Chapter 9

Shreds of the dream clung to the dark corners of consciousness like cobwebs in an abandoned house---images of violence mixed with residual arousal leaving a hollowness of loss and failure.  Harold tingled with wiry unease unable to recapture sleep.

In the twilight place between waking and oblivion it played out in flashes of memory and imagination like a movie trailer.  His shock matching that of the Marie's when David forced her back into her car after the wreck---the rutted lane and old barn by Little Brushy Creek---her piteous pleading and promises---promises in return---the awful silence and immobility---David's stony silence in the courtroom---that cynical look of bemusement.

David had known he was going to die and yet he smiled.  Marie had known also.  It had taken so long, and she struggled still.  Harold rolled from bed.  Daylight stilled the voices and dimmed the images.  The mechanics of another day would drive them away.  His inquisitor delivered a parting lash.

You've got lots of days, Harold.  But you ain't got no future.  There's just daylight and dark until that final night.  Then what?

 

Jill said her last minute good-byes as she pulled on her coat and picked up her work.  Her daughter sucked on her lower lip, fixing her mother with a solemn look, watching every movement.  She could almost credit the child with deliberate intent, a tactic to give her a daylong guilt trip for so callously abandoning her.  It was like she was saying, "If you're going to do this to me, you're going to have to look me in the eye."

Raven bounced Mirabelle on her knee but it didn't elicit a smile.

"Mama---no," she said suddenly, at least that's what it sounded like to Jill.

"Mama has to go to work, Baby Girl," explained Jill firmly, fighting against a compulsion to take the baby into her arms.  If she started that it would be even more difficult to leave.

"When Mommy comes back we'll have a long weekend.  Mommy doesn't have to go to work for five days."

Mirabelle didn't comprehend the words, but she knew what was going on.

"No," she said clearly.

"Mommy loves you," said Jill, giving her a quick kiss and moving toward the door before her own resolve could be eroded by this new tactic.

She shut the door and stood silently on the porch, listening for Mirabelle to start crying.  Raven said that the crying never lasted long, and Jill wondered if it were possible that the baby only cried as long as she thought there was a chance that her mother would hear her and come back.  Child psychologists said that a baby's crying when the primary care giver left was grieving.  Gone meant no longer existing.

Nonsense, she thought.  She doesn't think I'm dead when I'm gone. 

"Mothers who don't know any psychology are probably a lot happier," she grumbled to herself as she negotiated the wet steps in her high heels.

Behind her she heard Raven's voice and an answering giggle from Mirabelle.  The pang of jealousy she felt irritated her.  She was momentarily tempted to call in sick, but was too much her aunt's child for that.

"I'm going to work, Aunt Mirabelle," she said as she slid into the car and deposited her books on the passenger side seat.

The foggy morning was thick with unseasonable warmth.  Moisture blackened trunks flanked the blacktop, their limbs forking upward into the milky air.  Visibility was down to perhaps a hundred feet and only occasionally did she meet a car with its lights off.  Noticing that the gas needle was nearly horizontal, she stopped at Whalen's to top off the tank.  Richard complained that her car never had enough gas and warned that the bad habit would strand her some day, probably in a pouring rain.

As she came back out after paying, a rust bucket of a pickup limped to the pumps, its breaks squealing their high pitched complaint to punctuate the dieseling cough as the worn out engine choked to a stop.  Harold Porter got out stiffly, looking as forlorn as his vehicle.  She wondered that anyone could see the sad little man as anything but a victim of circumstance, as someone who had made a terrible mistake when he was little more than a child.

"Good morning, Mr. Porter," she said with a smile.

He looked up in surprise, obviously unused to people talking to him---an invisible man.

"Miss Carter," he said, blinking before eyes shifted downward uncomfortably.

"Do you have plans for the holiday?" she asked impulsively.

"Holiday?"

"Thanksgiving.  If you aren't doing anything, Richard and I would like to have you over for dinner."

Even as she said it she flinched inwardly, fearing Richard's reaction.

"I couldn't impose, Ma'am," he stammered.

"It is no imposition," she said as if speaking to a child.  "Now, unless you have another invitation, I'll be very upset if you don't accept mine."

