available surface and on some they shouldn’t. And every plant was lush and full and in better health than I was. I could only imagine what Don paid a service to tend these beauties, though why he wanted them in the first place, I didn’t know.

I dodged Larry’s and Edie’s desks, the fiche machine and the soda and coffee machines. The latter two were placed near Don so he could keep an eye on loiterers. A Wandering Jew draped over the soda machine in such rampant health that I always thought of Little Shop of Horrors and the plant that ate people. I gave the machine and its decoration wide berth.

“You heard?” Don asked as I approached.

“About Trudy?” I nodded. “Jolene just told me.”

I stared in surprise at my boss’s large, cluttered desk. Cluttered? Don? Usually he sat in organized splendor in front of the huge window that looked down from the second-floor editorial offices onto the business district of Amhearst. If it weren’t for the incontrovertible proof of the daily issues of The News, I’d think Don never worked, because his desk never showed it. Except now.

“I want you to do the personality obit. Contact family, friends, get some good quotes. You know. Mac will do the political and public-service analysis and contact the police and hospital.”

“The police?” I said, startled.

“They’re involved because it’s an unwitnessed death. Mere form,” said Mac. “I have to talk to them about your body, anyway.”

“It’s not my body!”

Mac grinned. “That’s not what I heard.”

“Mac, come on!”

“From what I hear, he seems about the right age for you.” He gave his trademark leer.

I wasn’t sure whether I should be offended by a joke about a dead man. “How old was he? And how old do you think I am?”

“I don’t know about you, but he was twenty-five.” Mac glanced at the notebook he had in his hand. “He lived at 594 Lyme Street with his mother, Liz, and worked as a grease jockey at Taggart’s.”

“So I got him at Taggart’s garage?”

“I don’t think the cops are certain yet, but that seems to be the theory they’re working with.”

“Excuse me, you two,” said Don curtly, “but I think we were talking about Trudy.”

I nodded, staring at my boss with interest. His hair was actually mussed where he had run a hand through it, revealing his incipient bald spot rather cruelly. I knew that if he could see himself, he’d be upset.

Don shuffled some papers into a haphazard pile. “Your articles about Trudy will be the leads in tomorrow’s edition. I want them by nine a.m.” He made a frustrated sound. “I hate it when a story breaks too late for the day’s edition.”

“Had Trudy known your feelings,” said Mac harshly, “I’m certain she would have arranged things differently.”

Don looked startled, like a mastiff bitten by a toy poodle. “You know I didn’t mean it that way, Mac. You know I respected Trudy. Now get to work, both of you.”

Mac and I turned away together, Mac still scowling. We walked across the office together, or as together as you can walk when there’s only enough room for one person at a time between the furniture. When we reached his desk, he grabbed his coat from the back of his chair.

“Any chance of dinner to talk over this case?” he asked as he stuffed his arms in the sleeves.

“Which case?” I asked.

“Either one’s okay with me,” he said, jettisoning the scowl and smiling with great charm. “It’s the company I’m interested in.”

I didn’t doubt that for an instant, and I was equally sure he wouldn’t want to stop with dinner. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m busy tonight.”

He looked at me skeptically, but I just smiled sweetly. I wasn’t about to tell him that my business was a rehearsal at church. I knew what he’d think of that.

Mac’s eyes slid over my shoulder and hardened as he looked at Don.

“He’s one cold fish,” Mac said. “A real iceberg.”

I turned and looked again at Don’s mussed hair and cluttered desk. I didn’t know about iceberg. I thought he was distressed and trying not to show it. It just leaked out in spite of himself. When I turned to say so, Mac was already rushing out the back door, scarf streaming over his shoulder.

I shrugged and went to my desk, thinking about the disadvantages of being new in town. Who should I call about Trudy? What if I called someone and he hadn’t heard yet, and I had to break the news to him? I shivered at that terrible thought.

To put such a possibility off as long as possible, I clicked my way into The News’s e-library and typed Trudy’s name. I wasn’t surprised at the wealth of information I found, but most was more what Mac would use than what I needed. Still, here and there I found items that spoke of her as a woman, not a politician or a lawyer.

Next I skimmed the paper’s electronic archives, but they only went back to 1988. I moved to FotoWeb and looked at photos of a vibrant and lovely woman. I was stopped cold by a particularly riveting shot of Trudy in an evening gown, dancing at the annual hospital gala, laughing at something her partner had said.

I rose abruptly and went to the file drawers against the far wall. I pushed the huge jade plant sitting on top back against the wall and opened the M drawer, pulling out the McGilpin file. In these old clips, I should find names as well as some good background information for my piece. I returned to my desk and began reading. The clipping service had done a good job; there was plenty of material available.

