Sunset shook her head. “None. But there’s some things that have occurred to me, and I’m gonna try and run that around in my head a little more today, then go and do something about it.”

“Darling, sure would be good if you could figure this out before that meeting.”

“Frankly, that ain’t likely. But I’ll work on it. And Marilyn…”

“What, hon?”

“Things like they are, you’ve done right by me. I really am sorry about Pete.”

“I ain’t gonna lie to you, Sunset. Some mornings I wake up and I want to kill you. I know better, but I want to kill you, and I can’t understand why Pete’s gone or why you done it. Then a few minutes later, I know exactly why you done it. But I still don’t like it. I also miss Jones. I wouldn’t have taken him back or nothing, but I miss him sometimes.”

“I hurt about it a lot,” Sunset said. “I ain’t proud of it, but I thought he was gonna kill me. I ain’t never gonna put up with that kind of thing again.”

“Thing is, you and me, we got to stick together. We got to make sure things are good for Karen. Where is Karen?”

“Sleeping.”

“This late?”

“Yep, she’s a regular Rip Van Winkle. Kind of got into prettying herself up. Guess she’s getting to be a woman.”

“For that little boy she was seeing?”

“She’s kind of forgotten him. Think she’s got a crush on Hillbilly.”

“Better watch that.”

“He knows she’s a kid. It’s one-sided. She just walks around moon-eyed a lot.”

“You don’t know him well enough to know that, know if he’d turn it two-sided.”

“I think I do.”

“But you’ll watch it?”

“Sure.”

“Another thing. That girl you found, she was shot with a thirty-eight.”

“So I’ve heard. Damn, how’d you know that?”

“They done spread the word, honey. That gun, it could be Pete’s, and he could have done it, I suppose. I don’t like saying it, but he beat on you, he could have shot her if he found out she was carrying his baby and he didn’t want it. Could have been that way, and if you don’t know who did it, a case could be made. Hell, Jones has a thirty-eight in that glove compartment right there in front of you. Lots of people got thirty-eights.”

“I’m surprised you’d suggest that Pete done it.”

“Not because I like the idea, or know he did it, but it could save you some time, till you found out who. It might be the answer they need at the town meeting.”

“And if I don’t find out who did it? If it ain’t Pete?”

“Reckon he can take the blame good as any.”

Sunset saw Marilyn blink, then a tear squeezed out of her eye. She had a very fine face but the way the sun was shining on it the wrinkles were more visible, like little plowed lines, and her hair had come loose in places and dangled on her cheeks and forehead. Sunset thought it made her look like some of those Greek statues she had seen in books, thought of the story she had read about Helen of Troy, thought Marilyn might look as Helen would have looked at sixty. Still beautiful. Sort of face an artist would want to carve in granite.

When Marilyn wiped the tear away with the back of her hand, Sunset said, “We don’t need to talk about it no more.”

Marilyn nodded. “Let’s ride a little. Something I want to show you.”

They threw up a lot of dust on sandy back roads and came to a small house with a big porch, and sitting in a rocking chair on the porch was Bill Martin. He had a pair of crutches beside him.

Next to the house was an old blue truck speckled with rust, and a black Ford that wasn’t too old and looked in pretty good shape.

“What happened to him?” Sunset asked as they pulled into the yard.

“A tree kicked back on him. Got out of the way mostly, but it hit him some. He’s sprained up. Heard about it from Don Walker. Ain’t much goes on at the mill that Walker and Martin don’t blab about. They know everyone and everything.”

Marilyn killed the engine, said, “Fact is, I think he’s probably faking some to get a few days off work. He likes money, but he don’t like working for it.”

“Why are we here?”

“He borrowed some money from Jones. Thinks with Jones dead maybe I don’t know about it. Or so I figure. I heard about this extra car he’s got, and I got an idea.”

They got out of the truck and walked up to the porch. When they did, a dog that had been asleep under it, embarrassed he had been snuck up on, leaped awake and banged his head on the porch, started barking.

“Shut up!” Bill said. The dog, to show who was boss, barked a couple more times, went silent, lay back down in the soft sand beneath the steps. Sunset could see his beady eyes watching them as they walked up to the porch steps and stopped. The dog was a big black-and-white hound with cut-up floppy ears, souvenirs of past coon hunts.

“Good morning, Mrs. Jones, and Constable Sunset,” Bill said.

Sunset thought when he mentioned her name he sounded a little snide, but she let it pass, as it was really too early to just shoot him, and it wouldn’t look good, shooting a man on crutches.

“Good morning, Bill,” Marilyn said.

The door opened and three heads appeared. Children. Ranging from age nine to twelve, Sunset thought. The way their heads poked around the screen it looked as if they were stacked on top of one another, two girls, and at the bottom the youngest, a boy with a face like a rat, eyes like goat berries. Sunset figured none of them had ever seen the inside of a schoolhouse, such as it was. Camp Rapture’s schooling only went to the ninth grade. You wanted any more after that, you had to go over to Holiday, where it went up to the eleventh. Most didn’t bother after learning to read and write and cipher. Beyond there was just fieldwork or maybe store work, or for the damn lucky, barber college over in Tyler.

Sunset wasn’t even sure that when summer ended Karen would go back to school. She did, she’d have to go to Holiday, and she wasn’t sure how she’d manage it.

“Y’all get on back in there in the house,” Bill said. “Adults are talking out here. Get on, now.”

The heads disappeared as if a hole had opened up and they had fallen down it. The door slammed.

“Damn kids,” Bill said. “Can’t get no goddamn rest around here. Wife just had to have three of them, and then she up and died.”

“Pretty ungrateful,” Sunset said.

Bill gave her a look, and it was a look Sunset recognized as one of confusion. He was trying to decide if Sunset was poking fun or commiserating.

“I’ll get right to it,” Marilyn said. “You borrowed some money from my husband. It’s past due.”

The flesh on Bill’s face nearly fell off the bone.

“I ain’t forgot, Mrs. Jones. Not for a minute. Soon as I can get back to work, I’ll try and get that paid off.”

“How’d you come by the car?” Marilyn said.

“I traded an old syrup mill and the cooking goods for it. It didn’t run when I got it, but I’ve fixed on it.”

“It runs now?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I heard you had a car and a truck, and I think we can make a trade. What you owe Jones for the car. You’ll still have the truck to get around in and do work around here.”

“That’s a good car,” Bill said.

“I wouldn’t want a bad one.”

“I need that car.”

“You got a truck.”

“I like the car.”

“You owe me money.”

“Yes, ma’am. I reckon I do.” Bill studied on the situation for a while. “I could give you the truck and owe you some.”

“You’ve owed me for a long time, Bill. When you needed it, we helped you out. It did help you out, didn’t it?”

“Sure. It helped. I had to have help when the wife died.”

“So?”

“Well… I had to have it.”

“And we gave it to you.”

“Jones gave it to me. You didn’t want him to.”

“And with good reason. You still owe him. But the debts owed him are now owed me.”

“Things ain’t been good for me.”

“I understand your circumstances, but you still got a debt due, and me and Jones went a long time without mentioning it. This car will cover it, and I’ll call it square. I didn’t want to call it square, the car wouldn’t be enough. It would be the car and then some.”