"I don't know if I can make it," he said uncertainly.

"I'll set an extra place.  We will eat at around two o'clock.  Can I count on you?"

"I guess so."

Throughout the conversation, Harold had looked only fleetingly at her, averting his gaze if there was eye contact.  Now he busied himself with the task of filling the tank.

Jill smiled warmly as she walked around to her car.  "I will see you then, Mr. Porter."

He gave an abbreviated nod, staring intently at the pump as if it took all his concentration to get just the right combination of numbers on the meter.  Jill envisioned his awkward unease tomorrow and wondered if she were being unintentionally cruel.  Would witnessing their family life only accent his own loneliness?  She wanted to give the poor man something, a moment of feeling like someone cared about him perhaps.

She thought about him all the way to campus.  Her parking spot sat near a large polished granite sign engraved with the letters BCCC, standing for Blue Creek Community College.  The kids had long ago taken to calling it BC College, Stone Age U., or simply Bedrock.  The sign usually made her smile, but not today.

She had acted impulsively, and already regretted it.  Harold would be uncomfortable.  Worse, Richard would be upset.

So how are you going to get out of this mess, Jill? she asked herself.

By making a larger production of it, she answered herself.  I will invite Raven and Shane, and then, to keep Harold from feeling like the only one without a family, I will invite Carl too.  I should have thought about him earlier.

She walked to her first class elaborating plans for the way she had found to get through the situation she had created.

Raven and I can take care of the meal and Mirabelle while the men watch the game.  With four of them, there should not be too much social pressure to start or keep a conversation going.

But there was one final sticky point.  She had to find the right way to break the news to Richard.

 

His silence was worse than the lecture she had anticipated.  Richard accomplished the mini-rituals of stowing his gear, changing into civilian clothes, and cleaning up for supper with set jaw and quick decisive movements.  His disapproval hung in the air, precluding the familiar sounds of a family reuniting after separate days at work.  At dinner five minutes of the clipped, civil conversation, if one could call monosyllabic answers delivered without eye contact conversation, were all she could take.

Richard never started fights, but his unconsciously intimidating mood was beginning to make her angry.  What she was doing was right.  It was a decency, and she refused to feel guilty for it.

"Richard Carter," she said evenly, "if you have something to say to me, then please say it."

"All right, Jill," he said, dropping his silverware for emphasis.

"You are angry," she said, as if surprised.

"Of course I'm angry.  I'm angry because you got something started that I have no intention of going through with.  It's going to cause an argument, and it didn't have to happen because you should have known better."

She placed her own silverware down carefully, unconsciously concentrating on arranging it as it had been when she set the table.  It was an "undoing," a physical manifestation of her desire to start all over.

"I know you wanted this to be a family celebration, Dear.  But Mirabelle is too young to remember it.  I thought it would be nice to share it with Shane and Raven and---"

"Shane and Raven fine.  Not Porter."

"But he's such a sad little man.  Richard, he has no one.  Can you imagine what holidays must be like for people like him?"

"I'm afraid I can't.  And I don't care to."

She was getting nowhere.  In fact, he was succeeding in making her feel guilty.

"Don't be like this, Richard.  You are a compassionate man, and you yourself have made mistakes."

"What he did wasn't a mistake."

"He was only a child when that happened."

"So was she, Jill!"

She rose from the table with a lump in her throat.  She took her uneaten food to the counter and wrapped it in plastic.  Mirabelle stared intently at her father.  The argument had never risen above conversation volume, but she had picked up on the serious tone and had remained silent, watching first one parent, then the other.  Suddenly she shoved at her food, knocking it to the floor.  Jill bent silently to clean the mess.  Through a part in the hair falling to obscure her expression, Richard tears on her cheek.

"I'm sorry," he said, bending to help her.  "I just don't want him here, Jill."

"If you knew him better, you'd see that he's---he's like a little lost boy.  He's shy and awkward and just so alone."

"For such a smart woman, you are unbelievably naive.  What made you think that I would want him in my home, near you and Mirabelle?"

"I just wish you weren't so angry with me."

