Her words were tense, angry. I realized what she had sought from me was not release from secrets, but something more: an affirmation that the service to which she had given her life was not just that of a maid. They had been friends, she said, but what she meant was that was all she had.

“I know,” I told her. “That was why I came.”

She nodded fractionally. I rose, feeling dizzy. “Thank you for helping,” I managed.

She didn’t answer. My part of witness was over. As I silently left, she smoothed her skirt again, still staring at Lydia’s picture.

Henry Cantwell opened the door. His head seemed to get smaller, then larger. “Good Lord, Adam, what have you done?”

I steadied myself. “I got pistol whipped by Jason Cantwell. You know, the son who isn’t yours.”

Henry blanched. “What happened?”

I told him curtly, then snapped, “I need your phone,” and passed him in the doorway. From behind he said thinly, “I’ll be in the library.”

I went to the kitchen, sat by the window at the table with two chairs, and called Kris Ann. “Where are you?” she asked somewhere beyond anger.

“Henry’s.” There was no way to explain. “I’ll be home right after. Lock the doors and don’t go anywhere.”

“Whatever,” she said coldly. “I can always call Daddy, can’t I?”

“Krissy, I don’t think Otis Lee killed her—”

She hung up.

For a moment I sat listening to the dial tone. Then I stood, got my balance, and walked to the library.

Twenty-five

TWENTY-FIVE

Henry sat in his chair. On the table beside him were a snifter of cognac, his half-glasses, and the copy of War and Peace he read for consolation. “Should you begin fearing death,” he had told me once, “pick up War and Peace and after a time all that will melt away.” That much was familiar. But the way he looked had changed, and the way I saw him.

“How did you know?” he asked tonelessly.

I lit a cigarette and gazed down at him. He wore a three-piece suit with his father’s gold chain across the vest. His eyes, shiny and translucent, stared back with shamed insistence.

“Rayfield told me part. He enjoyed that.”

Henry winced. “And what did you think?”

“That I’ve never known you.”

His mouth opened, closed, opened again. “Adam, we—my feeling for you isn’t because—”

“Oh, God, Henry.”

“I mean, you’re almost a son.”

I took a deep, harsh drag. “Then I can see Jason’s point.”

He shut his eyes. “Sit down, please.”

I didn’t move. His eyes opened. “Sit down, damn you. I won’t have you hovering like that.”

I took a long time sitting. Wisps from my cigarette twisted between us, then disappeared. Twilight and his reading lamp cast thin silver in the room. “Is it—what I am?” he asked.