Trudy was a local girl, raised in Amhearst, a graduate of Amhearst High School where she was president of her senior class and star of the spring musical. In the pictures of the musical, she looked fresh and pretty, her young face eager and alive. “A glowing talent,” the review of the play read. “Amhearst’s own Julie Andrews.”

Since the writer of the review was a woman named Alice McGilpin, I suspected a strong case of family prejudice.

Trudy attended the University of Pennsylvania as an undergraduate, no mean feat for a small-town girl who was to be her family’s first college graduate. She received her law degree with honors from Dickinson Law School. When she returned to Amhearst, she joined the local law firm of Grassley and Jordan, now Grassley, Jordan and McGilpin, where she developed a specialty in divorce and family issues.

Perhaps, I thought, dealing with all the tensions and hatreds between people who had promised to love each other forever had been enough to keep her from marrying.

Picture after picture showed how active in community affairs Trudy had been, sitting on the boards of the YWCA and the hospital and chairing the local United Way drive. She was in the final year of her first three-year term as mayor and had been planning to run again. A popular mayor, she undoubtedly would have won easily.

There were a brother and sister-in-law who lived in Goshen, about fifteen miles east, and parents retired in Florida.

I knew there was no way I would be hard-boiled enough to contact the parents (what if they hadn’t heard yet?), but I could call the brother, Stanton McGilpin. Also I would contact either Mr. Grassley or Mr. Jordan at their law office, one or two of the city commissioners who served with Trudy—one in her party, one in the opposition—the director of the Y, and the chairman of the hospital board. At least that last one would be easy; the chairman was Don Eldredge.

I approached his desk and wondered again how he felt about the double tier of African violets that lined the sill of the great window by which he sat. Did he have purple, rose, lavender, pink, white and variegated dreams and wonder why? Somehow the violets were so un-Don, yet they flourished beside him.

“I need a quote from you about Trudy,” I said.

Don looked up, surprised, and I noted that his hair was once again perfect. “From me?” he said. “What for?”

“She served on the hospital board, and you’re the chairman.”

“Oh,” he said. “Okay. Just say something about what a good and capable worker she was, and how she dedicated great amounts of time to the hospital and its needs. She will be sorely missed by all of us.”

I walked back to my desk, jotting Don’s comments as I walked. Pretty trite for a professional journalist.

Next I called Grassley, Jordan and McGilpin. The secretary who answered was obviously trying not to cry into the phone. She kept sniffing and hiccuping. When she realized who I was, she began talking about Trudy.

“She was the best boss in the world, she was. So pleasant. Always please and thank you. And attractive. Real class, you know? I could never figure out why she wasn’t married.” Obviously being married was important to the secretary. “But I think she had a new boyfriend. She was smiling a lot more.” And the girl began to cry in earnest.

The line went empty, and I thought I had been disconnected. Almost immediately, though, a male voice boomed over the phone, speaking too enthusiastically as a cover for his emotions.

“Trudy was wonderful,” he said. “A fine lawyer, interested in her clients and very knowledgeable in law. She was a strong woman, but not at the expense of her femininity. She more than held her own in a courtroom. We shall miss her very much.”

“Thank you,” I said. “And to whom am I speaking?”

“This is Edmund Grassley.” His voice broke on the last syllable of his name, and he cleared his throat. “We’re going to miss her very much,” he whispered, and hung up.

My eyes misted at the man’s genuine emotion, and I couldn’t help glancing at too-cool Don, sitting at his desk in reorganized splendor.

Nick Dominic and Forbes Raleigh, the commissioners, and Annie Parmalee, the director of the YWCA, said much the same thing as Don and Mr. Grassley, surprise, surprise. They were all greatly saddened by Trudy’s death and would miss her. Amhearst was diminished by her passing. How hard it was to put deep emotion into quotes.

Finally, when I could avoid it no longer, I called Stanton McGilpin.

“I’m sorry. He’s not here right now,” said a woman. “May I take a message?”

“I’m Merrileigh Kramer from The News. I’m calling in reference to the death of Mr. McGilpin’s sister. We will be devoting much of tomorrow’s paper to Trudy, and we thought he might like to make a statement, sort of a eulogy.”

There was a small silence. Then, “I’ll tell him you called.”

I started to say thank you, but the line was dead. I doubted I’d ever hear from Stanton McGilpin, and I couldn’t blame him.