"Well, what did you expect, Jill?  What were you thinking when you . . . put us in this . . . situation?  He helped kill that girl?"

"I thought that his cousin did that . . . that he was just . . . "

"He was there!  He watched.  Who knows what else he did!"

"I don't think he's capable of harming anyone," she said.  "I think he was a victim too, perhaps a victim of his own bad judgment, but a victim nonetheless.  He was a socially inept boy who followed his older cousin to whom he looked up.  If there is a chance for him now, a second chance---"

"No one gets that, Jill," he interrupted.  "It may have been sad, or stupid, or just a matter of bad luck, but you never get a second chance once you've thrown your life away.  What's done can never be undone."

"If people gave him a chance he might be able to salvage something of his life."

"He could do what?  Forget it?  Get over it?  How do you get over taking another person's life?"

Now Mirabelle began to cry.  He took the bowl from her.

"Take care of Mirabelle," he said softly.

Jill picked her up, thinking about what he was sayging.

"How do you get over taking another person's life?"

She wondered if he was speaking of Harold or himself.  The nightmares (if he was telling her the truth) came less frequently now, but the Somali boy he had killed in the street fighting of Mogadishu still haunted him.  How could it not?

"I'm sorry," she said.  I should have thought through the consequences."

"So you'll tell him not to come?"

"No.  I am just apologizing for doing it without consulting you," she said firmly.  "But as you said, what's done cannot not be undone.  I will not inflict that cruelty upon him.  If you cannot forgive me for that, then perhaps I do not know you as well as I think."

He nodded.  "Okay, I'll tell him."

"You will not," she said sharply.

After a moment of stony silence he nodded his acceptance.  "I suppose we'll make it through Thanksgiving somehow."

"I didn't want us to make it through," she said, trying to will her eyes to stop welling with tears. 

Mirabelle had stopped whimpering, but looked at him as if she had understood the argument, which of course was impossible for a child of her age.  He reached for her, but she turned away, clinging tightly to Jill.

"Women!" he said in a weak attempt at humor.  "They always stick together."

Jill held Mirabelle close and looked at Richard with wide tear-deepened eyes.  He tried to believe that her judgment was better than his.

"We'll do it," he said at last.  "I just hope . . . well, please don't get us any more involved with him than we already are.  Think about his sadness or whatever . . . I don't want that in ours."

Now it was her time to nod.

"Don't turn him into some sort of reclamation project," he continued.  "I'm trying to protect us, Babe.  I don't think he's dangerous, but there's something . . . I can't . . . it's like he's unclean . . . corrupted."

Richard was unable to tell her what he really felt because, even to him, it sounded irrational, ridiculous.  The very thought of the man near his family gave him the same feeling as touching a dead rat.  Harold Porter's life had come to an effective end the day he and his cousin abducted Marie Preslar.  The people had ended the miserable life of David Knauts and should have done the same with Harold Porter.  It might even have been a mercy to him.

"We just have so much to be thankful for, Richard.  That poor man has next to nothing."

"I've said all I'm going to say, Jill."

"I should have talked it over."

"What's done is done."

He thought of inviting Guidry also, thinking that the former New Orleans cop's demeanor might make Porter uncomfortable enough to leave early.  But Jill would see through the stratagem, and the last thing they needed was for this to snowball into something really serious.

"What have you heard from Marta?" he asked, deliberately steering away from the prickly problem.

"She wants us to come to Merida for Christmas," said Jill trying to sound more cheerful.

"I wish we could.  It would be nice to see them again."

"Remember how beautiful it was?"

"The Paris of Mexico, just like they say."

"Remember the wedding?"

"Remember it!  I thought it would never end.  I mean the reception, or fiesta, or whatever that party was afterwards.  I must have been introduced to over two hundred close relatives!" said Richard managing a laugh.

Both were trying to move on, but their disagreement lingered like a persistent odor.  They spoke of Christmas and family, but first they had to make it past a Thanksgiving that would now be an ordeal.

"It would be nice to have such a large and close knit family," said Jill wistfully. 

