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'Knew 'em when they lived in Pine Cone. We weren't friends then and we're not friends now that they moved away either.'

'Well', said Sarah, 'this is a bad time for them.'

'If I was to go up to them - or go up to Dorothy Sims I mean, 'cause I never met her husband - and say I was sorry that James and Thelma Shirley was dead, why she wouldn't believe me! She'd say I was a hypocrite - and I would be!'

'I don't think anyone in this town has ever said that you were a hypocrite. It's not one of your faults', commented Sarah, trying hard to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

'I went to her daddy's funeral, right after he run his truck into that Greyhound, and you know what?' said Jo, 'Dorothy was wearing navy blue! Like she didn't have a black dress to her name!'

'Well', said Sarah, 'she had on black today. And you know what else she had on?'

'What?' asked Jo.

'She had on that amulet that you gave to Larry Coppage the night his house burned down. Wednesday night.'

Sarah waited to see what effect this had on Jo. The old woman said nothing for a moment, but stared hard at Sarah. Sarah couldn't tell if she were angry or surprised or puzzled, but it was evident that Jo Howell was repressing some emotion.

'How do you suppose she got hold of it?' said Sarah. 'I'd have thought that the thing would have burned up in the Coppage place.'

Still Jo did not answer.

At last, when Sarah continued to stare, Jo faltered, 'It's. .. none of my business. None of yours neither. Dean and me gave the thing to Larry Coppage, and it was up to him to do with it what he wanted.'

'But Larry Coppage didn't hardly have time to get the thing home, much less to give it away.'

'Well', said Jo, a little more easily, 'if Dorothy Sims has it now - and I'm not saying that she does, you could be mistaken - then how else could she have got it if Larry Coppage hadn't give it away to her?'

'She was in Montgomery, so he would have had to give it to

James and Thelma Shirley. Tnat's the only place that Dorothy could have got it.'

'Look', said Jo peevishly, 'I don't know why you're going through all this with me. I don't care what happened to it. It's not ours no more. I don't know why you keep harping on the thing. It wasn't worth much - I ordered it out of the Montgomery Ward_ catalogue. You didn't like it, so you can't want it for yourself. What does it matter who's got the thing now?'

With this anger, Jo felt that she had regained her poise, and Sarah knew that she had lost the argument, at least at this point.

'It don't matter to me', said Sarah, 'I'm just curious, that's all. It seemed peculiar - to see Dorothy with it on, I mean.'

if that woman would wear navy blue to her daddy's funeral, then I don't thjnk I'd be surprised at anything she did! And, Sarah', concluded Jo, 'there's dishes in the sink that's left over from dinner, and if you don't wash them, then they're just gone sit in there and rot to pieces!' 'Well', said Dorothy Sims to her husband, as soon as they were back inside the Shirleys' house, 'if there is one thing that's worse than a wedding - and you know how I hate and despise weddings - it's a funeral.'

'Shhh!' her husband cautioned her, and inclined his head towards little Mary, who had entered the house directly behind them.

Dorothy turned on the little girl and said, 'Mary', in a commanding tone.

'Ma'am?' said little Mary. She knew that she had behaved herself, and feared no reproach.

'Mary, do you know what all that meant, what happened at the church and the cemetery today?'

'Dot, don't', pleaded her husband.

'Yes'm', cried little Mary. 'They was burying Mama and Daddy. Only I didn't see no headstones. Where was the headstones? 'Cause when the paperboy got run down in the road last year - I almost got to see it - they buried him and he got a headstone. They's a lot of headstones in the cemetery, and what I cain't understand is why Mama and Daddy didn't get one. Is it because Mama killed Daddy? You cain't get a headstone if you kill somebody? Is that it?' Mary lowered her voice towards the end.

Dorothy nodded in satisfaction. Little Mary was a levelheaded if somewhat superstitious little girl, and Dorothy approved of that. The child had not wept at the service in the church, and she had not been in shock at the graveyard afterwards. Dorothy had seen what the death of even a single parent had done to some children, and it wasn't a pretty sight. Dorothy was very glad that Mary was taking it all so well, and she said so to her husband.

