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frightening. That night when he broke in, Sammie’s yellow tomcat had leaped on Falon and done considerable damage before Falon killed him with a shard of broken glass. Sammie had never gotten over Misto’s death, she still dreamed of him. Sometimes she imagined he was there in bed snuggled close to her, she imagined that Misto’s ghost had come back to her. But lots of children had imaginary companions. The dreams comforted Sammie, and they hurt no one.
    It was Sammie’s dreams of future events that were upsetting. Powerful predictions that, days or weeks later, would turn out to come true: the courthouse fire that Sammie dreamed in surprising detail exactly as it would later happen, its fallen brick walls, every detail occurring just as she’d seen.
    There were happy dreams, too, the birth of the neighbor’s kittens, each with the same exact coloring that Sammie saw in her dream. But then had come the terrifying nightmare that brought Sammie up screaming that her daddy had been arrested and shoved behind bars, that he had been locked in a cell by the very officers who had been Morgan’s friends. That was the beginning. It had all happened, the robbery, Morgan’s arrest, Morgan locked in jail just as she’d dreamed.
    On the witness stand, Falon told the jury that, originally, Morgan had driven over to look at Falon’s stalled Ford coupe, which was parked in front of Natalie’s apartment building. He said Morgan had noted the parts he must order and then had left, saying he was going back to the shop. Morgan’s mechanic testified that Morgan had never returned there, that at closing time he’d locked the shop up himself and gone home.
    Falon said when Morgan came to look at his car he had acted nervous and seemed anxious to get away. He said he’d gone back upstairs to Natalie’s after Morgan left. Said he’d come down again shortly before three, walked across the street to the corner store and bought some candy and gum. The shopkeeper had testified to that, he said he’d seen Falon go back to the apartment building and in the front door. Falon testified that he had been with Natalie the rest of the afternoon and all night. When Natalie took the stand to corroborate his testimony she had blushed and tried to act shy that they had spent the night together. Right, Becky had thought angrily, and how many dozen other men over the years.
    The court had allowed Becky to sit at the table with Morgan and Sed Williams, their attorney. She’d had a hardtime avoiding the stares of the packed gallery. She had listened to the bank tellers identify Morgan’s voice, identify his hands with the thin lines of grease that clung in deep creases and around his nails, from his work in the auto shop when he forgot to wear gloves. The empty bootleg whiskey bottle the police found in Morgan’s car had Morgan’s fingerprints on it. Everyone in town knew that Morgan and she didn’t drink. A shopkeeper across the street from the bank had heard the shots, had seen Morgan’s car pull away, and had written down the license number.
    Why couldn’t the jury see that Falon had planted it all? Why couldn’t they see that? Her helplessness there in the courtroom, her inability to speak up and correct this evil, had made her physically ill.
    Now, when she rose from the wicker chair to go into the kitchen to make a cup of tea, her stomach twisted so hard that she ran for the bathroom. She threw up in the sink, angrily cleaned the sink and scrubbed it with cleanser, then began to pace the house, living room to the two small bedrooms to kitchen, then back again, aimless and lost, desperate with rage.
    An appeal was the only chance they had, was all they had to cling to. She had to think about that. How to get the money together? The best way to find a more competent attorney. She shouldn’t have hired Williams; he was too quiet, too low-key. She had thought he was