Maggie looked down blankly. “Oh, yes, I took up the old linoleum. I’ve got to get to the sanding.”

“You call George Cooper,” the sheriff told her. “He’s in the book. He’ll get you an electric sander that’ll take care of this in no time. Just tell him Stan Agee gave you his name.”

“All right.” She knew the conversation should’ve eased her mind, but her nerves were jumping again. “Thank you.”

“Anything else you need, you just give us a call. Joyce’ll want to have you over for dinner. She bakes the best ham in the county.”

“That’d be nice.”

“She can’t get over someone like you moving here to Morganville.” He sipped at his coffee while Maggie’s grew cold. While he leaned back in the chair, relaxed, she sat very straight with tension. “I don’t keep up with music much, but Joyce knows all of your songs. She reads all those magazines, too, and now somebody’s who’s in them’s living in her old house.” He glanced idly at the back door. “You ought to speak to Bog about putting some dead bolts on.”

She looked over at the screen, remembering the hinges needed oiling. “Dead bolts?”

With a laugh, he finished off his coffee. “That’s what happens when you’re sheriff. You’re always thinking of security. We’ve got a nice, quiet community, Miss Fitzgerald. Wouldn’t want you to think otherwise. But I’d feel better knowing you had some good solid locks on the doors, since you’re back here alone.” Rising, he tugged absently at his holster. “Thanks for the coffee. You just remember to call if you need anything.”

“Yes, I’ll remember.”

“I’ll go on out this way and let you get back to work. You call George Cooper, now.”

“All right.” Maggie walked to the back door with him. “Thank you, Sheriff.”

For a moment she just stood there by the door, her head resting against the jamb. She hated knowing she could be so easily worked up. The sheriff had come to reassure her, to show her that the community she’d chosen to live in had a concerned, capable law enforcer. Now her nerves were raw from talking to so many police. So many police, Maggie mused, just as it had been when Jerry died. All the police, all the questions. She thought she’d been over it, but now everything was coming back again, much too clearly.

“Your husband drove off the road, Mrs. Browning. We haven’t located his body yet, but we’re doing everything we can. I’m sorry.”

Yes, there’d been sympathy at first, Maggie remembered. She’d had sympathy from the police, from her friends, Jerry’s friends. Then questions: “Had your husband been drinking when he left the house?” “Was he upset, angry?” “Were you fighting?”

God, hadn’t it been enough that he’d been dead? Why had they picked and pulled at all the reasons? How many reasons could there be for a twenty-eight-year-old man to turn his car toward a cliff and drive over it?