Still, contacting a family member in one context made me think about doing the same thing in another. I grabbed the phone book, looked up a number and dialed before my nerve failed.

“Mrs. Marten, my name is Merrileigh Kramer. I was wondering if I might speak to you about your son’s death.”

A weary voice asked, “Are you from the police?”

“No. I work at The News.”

“They’re going to keep putting him in the paper whether I talk to you or not, aren’t they?”

“A crime like this will certainly be covered.” I kept my voice neutral. I couldn’t tell whether Mrs. Marten was happy or distressed that Patrick was to get so much posthumous media attention.

Her sigh echoed down the phone line. “Come over if you want. I’d like to be certain that Patrick is presented as the fine kid he was. But don’t come until tomorrow. I can’t talk to anyone else today. I’m too busy crying.”

FIVE

Labor Day Sunday had been my first Sunday in Amhearst. It had been a hot, sunny, end-of-summer day, and I attended Faith Community Church. While I waited in the hot sanctuary for the service to begin, I read a notice in the bulletin that a bell choir was being formed.

“If you are interested, a free ring clinic will be held Friday night at seven-thirty to provide a chance to try ringing and to provide information about the bell choir,” the notice read.

Friday night came, and I ate alone at McDonald’s: a cheeseburger, small fries, large Diet Coke and package of cookies. Very healthful. Then I went home to the first night of my first full weekend in my new apartment and held a one-sided conversation with Whiskers.

“So how was your day, baby? Did you get enough rest? I must apologize for not saving you any of my French fries. Before I realized what was happening, I’d eaten them all. Every last bite. Forgive me?”

He rolled over on the bed and offered his tummy for a rub, a sure sign that he wasn’t upset. Not that Whiskers was ever impolite, even when I disappointed him. He was the very soul of civility, listening whenever I talked, just like he understood. I chose to believe that he was interested in my thoughts, rather than accept the more obvious conclusion that he was hoping I’d offer him more food if he listened long enough.

That September night I was still full of doubts about my move and not at all certain that striking out on my own had been such a good idea after all. For years, Friday nights meant Jack and a night out and laughter and—on more than one occasion—tears. But always something.

Now there was nothing. I sighed as I puttered around, straightening up where there was no mess. My little apartment had a living room across the front, a dining room and a small kitchen, a bedroom and a unique bathroom. The bathroom had doors that opened into both the bedroom behind it and the living room in front of it. Neither door had a lock. I hadn’t quite figured out how you avoided being ambushed from one side or the other when there was company, but more than likely that wasn’t a problem I’d have to deal with for quite some time.

“Oh, Whiskers!” I despaired as I flopped into a chair. “I’m so lonely!” He climbed up and settled in my lap, purring contentedly.

Of course you’re contented, I thought as I stroked him. It was me or the pound, and anyone’d pick me. Wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t he? Wouldn’t Jack? Why wouldn’t Jack?

I stood abruptly, dumping Whiskers. That waylaid self-pity and failure. I was now strong. Independent. My own woman.

Dear God, I prayed, don’t let me fail because of loneliness and boredom and self-pity. I want to press on!

And I suddenly understood that pressing on had a price. Staying in Pittsburgh would have cost me dearly, too, but at least I knew that price—life passing me by, emotional stunting, Jack as God.

One night two years before, my father had come to my room. He stood in the doorway looking concerned.

“Merry, you know Jack better than we do, so tell me how things stand between you two. You’ve been dating pretty much exclusively since your junior year at Penn State. Are you two serious? Or is he, as I fear and as I’ve said before, using up your young years with no thought of commitment?”

I laughed. “Dad, you needn’t worry. Jack loves me, and I certainly love him. Things are moving well.”

Dad looked unconvinced, but he said, “You know we only want you to be happy, honey.”

“I know, Dad. I am.”

But I lied, and Dad probably knew it. The trouble was that I didn’t. I lived so stoically for so long with Jack’s unwillingness to commit that I no longer recognized my own pain.

“I love you, Merry,” Jack would say, “but I’m not ready to get married yet. Let’s pray about it, and we’ll decide in six months, okay? Let’s just enjoy today.”

And his melting smile and beguiling manner and earnest eyes would win my assent.

I might have continued to act the wimp forever if my younger brother, Sam, hadn’t forced me to see things differently and shamed me into taking my life back into my own hands. When he was a kid, Sam loved Jack, but in his later high school years Sam matured greatly. In fact, in many ways, he matured beyond Jack, who by this time was a handsome, charming man fast approaching thirty.

“He’s always late, Merry, hours late sometimes, and he never calls to tell you,” Sam said. “And he never apologizes. That’s inconsiderate. I’d never do that to a girl I was dating.”

