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that it was an A."
    "I can give an opinion, can't I?"
    "Guess so. But we don't want pandemonium around here. If you think about B, so is every bozo out there going to. It's bad enough what's going on." He cocked his head toward the outside office and the ringing phone.
    "You needn't worry, Chief. I'm not practicing to get a job on the Enquirer. I'll stick to the facts, play down anything else."
    "Thanks."
    "You'll keep me posted?"
    "Sure thing."
    The moment Colin left the phone buzzed on Hallock's desk. He picked it up. "Yes, Kathy?"
    She said, "Jim Drew's out here to see you, Chief."
    "Send him in."
    A moment later Drew came shuffling into the office looking rumpled and bedraggled as always.
    "H'lo, Jim. Sit down."
    "Thanks, Chief."
    Jim was thirty-one, a Vietnam vet, and new to Seaville three years ago. He ran a junk and antique business up on the North Road in an old barn.
    "What can I do for you, Jim?"
    "I came in to confess."
    "'Bout what?"
    "The woman they found in the pool. I killed her."
     

LOOKING BACK —75 YEARS AGO
    The summer girl has a new fad, that of tattooing herself by aid of the sun's rays. At the bathing hour it has become a common thing to see girls with bits of black paper pasted on their arms and neck, sprinkled about with salt water, sitting where they get the full force of the sun. In this way girls are decorating themselves with initials of their friends, fraternity pins, and fancy designs.
     

SIX

    When Annie Winters finished her sermon on the Idea of Home the congregation stood to sing a final hymn. She looked out over the small group and wondered if she was getting anywhere. But where did she want to get? She knew she reached these people; there just weren't many of them.
    She'd had the opportunity for a larger congregation. A sizable parish in Wisconsin had been offered to her, another large one in California, and this one. She'd told herself she'd chosen this small one because she wanted to be near her mother, who had bouts of incapacitating depression, and that the few months she'd spent in Seaville as a child were her happiest. But there was another reason, one she tried not to admit to herself. A small parish would be less likely to present romantic possibilities. And that was the way it had been—the way she wished it to remain.
    So then what was her problem? There was only one: Steve Cornwell. And there he sat in the front row, staring at her. No. Glaring. Why did he bother to come, feeling the way he did? Meanness, she guessed.
    The hymn ended and Annie made her closing remarks. Then, as Burton Kelly played "Whispering" on the organ, one of his usual whimsical choices, the congregation began filing out. Most of them would join her in the parish hall behind the church for refreshments. She hoped Steve Cornwell wouldn't bother.
    Some of the parishioners, both men and women, had laid the table with homemade coffee cake, cookies, cheeses, crackers, and fruit. Coffee being brewed in the kitchen filled the hall with a wonderful aroma. Annie was dying for a cup, but she was kept from the other side of the room by one after another of her congregation congratulating her on her sermon. From the corner of her eye she saw Steve Cornwell, still glaring. Perhaps she should speak to him. The truth was, he frightened her. A gigantic man, he towered over her, hulking and sour. But why talk with him? She knew winning him over was impossible. He was set: Women were not ministers. So there was nothing she could do that was right.
    "I understand you were there yesterday, Annie." It was Madge Johnson, warm and caring.
    "You mean at the mayor's?"
    Madge nodded and put a hand on Annie's arm. "It must have been awful for you."
    "It was. I've seen death before but nothing like that." Not even Bob's death had been so ugly.
    "Are you talking about the murder?" said Carolyn Dobbs, a member of the church for twenty-seven years, also a bully and a gossip. Annie had tried, but she just couldn't like Carolyn.
    Madge