And Catfish sang, starting high and haunting, going low and gritty.

“They’s a mean ol‘ woman run a bar out on the Coast.

I’m telling you, they’s a mean ol’ woman run a bar out on the

Coast. But when she gets you under the covers, That ol‘ woman turn your buttered bread to toast.“

And then he stopped.

“You’re hired,” Mavis said. She pulled the jug of white cheap-shit out of the well and sloshed some into Catfish’s glass. “On the house.”

Just then the door opened and a blast of sunlight cut through the dinge and smoke and residual Blues and Vance McNally, the EMT, walked in and set his radio on the bar.

“Guess what?” he said to everyone and no one in particular. “That pilgrim woman hung herself.”

A low mumble passed through the regulars. Catfish put his guitar in its case and picked up his wine. “Sho‘ ’nuff a sad day startin early in this little town. Sho‘ ’nuff.”

“Sho‘ ’nuff,” said Mavis with a cackle like a stainless-steel hyena.

Valerie Riordan

Depression has a mortality rate of fifteen percent. Fifteen percent of all patients with major depression will take their own lives. Statistics. Hard numbers in a very squishy science. Fifteen percent. Dead.

Val Riordan had been repeating the figures to herself since Theophilus Crowe had called, but it wasn’t helping her feel any better about what Bess Leander had done. Val had never lost a patient before. And Bess Leander hadn’t really been depressed, had she? Bess didn’t fit into the fifteen percent.

Val went to the office in the back of her house and pulled Bess Leander’s file, then went back to the living room to wait for Constable Crowe. At least it was the local guy, not the county sheriffs. And she could always fall back on patient confidentiality. Truth was, she had no idea why Bess Leander might have hung herself. She had only seen Bess once, and then for only half an hour. Val had made the diagnosis, written the scrip, and collected a check for the full hour session. Bess had called in twice, talked for a few minutes, and Val had sent her a bill for the time rounded to the next quarter hour.