With that in mind, Erwin went back to the pages on his lap, and studied them for the fourth time.

Forgive me, Everville, McPherson the Elder had begun.

I don't much like having to write these things that I'm going to write, but I got to put down the truth while I still can, being as I'm the only one left to tell it.

The fact is, everyone in town knew what we did that night, and they all was happy we did it. But there was only me, Verl Nordhoff, and Richie Dolan who knew the whole story, and now Verl's dead and I guess Richie got so crazy he killed himself, so that leaves me.

I ain't writing this to save my soul. I don't believe in Heaven and Hell. They're just words. I ain't going any where when I'm dead except into the dirt. I just want to say all of it straight, just once, though it don't show Everville up real pretty.

What happened was this. On the night of August 27, 1929, me and Nordhoff and Dolan hung three people from a tree on the mountain. One of them we hung was a cripple, and I feel more ashamed for that than I do about the other two. But they was all in it together, and the only reason he was crippled was he had bad blood in him...

The phone rang, and Erwin, wrapped up in his study, ju mped. He waited for his answering machine to pick up the call, but it had been on the blink for weeks, and failed to do so. He let the phone go on finging till the caller got bored, returned to the confession. Where was he? Oh yes, the t about the bad blood.

... and the way he jerked around on that rope, and hollered even though he couldn't breathe, I believe all the things folks were saying about him and his wife and that animal child of his.

We didn't find no human bones in the house, like we thought we might, but there was other weird stuff, like the pictures painted on the walls, and these carvings the cfippie had made. That's why we set fire to the house, so's nobody would have to see any of that shit. And I don't regret none of that, because the son was definitely going after innocent children, and the mother was a whore from way back. Everybody knew that. She'd had a whorehouse fight here in town, only it had been closed down in the twenties, and that's when she'd lost her mind and gone to live in the house by the creek with her crazy family.

So then when Rebecca Jenkins disappeared and her body was found in the reservoir, there wasn't nobody doubted what had happened. They'd kidnapped her on her way from school and done whatever they'd done to her then thrown her body in the creek, and it had been washed down into the reservoir. Only there was no proof. People was talking about it, and they were saying it was pitiful that the police couldn't pin it on the whore and her son and her damn husband, because everyone knew they'd been seen with kids before, kids they'd found in Portland, and brought back to the house at night, and if they got away with it again, with a kid from fight here in Everville, nobody's kids were going to be safe.

So that's when the three of us decided to do something about it. Dolan had known the Jenkins girl because she'd used to come by his store, and when he'd think about what had happened to her he'd get choked up and he'd be ready to go hang the whore right there and then. Richie had a little girl of his own, who was right about Rebeeca's age, and he kept saying if we can't keep the children safe we weren't worth a damn. So that's what we did. We went out to the creek, we burned the house, and then we took the three of them up the mountain and hanged them.

And everyone knew what we'd done. The house burned almost to the ground and nobody came to put out the fire. they just stayed out of sight till we'd done what we'd done and we'd come back down again.

But that wasn't the end of it. The following year, the police caught a man from Scotts Mills who'd killed a girl in Sublimity and he told them he'd murdered Rebecca too, and dumped her in the creek.

The day I heard that I got crazy drunk, and I stayed drunk for a week. People looked at me different after that, like I'd been a hero because of what we'd done and now I was just a killer.

Dolan took it even worse, and he started getting real angry, saying it was everybody's fault cause everybody knew, and that was true in a way. Everville was as much to blame as we were, and I hope if this ever gets read people forgive me for writing it down, but it's the truth, I swear on my mother's grave.

And then, in the same abrupt manner it had begun, McPherson's testimony ended, begging more questions than it answered and all the more intriguing for that.

Reading it over again left Erwin more excited than ever. He got up and paced around his office, chewing over the options available to him. It was his duty to bring this secret to light, that was not in doubt. But if he did so in Festival Week, when the city was polishing itself to perfection, he would gain a much larger audience while making enemies of his friends and clients.

Part of him replied: So what? Hadn't he been telling himself it was time to move on while he was still young enough to relocate? And what better calling card could he have than to be the man who had uncovered the McPherson Conspiracy? The other part of him, the part that had grown comfortable in this corner of the world, said: Have a little care for people's feelings. Let this news out in Festival Week and you'll be a pariah.

He paced, and he chewed, and finally he decided not to decide, at least not yet. First he'd check his facts to be certain the confession wasn't just McPherson's invention. Find out if a child called Rebecca Jenkins had indeed been dredged from reservoir, if there had ever been a house by the creek, and f so, what had happened to those who'd occupied it.

He made a photocopy of McPherson's confession in Bettijane's office

(he'd given her the day off so she could drive into Portland and pick up her mother), then sealed the original in an envelope and locked it up in the safe. That Two done, he folded up the copy, slipped it into his jacket pocket, and went out for lunch at Kitty's Diner. He wasn't by nature a self-analytical man, but as he wandered down Main Street he couldn't help but be struck by the paradox of his present mood. Murder, suicide, and the dispatch of innocents filled his head, but he could not remember when he'd last felt so utterly content with his lot in life.

There were those among Dr. Powell's patients that late morning who had seen looks like this on Phoebe Cobb's face before, and they knew from experience that caution was the byword. Woe betide the patient who reported to reception five minutes late, or worse still attempted to justify their tardiness with some lame excuse. Being carted into the waiting room in six pieces would not have won a sympathetic smile from Phoebe in her present mood.

There were even one or two of the doctor's regulars Mrs. Converse, here for a fresh supply of blood pressure pills, and Arnold Heacock, in need of suppositories-who were familiar enough with Phoebe to have guessed the rea son for her demeanor, and would have been correct in their assumptions.

Five and a half pounds. How was that possible? She'd not touched a candy or a doughnut in three weeks. She hadn't allowed herself even to inhale near a plate of fried chicken.

How was it possible to eat so frugally, to deny her body everything it craved, and still put on five and a half pounds? was the air in Everville fattening these days?

Audrey Laidlaw had just stalked in, holding her belly.

"I have to see Dr. Powell," she said, before she'd even reached the counter.

"Is it an emergency?" Phoebe wanted to know, floating the question so as not to betray the trap beneath.

"Yes! Absolutely!"

"Then you should have someone drive you over to Phoebe replied. "they deal with emergencies there."