'The child don't realise yet what's happened to her', said Malcolm in an anguished whisper.

'I do too!' cried Mary, whose hearing had not been impaired by her grief. 'Yesterday morning - no it wasn't yesterday, it was Friday morning right after Gussie lifted me out of the window and took me over next door to Mr Berry's house - I heard Miz Berry talking on the phone and she was telling ever "body in town that Mama killed Daddy. She said she did it with a
ice pick.
I told Gussie that, and Gussie told me not to believe a word of it, but I know it was true. I
know.'

'How do you know, Mary?' asked her aunt, curiously.

'I
know',
repeated little Mary adamantly. 'That night I had a nightmare about Mama, and she came in my bedroom, and she was waving a ice pick around in front of me, and I said, " Mama, what you want in here with that ice pick?" And she said, "Mary, you be quiet and goto sleep." And I did, 'cause I knew if I didn't, that Mama was going to stick me with it. And when I woke up, there was Gussie wanting to haul me out of the window

'You were real confused', said Malcolm kindly. He hoped that Mary had only made up the story about being threatened with the ice pick. *

'Mama scared my pants off, said Mary.

'I don't think we ought to talk about it any more', said Malcolm. 'We don't want you to have bad dreams, and your mama and daddy would want you to remember that they loved you very much, Mary. You meant more to them than anything else in the world.'

'Mama sure could get mad though', said Mary, and whistled a little tag of emphasis to the remark.

This conversation was making Malcolm Sims more and more nervous. The deaths of James and Thelma Shirley had sorely tried him, and he was even more upset that his wife showed so little apparent concern. He was very sorry for the little girl, and he knew that his own life with Dorothy would be changed immeasurably now that Mary was coming to live with them in Montgomery. Dorothy had refused to bear him children. She had declared from the beginning that she didn't want to be 'saddled with a baby', and had also refused to consider adoption. Malcolm was fond of little Maiy, but he also knew that perhaps she would not be the child he would choose if he had his pick of all the little boys and girls in Alabama. She was a little too much like her aunt: very shrewd in a fashion that was somehow completely wrongheaded. But he had no intention of shirking his duty or of being anything but the most affectionate and caring of foster-parents to Mary.

'Dorothy', this good man said to his wife, 'why don't we get ready to go? There's not much more that we can do here today. I'd just as soon get home as soon after dark as possible. I'd like to have supper at home.' He desperately wanted for this day to be over; he hated being in this house, surrounded by all the things that had belonged to the dead couple. He could not understand how his wife could have brought herself to wear Thelma's necklace to the woman's very own funeral. And now she was fingering it as if it had belonged to her forever and ever.

'You think I'm gone fix supper for you when I been through what I been through today?' his wife protested. 'We're gone pick up some fried chicken or some barbecue on the way. I'm not fixing supper after a funeral.'

'No', said Malcolm, 'that's not what I meant. There's plenty of food in the kitchen, and we ought to take it back with us, so it won't spoil. There's no need for you to fix anything. I just want to get back to Montgomery. That's all I meant, Dot.'

Dorothy Sims looked about her. 'I sure hate to leave all this stuff here. You just know that Gussie got herself a skeleton key made, and right now she is probably right outside the door hiding in the bushes and waiting for us to leave! Then she's gone back some broken-down pickup truck to the door, and not a stick is gone be left by tomorrow morning.'

'Dot', sighed Malcolm, and glanced towards Mary's bedroom where the child had gone to begin packing, 'you ought not talk that way about Gussie, 'cause you know how fond of her that child is. We'll lock the house up, and I've already told the sheriff to keep an eye on it till I get back next week. You can come back with me and decide what you want to keep. Everything'11 be all right till then.'

Dorothy allowed herself to be persuaded and consoled herself with taking only the two flat chests of silver and the cut-glass punch bowl, which she declared were 'absolutely unreplace-able'. While she was packing these items carefully in bedspreads and other linens (she might as well take what she could, she thought), Malcolm went in to help little Mary.

