I parked in front of Jean’s house and turned off the truck. Alex Shiften sat on the front porch, tipped back in a rocking chair, feet on the rail. A cigarette hung from her mouth and she watched me from behind her glassless frames. The corners of her mouth dipped as I got out. I heard the train in the distance, and wind moved the tree-tops, but I couldn’t feel it. The kudzu was still on the banks of the track.

I pulled myself taller and walked into the yard, twigs snapping under my feet. Alex never took her eyes off me. When I got closer, I saw that she had a knife in her hand, calmly shaving down a piece of wood. Her hair was uncombed, sticking up in spiky tufts, and the hard muscles of her arms moved as she whittled. She stood before I got to the steps, barefoot and wearing tight faded jeans.

“What do you want?” she demanded.

“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” I shot back.

“Caller ID,” she said, and smiled coldly.

I put one foot on the stairs and stopped. Her smile grew into a smirk as she folded the blade away and put the knife into her pocket, as if to say that she didn’t need it to deal with me. She leaned against the pillar, and I felt an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. “I need to talk to Jean,” I said.

“You always need to talk to Jean.”

“Is she here? It’s important.”

“Gone,” Alex replied.

“To work?”

Alex shrugged and looked away, smoke exploring the air around her head.

“Damn it, Alex! Is she at work?”

She stared down at me and slowly gave me the finger. An unrecognizable sound escaped my throat and I pushed past her, into the house. She didn’t follow, which surprised me. I’d expected a fight.

The screen slammed behind me and I was in shadow, breathing musty air that smelled of cabbage. Alex’s voice followed me. “Look all you want. It won’t change anything. Jean’s not here and she’s got no use for you. So take one last look and then get the hell out.”

The rooms were small, with low ceilings, the furniture old and shabby. I moved across the sagging floor in light that fingered through dusty windows to play upon my feet and the thin green rug. I passed the television, saw a framed photo of my mother there, and continued into the kitchen, knowing better than to look for one of me or of Ezra. Pots were stacked in the rack to dry, two places set at the narrow table under the window facing the backyard and the tracks that ran straight into the distance. An African violet was on the windowsill, its purple blossom a bright splash of lonely color.

I called Jean’s name but knew already that Alex was right; I knew too well the feel of an empty house. I looked into the bedroom with no real hope and saw the single neatly made bed. I noticed the neat stack of catalogs on the table next to it, the face-down novel, and the water glass on its coaster. I remembered how I used to sit by Jean’s bed at night and talk of childish things. Even then she used a coaster. She’d said that wood, like people, needed protection. I understood now that she’d been talking more about herself than about the table. I didn’t get it-not then.

Suddenly, I missed her. Not the idea of her, but the intimacy we’d once shared, back when the world was smaller and sharing secrets was an easier thing to do. I put my fingers on the table, looked around the room, and wondered if they shared laughter here, if there was joy in their lives. I hoped so, but I doubted it. Alex was all about control. And Jean, she wanted direction, needed it desperately, and she’d take her cue from anybody.

I searched for some sign of our shared past, anything to indicate that she thought of those days or missed them at all, but there was nothing. My eyes traveled over the bare walls, the bookshelves, and then back to the bed. I turned to leave as the train passed so close, it shook the house; it screamed its mournful scream and was past, fading like memories of childhood.

I was almost to the door when it registered. I stopped and turned, walked back to the tall, narrow bookshelf in the corner, and stooped, my knees popping like an old man’s. Wedged into the corner of the bottom shelf, almost as if hidden, was a tattered copy of The Hobbit, my gift to Jean on her ninth birthday. The cover was creased, the spine broken and fragile under my fingers. I’d put an inscription on the second page. I still remembered it: “For Jean-because little people can have adventures, too.” I opened the book, but the second page was gone. Torn out or fallen out, I didn’t know.

I put the book carefully back on the shelf.

Outside, I found Alex in her chair. “Satisfied?” she asked.

I fought to keep my temper down. Angering Alex wouldn’t get me what I wanted.

“Do you know when to expect her?” I asked.

“No.”

I removed a business card from my wallet and extended it to Alex. She looked at it but didn’t take it. I placed it on the porch rail. “Will you ask Jean to call me when you see her? My cell-phone number is on the bottom.”

“She won’t call you, but I’ll tell her.”

“It’s important, Alex.”

“You already said that.”

“Please. Just tell her.” Alex hitched her hands behind her head. “If she calls me, I won’t need to come back and bother you,” I said. “Think about it.”

“What’s it about?” she asked.

“That’s for me and Jean,” I told her.

“I’ll find out anyway.”

“That’s fine, but not from me.” I stepped off the porch, turned, and gestured at my card on the rail. “It’s the number on the bottom.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

I moved into the yard, anxious to be away from Alex and her quiet smugness; then I heard the knife blade click open and the sound of a small laugh. “I know what it’s about anyway,” Alex said. I kept walking, tired of her bullshit. I was almost to the truck. “‘You have the right to remain silent… ’” she said, and I froze.

“What did you say?” I asked, stepping away from the truck, keys dangling in my hand. Her smile spread like a cancer.

“‘Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law.’” She was on her feet, hands on the rail, hips thrust against the wood, leaning out, taunting. I walked toward her and she leaned farther out over the rail, her mouth open beneath shiny eyes; she was enjoying herself.

“‘If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you.’” Then she laughed, either at my expression or at her own cleverness. Both perhaps.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked.

She looked down at me and I up at her. The moment drew out. “We met a very pretty lady,” she finally said. “Me and Jean.”

“What?”

“A very pretty lady. A very curious lady.” She waited, as if for me to speak, but I couldn’t. “A very well-armed lady.”

“Mills.” The name tunneled past my lips.

“She had lots of fun questions,” Alex said.

I knew that Alex was toying with me, twisting this in my guts for her own amusement. I shrank beneath a terrible sense of failure, of impending doom. I should have spoken to Jean immediately after I learned of Ezra’s body. I should have warned her, used my law degree for something good for a change. But at first, I’d been scared, that day at Pizza Hut, scared that she would walk away, leave me forever. Scared that I would see the truth in her eyes, that she had killed him. Scared that my suspicions would be made irrevocable fact. Scared of how I’d handle that. Then, for days, I’d been drunk and full of self-pity. I’d said nothing, and opened the door to ruin. What had Jean told her? How far down the road had she traveled while I wallowed in the trough of my fetid marriage and wasted life? I tasted despair like bile. Mills was no fool. Of course she would investigate Jean.

“Questions about you,” Alex continued.

I felt the return of a certain calm. “Why do you hate me so much?” I asked.

“I don’t hate you at all,” she said. “You’re just in my way.”