“Don’t let it bother you,” I said. “It’s just Jack’s way. He has trouble with time.”

“And you think that excuses his lack of respect?”

“It’s okay.” I patted his arm. “Really.”

Or: “Does he ever ask you what you want to do, Merry? It seems to me you’ve watched an awful lot of church league basketball and baseball games, but I don’t remember him taking you to a concert or anything you like. And he’s always trailing his fan club of guys who are as irresponsible as he is. Who does he think you are? One of the boys?”

“Believe me, he knows I’m not one of the boys,” I said. “And I like church league ball games. I can always listen to music on a CD or my iPod, but you can’t see these games unless you’re there.”

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t go to the games,” Sam said. “I’m saying he should go to the concerts, too. For you.”

“If I’m not bothered, Sam, then I don’t think you need to be, either.”

Or: “He’s coming to get you in five minutes, and he just called? Isn’t he ever considerate enough to plan ahead? And aren’t you smart enough to be unavailable? For heaven’s sake, Merry, you were going shopping with Ellen and Joyce. Now you’re going to let them down just to be here for him? How’s he supposed to learn to appreciate you? You let him walk all over you! You’re a marshmallow!”

“The girls understand that Jack comes first, Sam.”

“He might come first with you. I just wonder if you really come first with him.”

“Sam! How unkind!”

When Sam first started talking against Jack, I just ignored him. After all, what did he know about love? He was only a high school kid.

When I began to suspect that he might be right, I worked hard to plug my ears. I couldn’t listen; that would be disloyal to Jack.

One memorable night this past July, Jack was scheduled to pick me up for my birthday dinner. We were going to Anna Maria’s, where they served the best pasta in the world, and I was dressed in Jack’s favorite dress.

“It makes your dark eyes flash and your skin glow,” he’d told me once.

The last think I did as I got ready was tuck into my purse a letter I received that day about an article I’d done on children with AIDS.

“Perhaps people will understand my grief better because of your article,” the mother of a stricken child had written. “I cannot thank you enough for your tenderness and accuracy.”

I smiled with satisfaction. Even Jack would have to see that I’d done well.

Mom and Dad and Sam left about six-thirty for an evening with friends, and I waited patiently for Jack. At eight he hadn’t arrived, nor had he called. Nine and no Jack. Ten. At ten-thirty, as I was rereading my fan letter for the umpteenth time to buck up my flagging spirits, the phone rang.

“Merry, I’m hungry.”

“Me, too.”

It was too late for Anna Maria’s and fettucine Alfredo, but we could still get a Big Mac if we hurried. “Happy birthday” can sound sweet over special sauce, too.

“Come on over to my place and make us some eggs, okay?” Jack said.

So much for special sauce. I looked at my letter, folded it carefully and put it under the phone where it would be safe until I got home.

“Sure, Jack,” I said softly. “Be right there.”

What an idiot.

I opened the front door just as Mom and Dad and Sam crossed the porch.

“How was dinner?” Mom asked.

I hesitated. I knew how they would react to the news that Jack not only hadn’t come for me, he had also asked me to come to him.

Asked? a little voice inside said. Asked? How about told.

It’s nice to realize that some semblance of sanity remained, but at the time, I tried to squash it.

Sam, now a handsome eighteen-year-old three weeks short of leaving for Penn State, looked at me.

“You never went out,” he said. “Right?”

The kid was too smart. Willing my chin not to tremble, I nodded.

“But you’re going out now?” Mom asked. She looked around for Jack.

“He’s not here, is he, Merry?” said Sam. “Jerky Jack isn’t here. He never was here. What did he do? Forget?”

“No!” said I. “He called.”

“Sure,” said Sam sarcastically. “About five minutes ago, I bet. What was his excuse?”

“He didn’t make any excuses,” I said in a shaky voice.

“But if Jack’s not here, where are you going?” Mom asked.

“To Jack’s.”

They all stared at me.

“He’s hungry,” I said, just as if that explained everything.

“Of course he is,” Sam said. “Jerky Jack wants to eat Marshmallow Merry.”

Dad reached out and laid a hand on Sam’s arm. “Easy, son.”

“Dad!” Sam was almost in tears. “He’s making a fool of her!”

My father looked at me with pain in his eyes. I looked at the floor.

“Merry,” Dad said, “do you know that you rarely laugh anymore?”

I looked up, startled. That wasn’t what I expected him to say. I expected the heart-wrenching talk about Jack wasting my youth. I knew how to ignore that one.