Jill longed for a family the way only someone who has never had one can.  It wasn't that she had been raised without a loving home; her Aunt Mirabelle had given her all the love and security any child could have hoped for.  The rest of her family, however, was de facto nonexistent.  Her mother had abandoned her, and had in turn been abandoned by her father.  Both had vanished into outer world, seeking their own selfish desires without thought of their daughter other than the occasional self serving letter or phone call.  Her grandparents she only knew from stories told by her Aunt Mirabelle.

Richard's family was more extensive, but not close:  a widowed and remarried mother living in Florida, and an aunt and uncle in Michigan.  All of them keeping in touch through decreasingly frequent telephone calls and the occasional Christmas card.

Like the scattered embers of a once warm fire, he thought morosely, only the memory remains, and grows dim.

"I know our money is tight right now, Richard, but can't we go and see them at Christmas?"

"We'll make it work," he said, as he picked up Mirabelle.  "What do you think, Baby Girl?  Want Daddy and Mommy to take you to see your Aunt Marta?"

He pulled Jill to him, and they embraced in a group hug.  Mirabelle smiled her two toothed smile, having decided that everything was okay now.  Richard held them close and tried to dispel an irrational premonition that they too would some day too be scattered by the winds change into cooling embers.

"We'll be all right," he said.  "We'll be all right."

 

The hider, for all his fascination, didn't understand them.  He never would because he couldn't conceive of them as people.  Women were as aliens to him, as if they had arrived in an by UFO or materialized in a time machine.  They were a terrifying mystery and a seductive temptation just beyond his reach.  He moved on tiptoes through the loose leaves, cringing at the noise, but pushed beyond caution by his desperate need to get closer to the window.  All thoughts of being caught were secondary now as he crept closer to the cabin, whispering for her to stay in view, to leave the curtains open and the lights on.

Disappointment!  She had only gone into the bedroom to get a sweater.  The window blinked out, so he shuffled quickly around the corner to position himself where he had been earlier.

High in the trees overhead the limbs and few remaining leaves glowed dully against the dark sky.  A car was coming down the hill.  Now he heard the engine and scrambled for cover.  He cringed behind the bole of a tree.

Too small!

In panic he dove to the ground, dashing his forearm on a rock.  Stifling a moan he froze as headlights swept over him.  When the driver failed to turn off the ignition immediately, he knew he was caught.  He tensed, ready to spring to his feet and run through the woods back toward the road.  Then the lights went out and the engine died.  He held his breathe, night blind, and trembling.  He felt the pulse in his neck and left arm.  The car door slammed and footfalls scraped through the leaves going away to his right, toward the canoe rental.  He released a ragged breath.

 

"I'm glad you're finally home," she said with a nervous smile as Shane came into the living room.  "Thanks for calling."

He put his coat on the rack and went to wash up.

"I got a chance to pick up some extra money helping Mr. Holland load cattle this afternoon.  We had trouble with a truck is the reason it ran took so long.  Hope you weren't worried."

"No.  I wasn't worried, but I would have been . . . you know . . . if you hadn't called," she said.

He paused momentarily with the towel in his face, surprised that she had followed to the bathroom.  The cabin was small enough that she could easily have carried on the conversation from the couch.  That she was obviously nervous worried him.  She had something important to tell him.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing.  It's just . . . I've built a fire."

"Are you cold?"

"I just wanted it to be . . . be cozy," she said.  "I mean . . . this is a cabin and rustic and all . . . and a fire is just a nice thing to have on a . . . on a cold night."

He hesitated, unsure of how to respond.

"Would you like to sit by my fire?"

"It's all I ever wanted," he said softly.  It sounded lame, artificial, a line stolen from some movie.

Her dark eyes held his a moment, flitted away and came back.

A tight smile.  "Come then," she said.

They sat in silence, staring into the flames.  Raven leaned against him, laying her head tentatively on his shoulder, but her tension made him afraid to move.  It wasn't a scene from the movies.  Their relationship was too flawed, her injuries too deep.  As much as he wanted it, they were not going to suddenly fall together.  This was some kind of step, but he had no illusions that he could take the initiative.  He had vowed to wait for her forever, and, as juvenile as that seemed, and as much as he wanted it otherwise, he meant it.  It was a vow.

