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tiger in her backyard since she had rented Tom her father’s old office to live in.
    â€œI’m all right, if you want to ask questions,” she said with a sigh. After all, she thought, I’m a newspaper person myself. In a rinky-dink kind of way.
    â€œYou sure?” Randall had the grace to ask.
    â€œYes.”
    Catherine knew that Tom had only been held in check by Randall’s presence. His pad and pencil had been ready in his hand when he knocked on the door.
    In a clear monotone, she went through her story again. She wished it were more exciting, since she had had to tell it so often.
    â€œGalton. Jerry Selforth,” Tom mumbled when she had finished, scribbling a list of people he wanted to interview.
    â€œWho were her friends, Catherine?” he asked, pencil poised to write.
    He looked up impatiently when she didn’t reply.
    â€œI don’t know,” she said slowly, surprised. “I don’t think Miss Gaites had friends. She didn’t go to church or to the bridge club, or anything like that. She told my father she saw enough people at the office every day to make her sick of them.”
    And Catherine had to admit at that moment that her own attitude was much the same.
    The thought of becoming a Leona Gaites frightened her.
    â€œWhen was the last time you saw Leona?” Randall asked in his slow voice.
    â€œWhen she helped me go through the things left in Father’s office; things Jerry Selforth didn’t want to buy. They had to be moved out of the house before Tom moved in. We put them up in the attic over there. Some old filing cabinets. I think a few other things.”
    â€œNot since then?” Tom asked. “I thought you had known her for years.”
    â€œYes, I have—had. But that doesn’t mean I liked her.”
    The two men seemed startled by this statement, which Catherine had delivered with bland finality. She returned their look impassively. They had not expected this from her, she saw. She really must have presented a skimmed-milk image.
    â€œHave you talked to Jerry Selforth, Tom?” Randall asked.
    â€œJust for a second. He hasn’t done the autopsy. The pathologist in Morene won’t get here till late this afternoon. From a preliminary examination, he doesn’t think she was raped. She wasn’t killed at the shack, either. She was already dead when she was dumped there. He thinks she’d been dead since early last night.”
    â€œWhy?” Randall asked himself.
    Catherine’s head swung up. She stared at him blindly.
    A reason formed in her head. It caused her such pain that she couldn’t recognize it for a moment. Something thumped and shuddered inside her. An enormous wound, compounded of deep grief and unreleased anger, just beginning to heal, broke open afresh.
    â€œDid she have money?” Tom was asking. He sounded far away.
    â€œOh no,” Randall said. “If she had, she kept it a secret and lived like a woman who has to be careful.”
    Shuddering and screeching, about to be born.
    â€œMy parents,” Catherine whispered.
    â€œWhat, Catherine?”
    â€œMy parents.”
    â€œWhat did she say?” Tom’s voice; an irritating buzz, like a horsefly.
    A murmur from Randall.
    â€œI thought they died in a car wreck.” Tom, clearer now.
    â€œThey were murdered,” said Catherine.
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    â€œAnd you think Leona’s death ties in with theirs?” Randall asked quietly.
    His voice steadied her.
    â€œOh yes, I think it has to be connected,” she said.
    Tom looked bewildered, and angry about his bewilderment. They were talking about something he hadn’t found out yet.
    â€œTheir car was tampered with,” she told him. “They were on their way to spend the weekend with me. I was working at a weekly paper in Arkansas, my first job out of college…After they crossed the bridge into Arkansas, their car went out of control.