How long had Stephanie been with us? the deputies wanted to know. Did she have any boyfriends? They knew about the married man she had told me about. He had been out of town for a week or more. Had we noticed anything strange in her behavior? Had she ever said she was afraid of anyone or anything? I said no to the last two questions—too quickly maybe, because both deputies studied me for a long moment.

“You seem to be getting around pretty well,” said the older man to Jack. “Was the girl staying here because you still need nursing care?”

“She was going to leave in a few days,” I said.

“To go where?”

“I don’t know where.”

The older deputy jotted the information in his notebook. Then he looked up. “You have a son,” he said.

Here it comes, I thought. “A son and a daughter.”

“Is he home?”

I looked at Jack. “He’s upstairs,” Jack said.

“We’d better talk with him.”

“He’s only sixteen,” I said.

The older deputy smiled. “Sixteen-­year-­olds can get into plenty of trouble, Mrs. Caine. As a matter of fact, I understand your son is in some trouble now because of a traffic accident.”

Franny had come downstairs and was staring wide-­eyed at our visitors. I told her that something had happened to Stephanie and that the deputies wanted to talk with her and Duff. Duff first.

She ran upstairs and came back down quickly with him. He must have been waiting and listening at the top of the stairs. He was pale and even more frail looking than he had been at the jail. In fact he looked as he had two years before when he was recovering from viral pneumonia. Again, he wasn’t wearing glasses and he was squinting even more than usual—to make himself seem even more helpless, I thought.

“Ride a motorbike, do you, son, as well as driving fast in your folks’ car?” said the older deputy.

“I’ve ridden a few times on the backs of bikes,” Duff said.

“Do you know some bikers in Cainesville who call themselves the Crazy Gang?”

“I’ve seen them, I think.”

“Ever ridden with any of them?”

“Well, I don’t know all of them that well—”

“Do you know Charles Romano, John McCafferty, Albert Squires—?”

“I know Al Squires.”

“Were you with him last night?”

“Just for a short while.”

“Where did you go?”

“Just for a short ride.” Duff threw a frightened glance at me. “I don’t know this area awfully well—”

“Did you go anywhere near the Waterson woods? That’s a woods on this road between here and Cainesville.”

“No, sir.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, sir.”

Now it comes, I thought, as the deputy paused. Now he’ll ask him if he killed Stephanie. But the deputy didn’t.