Raven felt arm as he draped it gently, yet awkwardly, over her shoulder.  She stiffened reflexively, but forced herself to relax.

"Shane, I don't want you to think . . . I can't . . . I mean, I don't want you to expect . . . not just yet . . . I'm---"

"Shhhh.  Just let me just hold like this.  That's all I want."

"It's not," she said shaking her head.

"It's enough for now," he said, gripping her shoulder lightly, then immediately releasing the pressure when he felt her tense again.  "I've told you:  what I want isn't as important as what we want.  So don't worry.  Just be with me tonight."

"I'm trying, Shane.  I know you and . . . I've never trusted any . . . anyone like I do you," she said with a steady voice, although she trembled.  "But even this is . . . hard.  I have to force myself to not move away.  I shouldn't be like this."

"I know . . . well, maybe I don't.  But you've told me what it's like, and . . . you know I could never hurt you, don't you."

She nodded.

"I would never do anything to . . . to hurt you," he said.

Intellectually, she understood that, but her fear was that of a child afraid of drowning trying to learn to swim.  The fear of water could be easily overcome with a child's implicit and unconditional trust in its parent.  If she could unconditionally trust any man, it would be Shane.  But not yet, and maybe never.  She knew this about herself, and it angered her that it was so.

She kissed him lightly on the cheek.  He thought that she was signaling the end of their brief intimacy, but she surprised him with another kiss, this one on the lips, simultaneously deliberate and tentative.  Pulling back, she looked directly into his eyes with a nervous smile.  Aroused despite the caution he intended and had promised, he moved impulsively.

His sudden movement made her recoil.

This is my own fault, she thought as she leaned away from him, closing her eyes in order to think more clearly.  Rational thought, however, was in full retreat; adrenaline was feeding a panic attack.  She tried to will herself to be still, to fight back the urge to flee.

Shane won't hurt me.

But Shane misunderstood her reaction.  As she leaned back, his longing colored the action as an invitation, as if she were drawing him down to her.  He leaned toward her and his hand went unconsciously to her breast.  Raven put her hands on his chest, just restraining herself from shoving him and scrambling away.

"Don't," she gasped.

Shane suddenly realized what was happening.

"Sorry," he mumbled, looking away.  "I . . . I'm sorry." 

In the awkward silence that followed, the fireplace hissed and crackled preternaturally loud.  He got up to stir the fire just to have something to do while he thought.

"I'm sorry that I uh---" he began again while poking at the flames.

"You didn't do anything wrong, Shane," she said in clinical tone that would have been comical had the circumstances been different.  "I think . . . well, you see what we're up against."

Then she broke down.  "I wouldn't blame you if you . . .  just gave up on me . . .  just left."

"Where would I go, Raven?  Everything I want is here.  Now I know what you did tonight---what you were trying to do.  And I know that you wouldn't put yourself through that if you didn't care for me."

"Shane, I---"

"Let me finish.  I do want you, but only when you're ready."

"But, can't you see?  I may never---"

"I don't care.  If there's even a remote possibility . . . I'll wait my whole life if that's what it takes.  But that's not what it's all about---the physical part, I mean.  That may sound like something a stupid kid would say, but it's how I feel."

"I believe you."

He turned to look up at her for the first time since he started stirring the fire.

"I love you for what you were trying to do tonight, Raven."

"I didn't mean it to turn into . . . "  She let the thought trail away softly before continuing in a clinical tone.  "I think I'm getting closer . . .better.  If I could just . . ."

Raven pulled her sweater around her and fidgeted with the buttons.

"It would be a lot easier for you to just give it up, wouldn't it?" he asked.

She realized that it was not just a comment.  He was offering her a way out.

"Do you know what all the psychologists say?" she said.  "They say that someone with my . . . background should be promiscuous, have non-existent self-esteem, and even crave being abused.  Sometimes I think that would be more normal than the way I am.  But I'm . . . I don't know.  I don't know anything except that I don't want you to leave me.  So no, Shane.  Losing you wouldn't be easier.  I couldn't stand that."

"Well then there's hope, isn't there?"

