She smiled suddenly. Her teeth were dark and uneven. “I knew I’d seen you. You was on the television, talking about him.”

“Well, yes, I was.”

“I thought it was you. When you come in the kitchen yesterday. I was busy and didn’t pay much attention, but then when I seen you on the television, I thought I’d seen you somewhere.”

I wanted to be pleasant. “I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself before, but I know how it is when there’s work to be done.”

She waved a hand in the air. “Not that much around here, I can tell you that. Just you, right now. Supposed to be a bunch coming in over the weekend, but you can’t never count on that.” She reached for another cigarette. “Tell me something. Was that old man crazy like everybody said he was?”

“Avrum? I don’t know if he was crazy, but he was different.”

She laughed a quick, hard laugh, a single, stabbing cackle. “Same thing, you ask me. Half my family’s that way. Crazy. Different. They always up to something. Even got one or two of them that hears voices, just like they say that old man used to do.”

“Is that right,” I said.

She nodded vigorously, lighting her cigarette. “It’s in the Benton blood.”

“Benton?” I asked. “You wouldn’t happen to be related to Ben Benton, would you?”

She looked at me in surprise. “You know him?”

“Yes, he was my friend.”

“He was my daddy. I’m Shirley Benton. Used to be. Shirley Bagwell now.”

I was stunned. I had remembered seeing Ben Benton’s daughter in the late fifties, when she was a baby, a beautiful, blue-eyed child with a rolling, happy laugh. Then Ben had killed himself and I had been told that his family had moved away. It was impossible to believe that the woman sitting before me was the beautiful, blue-eyed child with a rolling, happy laugh.

“Well,” I said, “this is something. Ben Benton’s daughter. I’m glad to meet you. My name’s Bobo Murphy.”

“That’s a funny name,” Shirley said.

“I can’t disagree with that,” I told her.

“You really know my daddy?”

“I sure did. He was a fine man. We were good friends.”

“I don’t remember nothing much about him,” Shirley said casually. “I got some pictures, but pictures don’t tell you nothing. They all look the same. People smiling like Cheshire cats. It ain’t the way people are if you ever find out anything about them.”

“I guess you’re right,” I said.

“You sure you don’t want something to eat?”

“No, thank you,” I replied.

She nodded gratefully and drew from her cigarette. “We moved off after Daddy died.” She paused, then corrected herself. “Well, after he killed hisself. Me and Roy—that’s my husband—moved back last year. He works in a garage up in Fleischmanns.”