When Virgil and Jenkins had gone, Osborne went upstairs to his bathroom and took a shower, to get the rug-cleaning odor out of his hair, changed out of his Steam Punk coveralls into jeans and a flannel shirt, went down to the kitchen and took one of the Skinner & Holland potpie boxes out of the freezer. He’d removed the pie from the box and was reading the cooking instructions when he heard a knock at the back door. He wasn’t expecting anyone, and when he looked out, found his backyard neighbor, Davy Apel, on the steps.

He opened the door, said, “Hey, Davy.”

Apel asked, “How are things? You okay?”

“All things considering. Come on in. You want a chicken potpie?”

“No, I ate fifteen minutes ago,” Apel said. He sat in a kitchen chair. “I was driving back home from the store when I saw that Flowers’s car parked out front of your place. I thought maybe he had some news.”

“Not really. They thought I had a motive for the shootings. You know, inheriting from Mom. I told them they were crazy, thinking that I’d kill Mom for . . . financial reasons. I guess they believed me. Then they fingerprinted me ’cause of that thing with the cartridge case they found at Larry Van Den Berg’s.”

“So at least they know you’re innocent,” Apel said.

“I guess. Kind of a kick in the butt, though. I was up in St. Paul, signing papers at the medical examiner’s to get the arrangements started on Mom . . .” Osborne went back to the potpie, stuck it in the microwave, and took a chair across from Apel.

“So bizarre,” Apel said. “I was talking to her last week. I can’t believe she’s gone.”

A tear trickled down Osborne’s cheek. “I can’t, either . . . Somehow, you think your mom is going to last forever, even if you know she won’t. One thing about it, I guess, is I’ll be able to pay you the money back.”

Then his eyes closed down a fraction of an inch and cut sideways to Apel.

Apel said, “I guess you’ll have the service at the church, huh?”

“Yeah, I already talked to Father Brice about it . . . So how have you been, Davy? How’s business been?”

“Fine. It’s been fine. I’ve been working that new hog factory down in Iowa, the one that’s got everybody pissed. And Ann’s got an overdue ditching job that’ll keep her busy for two more weeks. So it’s been good.” Apel stood up, and said, “You know, all this talk reminds me of something. About Marge. I gotta go get something. I’ll be right back.”

“What is it?”

“A surprise,” Apel said.

—