"I honestly don't know, Shane.  I honestly don't know."

"Well I do," he said resolutely.  "I'm going to take care of you.  And I'm going to be when you need me.  And I'm going to make you happy."

 

You teasing bitch!

The watcher had seen it all.  Like the guy inside, he thought they were about to get it on.  Then the ice queen pulls the plug on him.

You lead him on---get him all hot and bothered---then just when he thinks he's about to score, you slam the door in his face.  Why do you all act like that?  Get something out of making some poor slob crawl around like a dog waiting for crumbs.  Wave it in his face then kick him when he comes to get it.

He relieved himself against a tree, hunching to escape the cold.  He wondered if he should stay until she undressed for bed.  It was late, however, and she probably wouldn't come through for him any more than she had for the kid she was jerking around.

"You're one of the worst!" he hissed as he zipped his fly.  "Somebody ought to put you where you belong---right where you belong."

 

November 19

Thursday morning dawned unnaturally warm, a reprise of Indian summer pleasing to everyone but the deer hunters.  Season opened hard upon the holiday, and most hunters hoped for a cool down.  Camouflaged males of all ages had scouted for sign and erected stands for the past few weeks.  In the coming week countless deer would be bagged and tagged by hunters from eight to eighty.  Richard was nearly run over as he stepped from the car by a ten-year-old whose broad smile and the orange vest he already sported evidenced his enthusiasm for the upcoming adventure.  In the hills killing one's first deer was a rite of passage.  Richard enjoyed the stalking, but he would never kill for sport again.

An overhead bell rang as he entered Barber's Cash, evoking a nostalgic movie scene.  The aproned proprietor, broom in hand, peered through thick glasses and finally smiled in recognition.

"Morning Richard.  What ingredient did the Misses decide she couldn't make dinner without?"

He laughed at the not-so-prescient guess.  "Would you believe sage and nutmeg?"

"Stuffing and pumpkin pie," said Barber with a satisfied look on his flushed face.  "Being from a more civilized part of the world, I'll bet she asked you to get fresh nutmeg---one of them nut things you grind like on them cookin' shows.  If that's what she wants, you're out of luck.  All I got is the powdered stuff."

"She said the ground would do."

"Lucky I stayed open at all.  Got my own dinner to attend.  Only open ‘til noon."  Barber put aside his broom and motioned for Richard to follow.  "Spice and condiment section is over here with the baking goods."

"I always feel sorry for the people who have to work through the holidays," said Richard.

This was one holiday he might prefer working through.  He reconsidered.  The idea of Harold Porter alone with his family was even less appealing than having to suffer his presence with them.

"I wouldn't have any choice if I lived in a bigger town," replied Barber.  "I never realized how lucky I was living here until I started talking to other independent grocers.  The Walmart invasion's put the most of them out of business.  No chance of that here.  Too small market for ‘em."

Barber's words trailed off as he squinted at small tins and bottles.

"Here you go," he said, retrieving a red, white and blue two inch tin.  "Spice O' Life's Finest Nutmeg.  Mrs. Carter will probably want the large box of sage.  I'll check you out."

Richard followed him to the register.

"Gave Melody the whole day off.  Made me feel right virtuous.  Turkey for dinner, I guess."

"With all the trimmings," said Richard.  "My wife researched the menu."

"Yeah.  I forget they don't have Thanksgiving in other countries.  Better get this home pretty quick then.  She'll be needing the sage before she puts the bird in the oven."

"It's already cooking."

"Ain't the same if you don't cook stuffing in the bird." 

Barber punched the antique register's metal keys eliciting a mechanical song that came straight from the back lot of MGM.  As the drawer sprang open he frowned over the top of his bifocals. "That'll be . . . let's see . . . six forty three."

Richard handed him a ten.  "Thanks.  You have a nice holiday, Mr. Barber."

"You too, Richard."

Not much chance of that, he said to himself as he went out onto the cracked sidewalk.

