SHE WAS WATCHING the sheriff ’s car back out into the street when her telephone rang. Maybe that’s Randall, she thought.

“Catherine?”

“Sally?” Catherine asked uncertainly. She pulled out one of the bamboo-and-chrome dinette chairs and sat down heavily.

“Sure is, honey. I’m so sorry for you! You should have come and spent the night with us! I know you were scared out of your wits.”

How long had it been since she had talked to Sally Barnes? Sally Barnes Boone, Catherine corrected herself.

“I’m fine,” Catherine said, and made a face into the glass of the table. Once polite lies got into your blood, you never quit telling them, she thought.

“Well, I heard at church,” Sally was saying, “and I just couldn’t believe it…that poor woman! Daddy was so upset, that she was on that land he rents from you! He’d been riding the place that morning, but not close to that field, so he didn’t see anything. I just can’t imagine who could have done it. Someone from Memphis, I bet. Going through town to the fishing camps at the river.”

“I guess so,” said Catherine, who didn’t think so at all. “How is Bob?” She remembered, almost too late, that Sally had a child. “And the baby?” A little girl, was it?

“Oh, they’re fine, just fine. Chrissy’s cutting teeth.”

“I know she’s fretful,” Catherine said sympathetically. She had heard somewhere that this was the case with teething babies.

“Oh boy,” Sally answered feelingly. “But I want to know about you. How are you? What have you been doing? I can’t believe I never see you in a town this size!”

Because I have been taking care not to be seen, she thought to herself. I have been waiting.