"You are nuts," he said. "And you'd better go get a Band-Aid for that toe before you stain the floor."

He didn't look at me. Instead he bent down and started picking up the knives that were scattered everywhere. I thought I saw his shoulders shaking and that made me even more irritated. He was laughing at me.

"Fine, then. Maybe you can find the phone while you're at it," I said, and stalked off to the bathroom.

My toe was starting to throb, and it took almost five minutes to find gauze and tape and stop the bleeding. Outside the tiny bathroom, I could hear Weathers moving around, pushing furniture back and forth and attempting to put my room back together. As I finished playing doctor with my toe, I became aware that there was no longer any sound at all coming from my room.

"You about done?" he called.

"Yeah," I answered, putting the bandages back up on the medicine cabinet shelf.

"Come here a sec."

I walked out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, a huge lumpy bandage swaddling my big toe.

"Well, it's the best I could do," I said, walking into my room.

Weathers was sitting on the edge of the bed, a white handkerchief in his lap. When I wandered up to him, he carefully folded back the edges of the square of cloth.

"This yours?" he asked.

My.38-caliber Beretta lay cradled in his lap.

"Where did you get that?" I breathed.

He was watching me closely, gauging my reaction. "It was under a bag, underneath your bed." He was waiting for me to answer him.

"Well, I didn't put it there!"

"Maggie, I got probable cause right now, right here in my lap. Do you realize what that means?" He didn't wait for my answer. "It means, by all rights, I could arrest you right now and book you for murder."

If he was waiting for a confession, it wasn't coming. I stared right back into his eyes, my face a stony mask of anger and confusion.

"The only reason we're not heading back downtown is that I can't prove, at this particular moment, that the two murder victims were shot with this thirty-eight-caliber pistol. But you know what?" His face was suffused with anger. "It won't take me long to find out. I'm gonna take this gun back to the office and send it to the crime lab, with a request to do a rush job on it, because there are two murder victims and the count is probably gonna climb!"

"You can't think that I put that there!" I said. "I wouldn't hide a murder weapon under my own bed!"

"Maggie, you were here most of the late afternoon and evening. You were only gone from your house for about five hours. There's no sign of forced entry." His voice trailed off as he left me to make the conclusion.

"Get out of my house," I said. I kept my voice low and even, but there was no mistaking how angry I was. "I thought I could trust you. I even went so far as to believe that you were on my side, but that was all an act, wasn't it? You come in here, go through my things, and all the time I'm thinking you're here to help me. I don't know how that thing came to be in my house. Your people tore this place apart after Jimmy died. They know it wasn't here. And now, suddenly, it's here." I stared at him coldly. "How do I know you didn't plant that?"

He stood up slowly, the twitching muscle in his jaw the only indication that he was angry "I'm gonna pretend you didn't say that," he said softly.

I walked over to the back door, flung it open, and looked back at him. "And I'm gonna pretend I don't know you," I said.

He walked past me, out into the cold, rainy dawn, my pistol carefully wrapped in his handkerchief. I slammed the door behind him and shot the bolt home. I didn't need him. I didn't need anybody. I was going to find Jimmy's and Jerry's killer all by myself and Weathers would be plenty sorry when I did.

As the sky began to brighten slightly, I fell asleep. But not before I'd lain awake cursing Marshall Weathers and wondering who in the world would want to frame me for two murders. I awoke at ten in the morning, with only four hours of sleep, because an alarm was ringing in my head. I swatted at the clock before realizing that it was the phone. I lay there, waiting for the answering machine to get it, but it had been disconnected in last night's frenzy.

"What now?" I barked into the receiver.

Silence.

"I have had it with you," I said loudly. "If you want a piece of me, stand up like a man and say so!" I started to hang up, but stopped as someone began speaking.

"Is this Maggie Reid?" the woman asked.

"Don't mess with me," I warned. "I am not in the mood. And who exactly is this?" My heart was racing, but not because I was afraid. Now I was angry.

"Bertie Sexton, from the Mobile Home Kingdom." I sat straight up in bed. "I'm sorry to bother you, ma'am, but I think we should talk."

"Talk?"

Bertie Sexton was crying or had a very bad cold. She was snuffling and clearing her throat, with little catches of breath that sounded like stifled sobs.

"Did you hear about that guy?" she said softly. "Mr. Sizemore? The one you had come out and do the audit?"

"Where are you?" I asked.

"I'm at home," she said. Her voice broke and I knew she was crying. "They sent me home on account of I was too tore up to work. The police were out to the lot and they were all over us. I couldn't take it anymore." The girl was openly crying now.

"Look," I said, "get ahold of yourself, honey. You know where the Bisquitville is on West Market?" I got a sniffly sound that I took for an affirmative. "Meet me there in thirty minutes." I hung up before she could start crying harder. Mama always said that action was better than a bucket full of tears, and in Bertie Sexton's case that had to be true.

I flew out of bed, dressed, and crossed my fingers that the police had returned my car. They had, but they'd left it in a NO PARKING BETWEEN 6 AND 9 A.M. zone, then they'd ticketed it! Weathers's doing, no doubt. I didn't have time to stop and speculate. Bisquitville made strong, hot coffee and I needed plenty to get my brain going.

It was late in the day for Bisquitville's early regulars when I pulled into the parking lot. The phone company trucks were gone. The construction worker pickups were now replaced with Volvo station wagons and passenger vans, a sure sign that „ the second shift, preschool-mom regulars, were clustered around the tables and booths, comparing notes and complaining.

Bertie Sexton had beat me to a back booth in the crowded, smoky restaurant. She saw me as I walked through the side door, but looked away. Her eyes were black mascara-rimmed circles and her pale face looked ghostly in the harsh daylight that poured through the many windows.

I ignored her while I grabbed a large coffee and a bacon biscuit, and made my way over to her booth. She waited until I was seated across from her to look up.

"Thank you for coming," she said, in heir baby soft voice. "I didn't know who else to talk to, what with Mr. Spivey being dead and Don, er, Mr. Evans, turning out to be not at all the man I thought he was. I figured with you being a woman and just coming into the business, well, there might be a chance to right some wrongdoings." There was an angry flash in her dark brown eyes, the flash of a woman scorned. I was fixin' to get the good stuff from Bertie Sexton and nothing suited me better.

"Well now, honey," I said, reaching across the table to cover her hand with my own, "you just take a deep breath and tell me all about it. You know, I had a feeling things were not quite right when I was in the other day. If they're not treating you right…" I let my voice trail off and tried my best to look sympathetic. As in, just tell old Aunt Maggie all about it.

That was all it took. Bertie scanned the little restaurant for interlopers, decided it was safe, and began to talk.