 

A perfectly browned turkey was surrounded by every element of a traditional Midwestern Thanksgiving dinner: glazed sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, giblet gravy, sage dressing, green beans, mashed potatoes and home made rolls.  A triple tiered wire pie stand stood on the nearby buffet holding pumpkin and pecan pies.  Formal settings were arranged on linen around a table set for six, one being Mirabelle's high chair.  Carl Hoag had called in his regrets earlier, saying that he had to be at the clinic until three.  Richard sat at the head of the table, Jill at the opposite end, Shane and Raven on the left, Mirabelle next to Jill.  Harold Porter, looking as comfortable as if he were on the witness stand, sat between to Richard's right.

Eager to get through the ordeal, Richard picked up the carving knife.

"It is Thanksgiving," said Jill,  "Should we not say grace first, Dear?"

"I forgot," he mumbled.

"Forgive my husband," she said, trying to lighten the mood.  "This is our first holiday dinner with guests.  There is a learning curve I suppose."

After another awkward moment of silence, she spoke again.  "Richard?"

"Oh yeah," he said, suddenly realizing that it was his place to ask the blessing.

He closed his eyes, waiting for inspiration, but all that came to him was the question of why Harold Porter had to be there.  He finally stumbled through a hypocritical prayer of thanks for food, family, home, and country.  As an afterthought he asked a blessing on all seated at the table.  Shane echoed his amen, both surprising and oddly irritating him.  When he opened his eyes he caught Jill's smile of gratitude.  It made him feel small and selfish.

Despite Jill's preparation and continuing effort, Harold's presence and Richard's stiffness held a dead hand on any semblance of conviviality.  Conversation languished, consisting of mainly of compliments to the cook that were, though sincere, too oft-repeated.  The clink of cutlery and crystal soon punctuated what became a painful silence.  Jill found herself relieved when the men adjourned to the living room to watch football.

Jill deboned the remains of the turkey and stowed the trimmings in the refrigerator while Raven helped by entertaining Mirabelle.

"That was an unmitigated disaster," she muttered softly.

"The meal was delicious," said Raven with a little too much enthusiasm."

"No one tasted a thing.  I only wanted to help that poor man, but I've ruined everything."

"You didn't."

"I did.  Couldn't you see how uncomfortable it made him?  And the men acted as if he wasn't even there.  We only emphasized pathetic his life is.  Richard was right."

From the front room came an enthusiastic cheer at some wonder performed on the playing field.

"It sounds like things are better now," said Raven.  "I'll see if they'd like some dessert."

"Maybe," said Jill skeptically.  "There is nothing like mindless violence to encourage male bonding."

When they went to the living room with a coffee tray and the pie rack, they found Shane and Richard engrossed in the game.

"Where is Harold?" asked Jill.

"Said he had to go," said Shane without taking his eyes from the screen.

"Get rid of it!  Get rid of it!  Wow!  What a pass!" enthused Richard.

Jill muttered an uncharacteristic curse under her breath.

"Pie and coffee anyone?" asked Raven.

 

November 20

"Speaking of which, where were you, Carter?" asked Guidry with a straight face as they examined the ground outside Porter's kitchen window looking for shell casings.  "You taking pot shots at old Harold for crashing your Thanksgiving dinner?"

"Very funny," said Richard without humor.

Like the abortive firebombing, the shot fired through the window didn't seem a serious attempt at homicide, which was not to say it wasn't serious.

"Someone's trying to run him off," said Richard.

"Whole damned thing reminds me of Wiley Coyote," said Guidry with a laugh.  "Guy must've gone to the Acme Assassin School."

High on the kitchen wall a small slug was still partially visible, having had just enough momentum to lodge in the soft gypsum wallboard.  Guidry dug it out carefully and held it to the light.

"Son of a bitch," he mumbled, "a homemade dum-dum."

He gave the mutilated slug to Richard.  It had mushroomed only slightly despite the X someone had cut into it after flattening its soft lead nose.  A more powerful round would have fragmented on impact making a horrible wound had it connected with tissue.

"Lands and grooves are still visible," said Richard.  "We ought to be able to match it if we find the gun.  Might even get a tool mark match if we find the blade used to score it."

