“I don’t know what you want me to tell you. I honestly think”-Do drag in “honestly,” Catherine!-“I have told you what little I know. And I think what happened to Leona is directly related to what happened to my parents. I don’t blame you for never finding out about them,” she added hastily. “I know you were a good friend to my father.”

She had touched him on the quick. She wondered if she had meant to.

“I tried,” said Galton bitterly. “You’re damn right I tried! But I know why Leona Gaites was killed: she was a blackmailer, and something else too. And that doesn’t have anything to do with Glenn and Rachel.”

He sat silent for a moment, visibly collecting himself. He looked so sad and worn that Catherine was unwillingly moved.

“You need some rest,” she said shortly.

“It’ll be a while before I get any,” he said.

He rose, stretched, ambled to the door.

“Catherine,” he said, one hand on the knob, “Why didn’t you leave town, honey? What’s kept you here?”

“You know, I’ve asked myself that just recently,” she said. “I only found out yesterday. When I was telling Tom Mascalco what happened to Mother and Father. I want the person who did it to be caught. And I want him to be dead. That’s why I stayed.”

“That Mascalco’s a pest,” said Galton. “His idea of his job is way too big. About that other, Catherine: it makes me sick to say it-you know how I felt about your folks-but I don’t think we’ll ever catch who did it. There’s nothing for you here. You shouldn’t have stayed-if you want unasked-for advice, too late.”

The complexity of being sheriff and suspect, family friend and bereaved daughter, tore at them.

“You be careful,” he said finally. “I don’t know what you’ve done, or what you know. I’ve known you to do some things that people thought were crazy. Well, in the Delta we’ve got a lot of crazies; known for it. Or maybe I should say eccentrics. Okay. But I’ve never known you to be bad or crooked. There’s a lot of crookedness, a lot of badness, mixed up in this mess. So watch yourself, Catherine.”