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unhurriedly out of town.
                  He was quiet during the ride out to Thornhill Road. When we arrived at our destination he said, “I had a good look around here yesterday. There was no sign of a struggle having taken place. Your wife will most likely turn up in a day or two with a nice simple explanation for why she took off.”
                  I tried not to let my contempt for him show too much when I faced him. “Pretty much the same thing you figured about Charlene Lamont, I imagine, huh?”
                  He ignored the question. And my disdain.
                  I got out, freed Bix, and stood watching as Jessup sprayed gravel pulling away. A few yards up the road he cranked a u-turn and drove by me with a bored look on his face.
                  “Shit-heel,” I mumbled.
                  Bix stared after Jessup’s fading presence and barked once, then looked at me and dropped his head nervously as if to apologize for speaking out of turn. It was the first sound I had heard him make.
                  Before getting into the pickup Bix got side-tracked, sniffing something that intrigued him but I couldn’t see anything that looked out of the ordinary with the exception of the small quantity of roadside dirt on the pavement.
                  We drove back to town.
                  It was noon so I stopped into the diner. The lunch crowd was on hand but, as soon as she saw me, Kat came over to serve me at my spot at the counter. “You’re getting to be a real regular,” she said as she poured me a coffee.
                  “I figure if I eat here often enough I’ll find something edible.”
                  She shook her head sadly. “Good luck with that,” she said. “Anything further on Callie?”
                  “Not yet.”
                  Her face reflected real uneasiness at my response. I wondered, not for the first time, if maybe she knew more about what was going on than she was willing to admit.
     
                  Miles and Betty were sitting on the porch with coffees in hand as Bix and I pulled up to the house. Betty immediately rose from her chair and disappeared inside, still unable to work up the will to speak to me.
                  “Sorry about Betty,” Miles muttered as I joined him. “She’ll come around eventually.”
                  “I don’t blame her for the way she feels, Miles.”
                  “For what it’s worth,” he said, “me and a lot of other folks around here feel Henderson got pretty much exactly what he deserved.”
                  It closely mirrored what Fordham had said but it was also true that a good many other people felt differently. For the rest of my life I would have to accept that there were those who regarded my actions as every bit as immoral and unforgiveable as those of Henderson himself. I couldn’t in all sincerity say that I disagreed with them.
                  “What else can you tell me about this Charlene Lamont?” I asked.
                  Miles ruminated for a moment or two. “Not much, ta be frank. Very pretty young gal, married but maybe not too happily. There was speculation that a bad marriage was the reason fer the hasty departure.”
                  “And why is it that you think there may be something more to it than that?”
                  “The fact is, Jack, I don’t really have any strong feelings one way or the other. I know Billy Lamont ain’t the easiest fella in the world ta live with and Charlene and him had their ups and downs. But he did report her missin’ and it just seems ta me there shoulda been more of an effort put inta locatin’ ‘er.”
                  “Have the state cops investigated?” I