Hence the suit and the makeup. She wanted to look like someone that Antonia would find familiar enough to talk to, possibly even confide in.

Meanwhile, Mooncrow and David had jobs of their own. Mooncrow was searching the spirit-worlds for signs of the evil spirit’s work. It seemed far too coincidental for that spirit to have suddenly been freed at about the same time that Calligan looted the sacred ground, but whether Calligan was under the direct influence of the evil one was still in question. David was searching the papers for the same thing, going back for six months, which is about when Mooncrow thought the flood had uncovered the spirit-bundle that was missing. If they were very lucky, it was in the hands of someone who was resistant to it. If not, well, they would play that as it came.

She gave her hair another pat, and headed out.

“Would you like another cup of coffee?” Antonia (“Oh, call me Toni, please”) Calligan asked. Her dark eyes pleaded with Jennie to accept, so of course, she did.

Toni’s kitchen was a warm and homey place, eggshell-white and tan, but was curiously marred. The immaculate white walls showed slightly discolored patches of very fresh plaster and paint; there were odd dents in the metal cabinets and the appliances. Strange. Nothing else in the house showed that kind of abuse.

But it was fairly obvious that the kitchen was the only place where Toni felt comfortable. Jennie wasn’t too surprised; you could eat off the floors in the living and dining areas, but the rooms looked like pictures in a magazine, not places where children played and people ate. Clearly the kitchen was Toni’s personal domain; the only place in the house that was permitted to be less than perfect.

Rod Calligan’s wife wore her dark hair in a pert Hamillcut; despite three children, she was slender under that perky pink sweatsuit. But “pert” and “perky” were the very last adjectives that Jennie would ever apply to her, despite a petite figure and a sweet, square face.

“Hagridden,” maybe. The faint circles under her eyes came from anxiety, and Jennie would have bet a year’s income that the reason that the hollows under her cheekbones were there had less to do with Weight Watchers and far more to do with worry. She looked afraid, but afraid of what? She didn’t exactly babble, but she spoke nervously, running on at length whenever a silence threatened, playing with her rings or combing her fingers through her hair.

What was more, Jennie had never met anyone so starved for company in her life. No, that wasn’t right; not “company,” but a friend. Toni Calligan acted as if she didn’t have a single friend of her own, female or male, anywhere in Tulsa.