“Do you realize that you have lost the gutsy independence that used to worry your mother and me so when you were in high school?”

“If I’m such a wimp,” I said defensively, “how come I’m such a good journalist? Huh? That takes guts!”

He just smiled sadly. “Do you know that you put Jack ahead of everything, including common sense and God?”

I stared at the porch floor again. Deep inside I knew my father was right. I knew Sam was right. Somehow, I had become a spineless marshmallow. And not even a soft, spongy one that bounced back after it was squeezed, but a permanently mashed one whose heart ached all the time, especially when Jack told me that he loved me, but…

Mom put an arm around my waist and gently led me back into the house.

“You can’t run to him whenever he calls, Merry,” she said. “You know that. And he’s not going to change, I’m afraid. He will always see life only from his own narrow point of view and act to satisfy only himself. It’s a tragedy, because he’s squandering a great potential for serving God by serving Jack, but that’s how it is. Jack first and foremost.”

I shivered in the July heat. I wrapped my arms around myself, trying vainly to get warm, as my mother continued relentlessly.

“You must face the fact, honey, that Jack’s way of thinking leaves out a wife—which is probably a good thing, because she’d spend her life being hurt and Jack would never understand why.”

“But I love him,” I whispered. Tears filled my eyes. “I know things can’t continue as they are, but I don’t know what to do.”

“Move,” said Sam so quickly that he’d obviously been waiting for the chance to state his idea. “Go someplace where Jack isn’t. If he cares enough, he’ll come and get you. If he doesn’t…” He shrugged.

I didn’t go to Jack’s that night. I also didn’t sleep that night or for several more as I thought and prayed. Move! The very thought made me sweat. As a compromise, I got my hair cut.

“What have you done?” Jack asked angrily when he saw the shorn me.

“I got my hair cut,” I said as he stalked around me. “Don’t you like it?”

He shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess, if you like girls with boys’ haircuts.”

I looked in the mirror at the young woman with curly, spiky black hair. “I do not look like a boy.” I didn’t look like me, either, but I figured I’d get to know this stranger in time.

He ignored me and got to what, for him, was the point. “You never asked me.”

For some reason, for the first time in years, I got angry at Jack. “I’m twenty-six, Jack. I’m allowed to cut my hair with or without your consent.”

The next day I went to the library when a story I was covering took me nearby. I read the want ads in the Philadelphia area papers. A week later I had a job at The News in Amhearst, thirty miles west of Philadelphia in Chester County. In two more weeks I was ready to move.

“But we never talked this over,” Jack protested. “What if I don’t want you to move? After all, we’re thinking of getting married.”

“We are? When?”

“Sure we are. I just need a few more months, that’s all.”

I shook my head. “I have to find out who I am, Jack, who God made me to be, because I’ve forgotten.”

I determined when I first arrived in Amhearst that on work nights I would turn the TV off at ten and be in bed by ten-thirty. Discipline was absolutely necessary if I were to survive. The problem always came between ten-thirty and whenever I fell asleep. Such long, tossing, fitful, unhappy hours!

In desperation I began reviving a habit I’d had in high school and lost at Penn State: I began reading a chapter in the Bible and praying as I sat in bed with Whiskers crowded comfortingly against me. Maybe, in this way, I could calm my mind enough to sleep.

I began in the book of Philippians where Paul writes about pressing on and realized quite quickly that my father had been right that painful night on the front porch. In my total involvement with Jack, I had forgotten God.

Oh, I went to church every Sunday, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Jack. I sang the hymns and praise songs with joy and listened to the pastor with a critical ear. I knew that afterward Jack would want to discuss the service and the sermon, turning things this way and that, sniffing, pawing, looking for flaws like a cat looks for life in the carcass of a caught mouse. But, I was learning with considerable pain, it was Jack I wanted to please, and Jack I wanted to worship, not God. Any joy I felt was in the touch of Jack beside me, not in the presence of God within me.

Dear God, how forgiving are you toward someone who has become as shortsighted as I have been?

Slowly, weeknights in Amhearst became less terrifying, but weekends held their own special horrors.

And so, on that early September Friday night just after my move, I found myself digging through the trash can for Sunday’s bulletin, which I had just thrown away in my brief cleaning frenzy. I pulled it out and reread it, my attention drawn to the announcement about the bell clinic. I studied the words a few minutes, uncertain.

There had been a bell choir at Penn State, and I’d always itched to play in it. To my ear, bells sound so beautiful—lyrical and somehow angelic. But I’d never had the nerve to audition at school because of the music majors.

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