Brian flushed. “It’s worse than weak-minded to hate your past and neglect your mother,” he came back. “You’ve been at war with God twenty years now, and it’s left you empty. You’re a cynical man, Adam, there’s no purpose to your life—”

And no purpose in rehashing it, I thought now. It was just that I hated funerals.

I found myself staring at Lydia’s casket, ashamed to wonder, yet wondering if my stricken friend in the first pew was a sad, bewildered cuckold with a wife he’d never understood, and shouldn’t now. Perhaps better to let it be, and hope that Cade was right, that no one else would come to harm and Henry would go free.

“Unto God’s gracious mercy and protection we commit you,” read the clergyman. A little late, I answered silently. “Amen,” he finished.

We rose again. The pallbearers shuffled to the casket and inched it back up the aisle. Henry trailed, eyes bleak with cold comfort. They rolled the casket to the door of the church and were gone.

Kris Ann took my hand. Mourners edged from their pews looking up or down like strangers in an elevator. We moved in the halting file of reticent bodies, out the door.

Rayfield stood watching in the stone archway. I passed him without speaking. In the street below it was raining and almost dusk. There were newsmen on the other side. Nora Culhane was next to her cameraman, shooting footage for the evening news. Then I saw Etta Parsons.

She stood with her back to me, staring from the top of the steps toward the sidewalk. Joanne Mooring waited there alone. Then a dark green Cadillac glided from the street to stop in front of her. As he pushed open the door Dalton Mooring’s face appeared. His wife got inside. Etta Parsons watched the car drive silently away.

I left Kris Ann and walked behind her. “Mooring?” I said softly.

The single stare she gave me was hard as sculpture. Then she turned and walked away, into the rain.

Twelve

TWELVE

The next morning I called on Jason Cantwell.

The night of the funeral I had found Kris Ann in our bedroom, loading a black revolver.

“What’s that?” I blurted stupidly.

She gazed at me across the bed, gripping the revolver. It was blunt and smooth and oiled. “Daddy gave it to me this morning, after you left. To protect myself.”

“From what?”

“Jason Cantwell.” She looked away. “I’m afraid of him.”

“Why, exactly?”

“Because of Lydia. Isn’t that enough?”

She stood framed in the blackness of our window, shoulders curled as if cold. “I don’t like guns,” I said quietly. “Roland knows that. You know it, too.”

Her face burned. “I just need one until this is over.”

“Krissy, I want you to take it back.”

“Please—”

“I’m here, dammit. Isn’t that enough?”