Paul Edwards was on his knees, clutching his shoulder. Behind him there was a dent in the wall, and pieces of glass glinted on the carpet. Mary Nell was standing as if she'd been turned into stone, glaring at Paul. Sybil was looking at her daughter.

"You dislocated my shoulder," Paul wheezed, "you little bitch."

"I hit him," Mary Nell said in a disconcertingly childish voice. "I threw the glass apple and hit him."

"Were you trying to hit him in the head?" Hollis asked. "I wish you'd aimed higher."

Horribly, she laughed.

"Why don't you shoot me, Hollis?" Sybil's voice was deep and throbbing. "Come on, you know you want to. I'd rather you shot me now than go through a trial and sentencing."

"You're the selfish bitch," Hollis said. "Sure. I'm going to shoot you in front of your daughter. Hell of a way to give her another great memory, don't you think? Take a moment to think of someone besides yourself, why don't you?"

After a second, he said in a voice much closer to sane, "Tolliver, please call the sheriff's office." My brother patted his pocket. No cell. He slipped past the little group into the kitchen, and I could hear him punching buttons and speaking. The storm had stopped; the only traces of it were heard in the drip, drip, drip of water from the eaves.

I felt like I was looking at them through the wrong end of the telescope. These four miserable people. They looked far away, small, but clear-cut in their distress.

"Everything's lost, for you," I said to Paul Edwards. His eyes widened as he looked at me. "I'm not sorry. Besides all the other, more horrible things you've done, you had my brother thrown in jail - though you had a lot of help doing that. You shot at me in the cemetery, and I have to believe that was you all by yourself, right? Now, your life is over."

"What are you now, a seer?" Sybil said bitterly. "I wish I'd never asked you here, never tried to find out what happened to the girl."

"Then I'm glad you already paid me." It was all I could think of to say. She laughed, but not as if she really found it humorous. Her daughter was still looking from Sybil to Paul, from her mother to the man who'd been her mother's lover, and she looked sick and young and defenseless.

"You're going to be a great woman," I said to Mary Nell. She didn't look at me; I don't think she was any fonder of me at that moment than was her mother or Paul. Even as my brother came back in the room, we heard sirens approaching, and lights began to flash up and down the soaking suburban street.

"Why'd you do all that to me?" I asked Paul. "I don't understand."

"The baby," he said. "I never thought you'd find Teenie. When you did, I was sure you knew about the baby. I thought if I kept you scared, you wouldn't figure it out."

But the baby had left no bones. If Paul had left us alone, we'd have departed Sarne without a second thought.

We didn't get away until perhaps three in the morning. We had to tell many, many people what we'd seen and heard. We were too wired to sleep for an hour after we got back to our room, but once we did, we slept until noon.

We had our bags in the car an hour later. We settled with the front desk, and the odious Vernon practically did the macarena when he found out we were really going. I felt empty, hollow; but I wanted to leave Sarne so badly I pushed myself to do all the right things toward that end. We got gas and swung by the police station as we'd been told.

Hollis was there again, or maybe was still there. Harvey Branscom's office was empty, the door wide open. I was sure he'd been having a terrible night and a bad day since his sister was in the pokey for murder. I studied Hollis's face. He looked somehow younger, as if the solving of his wife's death had erased a couple of years and some lines of tension.

"You all shoving off?" he asked.

"Yes," Tolliver said.

"We've got your numbers and your lawyer's address, just in case?"

"Yes," I said. I knew Hollis would never call my number.

"Okay, then. We appreciate all your help." He was trying to keep this as brisk and impersonal as possible. But I could see Tolliver bristling for my sake. I put my hand on his arm.

"No problem," I said. "No problem."

"Well, then."

We both nodded at him, and he gave us a curt nod back, and we went out the swinging glass doors for the last time, I hoped to God.

Tolliver was driving, and after we'd put on our seat belts and picked a radio station, he took the car through the streets of Sarne to the highway that would take us east.

"Think we could make Memphis before tonight?" I asked.

"I'm sure of it," he said. "Will you - are you okay with saying goodbye like that?"

"Yes. What's the point of a sentimental parting?"

He seemed to acknowledge this with a tilt of his head. "But you liked him."

"Yeah, sure. But, you know, it just wasn't meant to be."

"Someday..." he began, and let the idea trail off.

"You know what, Tolliver? You remember when we did Romeo and Juliet in high school?" We might have studied it years apart, but our high school stuck to its course of study religiously.

"Yeah. And?"

"There was that line that Mercutio says, when he gets killed in the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets. He says it in his dying speech. You remember?"

"No," he said. "Tell me."

"He says, 'A plague on both your houses.' And then he dies."

" 'A plague on both your houses,' " Tolliver repeated. "That about sums it up."

I had a thought. "But of course, Paul Edwards had a foot in both houses - the Hopkins house and the Teague house."

"Somehow that seems like the right thing to say, anyway."

We were quiet for a minute. Then, as the last of Sarne fell behind us and we headed from the mountains to the delta, the flatlands that stretched on and on, I said, "You know, I keep thinking about Teenie, lying out there in the woods, all alone. No matter what happened, I did a good thing."

"Never doubt it. It was a good thing." He hesitated. "Do you think they know? When they've been found?"

"Oh, yes. They know," I said, and the miles to Memphis opened ahead of us.

[The End]