Catherine forced herself to reach for one and light it, while Galton eyed her intently.

He’s trying to see if I can do it by myself, Catherine thought suddenly. Her back stiffened.

“Now, I’m going to ask you a few questions. You just take your time answering,” he said.

Catherine nodded briefly.

He was being kind in a stern way, but Catherine realized that the day would be longer than she had ever imagined when she arose early that morning to go target shooting.

Galton jogged her with a couple of questions. Once she got going, she gave a clear account of her morning.

There was nothing much to tell.

When she finished, Galton rose without a word, patting her absently as he passed into the outer room.

Catherine heard a shuffling of feet in the main office, a murmur of voices. Mrs. Cory had called in the deputies.

Catherine looked down at her hands clenched in her lap. Her heavy dark hair swung forward, shielding her face, giving her a tiny corner of privacy against the open door.

The look of her twined fingers, the smell of the sheriff ’s office, and the scrape of official boots had ripped the cover from a well of memory. For a few moments she was not in Lowfield but in a similar police station in a similar tiny town, in Arkansas. She was not wearing blue jeans but the dress she had worn to work that day. Her parents had been dead for four hours instead of six months.

With a terrible effort, she wrenched herself back into her proper place.

I will not give way, she told herself ferociously. I will get through this and I will not give way.

She listened to Sheriff Galton’s voice rumbling in the main office. He was telling Mary Jane Cory to call enough men for a coroner’s jury.

She rode back to the shack in the sheriff ’s car. The car was bright green with gold lettering and a star on the side. She could see people glancing in as the sheriff drove past, then looking again as they identified Galton’s passenger as Catherine Linton.