The girl pranced about self-importantly, for she had come to realise that considerable interest had been attached to her person because of her nearness to the heinous crime of Thursday night. She was also the only full-fledged orphan in her class at school. In the midst of folding up some of her dresses, little Mary turned to Malcolm and said, 'What is my teacher gone think when I don't show up at school tomorrow morning? Is she gone think I got kidnapped?'

Malcolm laughed briefly. 'No, Mary, I talked to your principal before the funeral and I told him that Dot and I were taking you back to Montgomery with us. Dot's going to take you to school tomorrow. Do you think you'll still be too upset to go? 'Cause I guess you could stay at home with Dot for a couple of days or so, and wouldn't nobody know - and even if they did, they probably would say it was all right. You've gone through a lot, girl', he concluded with a lugubrious sigh. 'We all have.'

'I sure
will
be upset!' cried Mary. 'I don't know a single person in that school. You think they 're gone make me write real writing there? They let me print here. I'm not any good at real writing, and I think I'd just die if I had to go up to the blackboard and do real writing on the board.' Mary paused, and trembled at the thought.

Her uncle reassured her. 'It's all gone be fine, Mary. You're gone make lots of new friends, and everybody's gone love you like Dot and I do...'

Mary ran over and hugged her uncle around the waist. She burst into tears. Malcolm clasped her tightly to him, and did not think it so terrible a thing that she was crying.

It was a full two hours after the funeral that Sunday afternoon before Sarah Howell had decided that she
must
telephone Dorothy Sims, and ask her about the amulet. It would be going too far to warn her that her life might be endangered by the necklace that Sarah had seen her wearing at the service. At the beginning Sarah planned only to ask Dorothy Sims where she had got it. But what could she say to the woman when she answered the phone? They had never even been introduced. Maybe she could ask if there was any way she could help little Mary prepare for the sudden move to Montgomery. But Sarah knew that no matter what she decided to say, it would come out sounding foolish. But that didn't matter, and it certainly shouldn't stop her from calling.

Yet it did. Sarah dialled the number, but hung up the receiver before the ringing began. Then she washed the dishes that had been left in the sink. Again she dialled, let it ring twice and then hung up. She was doubly ashamed of this - for her cowardice and for the discomfort that would doubtless be occasioned in the mourning household by the nuisance of the phone ringing without any caller. Sarah waited fifteen more minutes - an excrutiating quarter hour in which she told herself over and over again that she had to go through with it. She dialled the number once more. Ten rings, and no one answered at all. She dialled again. Twenty rings and no one answered. They had already left, and Sarah was sure that Dorothy Sims had taken the amulet with her.

Sarah was displeased - with herself and with the situation - but there was nothing that she could do. She remembered then that she had heard that Malcolm Sims was going to return the following week and it might well be easier to talk to him anyway; he seemed a good-natured, well-meaning man and certainly more approachable than his wife. Sarah resolved, with some small easing of her conscience, that she must simply wait until the following Saturday. But how would she feel if something terrible happened to Dorothy Sims during the week? Sarah shook her head and shuddered. Was she going crazy to have such thoughts? They didn't make sense; nobody else - not even Becca - would believe them. Jo might well know more than she was telling, but who could say what Jo really thought about anything at all?

Margaret Blair knocked softly on the back door. When Sarah approached, the girl whispered conspiratorially, 'Mama said to ask you if you want to drive around town - get out of the house for a while.'

'I '11 be there in a minute.' Sarah smiled. It would do her good, she knew. Margaret's secretiveness only meant that Becca didn't want to have Jo come along; the trip to the drive-in the night before had taxed her tolerance excessively.

Sarah went into the bedroom and told Jo where she would be for the next hour or so and Jo began to complain immediately that Sarah was never there to take care of Dean. 'Away at the plant all week long, and youjcome home for fifteen minutes on the weekend, just long enough to change your clothes before you're off gallivanting again with Becca Blair, and that little hellion of hers. Won't nothing good come of that one, and—'