Frowning speculatively, Verna watched as Buddy—who everybody said looked so much like Charles Lindbergh that he could be his brother—cut the engine on his motorcycle. He swung a leg over, got off, and pushed it toward the back of the house. He was favoring his arm, which he had broken some months before when he rode his motorcycle through Jed Snow’s cousin’s corncrib. Buddy had always been a reckless sort.

Verna tilted her head, watching him. She didn’t think much of Sheriff Burns, who kept his job by staying on the good side of the local heavyweights. Of course, Darling wasn’t Cicero or Chicago, and its law enforcement officers didn’t have to deal with any serious lawlessness, except for bootlegging, of course. Even so, when it came to investigations, Sheriff Burns didn’t display a lot of initiative. And when it came to fighting crime, he wasn’t inclined to step out swinging.

But Buddy was a different matter. If push came to shove, he might—just might—be useful in dealing with Mr. Gold. For one thing, he was enterprising, and even ambitious, always looking for a way to stand out from the crowd. He was smart: he had bought a mail-order how-to book on scientific crime detection from the Institute of Applied Sciences in Chicago and taught himself how to take fingerprints, identify firearms, and take “crime scene” photographs. He had taught himself to shoot, too. Verna knew this for a fact, because he’d rigged up a shooting range in the pasture behind the Norris house and spent a couple of hours a week (and way too much expensive ammunition) practicing with his service revolver, much to the consternation of Mr. Norris’ old horse Racer, who lived in that pasture and hated loud noises. And because he had only recently celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday, Buddy was inclined to believe that he was immortal, which made him brave, as well as reckless. If there was trouble, Deputy Norris might be a good man to have around.

But there wasn’t any trouble just yet, Verna thought. And there was no point involving Buddy until she had some idea what kind of situation she’d be asking him to get involved in. Still staring out the window, she thought for several moments, then turned and went to the telephone again.

She rang up Coretta Cole, her part-time assistant in the probate clerk’s office, to see if she could come in the next morning, instead of her usual Tuesday. When Coretta agreed, Verna thanked her, hung up, and stood for a moment, debating whether to telephone Myra May or walk up the street to the diner and have a conversation with her in person.