Anne looked up at him as he came in from down the hall, wheeling his slender oxygen tank out in front of him as if it were a dapper accessory to his ensemble of burgundy pajamas and black silk robe.

“I put it on the list, but you didn’t get it,” he complained. “Butter pecan. I wrote it right at the top.”

“Are you kidding me?” Anne said. “I had one student try to murder another student today, and you’re complaining that I forgot the ice cream?”

“I don’t see what one thing has to do with the other.”

“No. You wouldn’t.”

“A deputy stopped by here looking for you after you left for your dinner,” he said disapprovingly. “I didn’t raise you to be a criminal.”

“You didn’t raise me at all.”

“He wanted to know where you had gone.”

“So you told him.”

“Of course. And he thanked me profusely for my annual contributions to the sheriff’s fund,” he added smugly.

“That’s great. You might be interested to know that deputy is suspected of killing his wife last night.”

“That’s nonsense.”

“Why am I arguing with you? You haven’t even bothered to ask me why I look the way I do,” Anne said, taking in her scraped and dirty hands, the dirt and a tear at the knee of her black slacks. She got up and looked at herself in the mirror over the buffet. She was as white as a sheet.

She could see her father get a face behind her.

“Because you take after your mother,” he said, completely missing the point. “I’m going to bed. Without my ice cream.”

Anne went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of cabernet to steady her nerves. At least the one mystery was solved: Frank Farman had known where to find her because her own father had set him on her.

She dug Vince’s pager number out of her purse and dialed it. He called her back immediately.

“How’s my favorite fifth-grade teacher?”

“I’m okay.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I went to dinner tonight with Peter Crane and Tommy.”

“How did that go?”

“It went well. Tommy and I are squared away,” she said. “But on my way home something really scary happened with Frank Farman.”

“Yes,” he said, the tone of his voice suddenly different, cold, businesslike. Something wasn’t right.

“Yes? What do you mean, yes?”

“Yes,” he said again. “Frank is here right now at the sheriff’s office with a gun to Cal Dixon’s head.”

Chapter 77

77

Farman had Dixon in a chokehold, the nose of his .38 pressed to the sheriff’s temple.

It had happened so quickly, so easily. No one had seen it coming—but they should have, Vince thought.