"Twenty-two.  Not much of a stand-off weapon," said Guidry, shaking his head at the ineptness of the attack.  "Okay for popping a guy behind the ear, but this guy goes to all the trouble of cobbling up a dumdum for a varmint rifle---why not use a deer rifle.  This looks like a .22 short.  Wrong angle and the thing would bounce off the skull, even if it hadn't come through the glass first."

"Which is why I think it was meant to scare Porter into leaving.  Think Steve Preslar's got an alibi this time?"

"If he's learned anything, he does.  Probably had Billy Bob or whoever his butt hole buddy is helped him doctor his hemorrhoids this time."

 

Preslar seemed genuinely surprised by news of the shooting, but he had no alibi.  He told them he'd had Thanksgiving dinner with his mother, sister and brother-in-law, and then had gone directly home around four in the afternoon where he went directly to bed because he wasn't feeling well and there was " . . . nothing worth watching on the damned television."  His family verified the first part of his story, but his neighbors were away all evening, so the last part of his story couldn't be verified.

"Was it my imagination or did Preslar seem disappointed to learn that old Harold hadn't even been wounded?" asked Guidry on the way back to town.

"It's only against the law to kill or attempt to kill someone.  Last time I checked, wishing someone was dead isn't."

"If it was, my ex would be behind bars," said Guidry with a laugh.  "Come to think of it, me too, because I wish someone would just put that poor bastard out of his misery."

"Don't say things like that, Ron."

"Come off it, Carter.  You ain't exactly in love with the guy either.  Fact is, no one wants him around.  Even he knows that.  Thing is, what the hell's keeping him here anyway?  Why didn't he try to get him a new start somewhere else?"

"This is his home, I guess."

"Home for him is prison, Carter.  That's where he's spent most of his life, and what he learned there didn't exactly prepare him for a normal life in Hicksville.  I mean, what did he expect

Like he comes back and everything is forgiven?  Or is it that he couldn't wait to get back to fill his much anticipated role of the paroled sex fiend come back to menace the community?  He's about as welcomed here as a wet dog in a sleeping bag.  Wonder is that a lynch mob isn't after him instead of just some doofus with gopher plinker."

"Maybe he just doesn't know of anywhere else to go.  Not very realistic, but maybe he just doesn't have any imagination."

"Hell, I guess none of us is too realistic.  I mean, take a look at the two of us, Carter.  Police work!  What the hell for?  Damned depressing ‘cause you seldom . . . make that never . . . see justice done."

Richard nodded, remembering a lecture on correct evidence gathering procedures.  "Remember, people, criminals get off on technicalities because the law is technicality."  Still, as far as he was concerned, if the state had the right to take away a man's life, liberty and property, it wasn't unreasonable to make it dot all the I's and cross all the T's.

"As if the damned job isn't hard enough," continued Guidry in his sour mood.  "Gotta keep all the sewage you wade through away from your family.  Take it from me, Carter.  If you can't do that, just get the hell out of business or you'll mess everything up."

Richard agreed, but he didn't want to think about it.

"What's you honest opinion of Porter?" he asked.  "You've seen a lot like him I imagine."

"Son of bitch may not be dangerous, but he's got a stink to him.  You need to put your foot down with your wife.  She don't understand what men like him are like.  I'm surprised you put up with it.  If she was my wife I'd tell her in no---"

"That's enough, Ron," Richard warned, raising his voice only slightly.

"Sorry.  It's just that everyone, including old Harold, himself, would be better off if he was still in prison.  We ought to take Preslar out to the range and work on his marksmanship."

"You certain he's the one?"

"Got to be."  He laughed.  "And gotta be the most incompetent would-be-killer that ever breathed."

"I still think this is more a make him leave than make him dead thing."

"Maybe.  But maybe we're wrong.  Maybe he's not our perp.  I mean, as bungling as he's been, no one's spotted him, have they.  But maybe he's just on a run of luck."

"Preslar's probably too old," said Richard, thinking out loud.  "This is more like something a kid would do.  Preslar's a hunter.  He wants to pop Harold, he just waits for him out on his route until he comes into the cross hairs."

"Well I don't like skinny little freak, but let's hope this is a make him leave thing like you said.  Wonder what's next.  Stab him with a rubber knife?  Run him over with a bicycle?"