Temple's Ghost

By Carl Purdon

Mothers die with impeccably bad timing.

 

Sons and daughters plant them in the ground and go on with their lives.

 

But not so with Colton's mother. She wouldn't have it that way.

 

It couldn't have come at a worse time for Colton — his mother dying. Book sales were slipping and he was up against a hard deadline and publishing houses don't have mothers. His wife wanted a divorce and she usually got what she wanted. Still, a man's mother only dies once.

 

Katrina lost a mother too. Katrina was Colton's sister and some claimed New Orleans had named a hurricane after her, but it wasn't true. She had never been to New Orleans, and everybody knows cities don't get to name hurricanes. More than a few men had named their cars after her though. And a few boats.

 

Family and friends gathered and the funeral went off without a hitch. Then Bo came to town.

 

If you like suspense and mystery and endings that don't fit the mold you'll love Temple's Ghost.

 

Get it now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carl Purdon
• Release date: Jun 23, 2016
• ISBN: 9781386679615

Carl Purdon

The voices spoke early to the young boy growing up in 1960s and 70s Mississippi. As soon as his education permitted, he began to write down some of what those voices told him and entertained his family with  boyish poetry. As he grew into his teens the voices spoke of darker things, so he stopped sharing, and soon abandoned writing altogether. The voices didn’t stop. Around the age of forty, Carl began writing his first Novel, The Night Train, and published it in 2012. The Reconstruction Of Walter Pigg is his seventh novel, and picks up where The Deconstruction Of Walter Pigg left off. Carl lives in Pontotoc, Mississippi with his wife, Sharon, and two of their four children. He still listens to the voices.

Book preview

Chapter One

Colton Rae fumbled the side pocket of his black suit and felt the broken stub of a pencil, then the business card the funeral director had given him half an hour before the start of services. The first of six pallbearers stepped toward the coffin and placed the red flower from his lapel atop the closed lid, then turned and bent forward over Aunt Marge to kick off the closing formality of a day he couldn’t put behind him soon enough. Colton heard an exchange of whispers, then a loud snuffling from his aunt as the young man straightened himself and prepared to move down to repeat the exchange with Katrina, who sat at Colton’s left shoulder. He pulled pencil and card from his pocket and quickly scribbled the inspired sentence. All the good in the world can be held by a single word: mother.

The preacher cleared his throat and cast a glance that told the eager pallbearer he had jumped the gun. He, and the five men set to follow his lead, inched backward like a worm backing out of an apple.

Dear Heavenly Father, we gather before you today to send up one of the best among us. Maple Rae was your humble servant, a gentle and loving mother to Colton and Katrina, a sister to Margaret. She gave most when she had the least. All who knew her will miss her. I pray you will grant us comfort as we struggle to come to grips with her sudden departure, for we know not the hour nor the day our name will be called. Amen.

The cemetery fell silent, as if the word Amen cast a spell on every creature big and small. As if God had stopped time and commanded the universe to pay homage to another life played out. Two beats of Colton’s heart, then Aunt Marge sniffled. Someone outside the canopy cleared his throat. The world is a living thing. It must breathe.

The string of pallbearers moved again. The first one skipped Aunt Marge and went straight to Katrina. Colton folded the card and pencil into his left hand and shook the young man’s hand with his right, then the next, then four more until the line exited the shade of the canopy and disappeared into the throng of mourners.

They sure turned out, his sister whispered toward his ear.

Maple Rae was a woman made important because of her son. Nothing else set her apart from ordinary. That thing the preacher said about giving most when she had the least made for a touching eulogy, but the truth of it was she never had anything of her own to give, and giving what belongs to others is no virtue. Colton considered himself a realist, even when it came to his own family. Maple Rae was a good mother, no more or less than the vast majority of mothers he supposed, and there was nothing more to it than that.

How many of the hundred or so had turned out hoping to catch a glimpse of him? He glanced leftward at his sister and kept the thought to himself.

Aunt Marge stood first, then the rest of the Durst clan who made up the three rows at his back. A man couldn’t throw a rock into a huddle of Dursts and not hit a complainer. Give a Durst a gold brick and they’d gripe about it being heavy. Not his mother, though. She never complained, at least not in front of her children.

Aunt Marge stepped from the shade of the green canopy and brushed the coffin with her hand as she passed with a nod to the preacher. Her clan followed her out like ducklings, then dispersed to mingle among the sea of tombstones in the town’s oldest cemetery. Colton knew most of them, by sight if not by name. The Dursts never had been gatherers, funerals being the exception.

Should I know the pall bearers, he asked his sister as they, too, rose and stepped into the sunlight.

No, they go to her church.

I haven’t seen Uncle Raymond.

He died last year.

Oh. Good thing I didn’t ask Aunt Shea, he said, then at a whisper, She’s looking old.

Maybe you should lead with that, Katrina said.

He took his sister’s hand and stood shoulder to shoulder with her among relatives he barely recognized, and strangers he was sure he’d never seen before in his life. A tall woman with dark hair stood some distance away, staring at him over the shoulder of a man who stood close enough to be her husband, or boyfriend. Colton smiled. Her expression didn’t change, then she averted her eyes and said something to the man.

I may hang around a day or two, he said. Maybe sign a few autographs.

When you sign hers, you’d better make it out to her husband, Katrina said. Colton glanced at her and saw her looking in the direction of the woman he had just noticed. He’s the jealous type.

Did Mom tell you I’m getting divorced?

She mentioned it, Katrina said. Everybody expected it.

Really? Why so?

Because you’re a nerd.

Colton opened his mouth to defend himself, then remembered whom he was talking to and smiled instead. A very wealthy nerd, he said. You should remember that.

No one had asked for his autograph yet, which he appreciated. If no one asked tomorrow he might be offended. He and Katrina traded barbs about who had been their mother’s favorite, then she asked why it had taken him two days to get there.

I decided to drive down instead of fly, he said. It seemed like a good idea at the time. You know, reflection, memory lane.

So you could show off your car, you mean.

I’m not that shallow, he said, though the car did factor into his reasoning, just not in the way she thought. He stepped toward the coffin and felt her hand slip from his. Inside the steel box lay the woman who gave him life. The woman who nurtured him. Encouraged him. Endured the hardships of raising two children alone in a time when being a single mother wasn’t worn as a badge of honor. Later, she cheered with him as his first novel rose on the New York Times Best Seller List. Then again when he repeated the feat a year later. She cried when he moved to New York, and now ... now she lay in a steel box wearing a dress she never would’ve bought for herself.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned. Maple spoke of you so often I feel like I know you, the preacher said. They shook hands. Pressing the flesh, his agent called it, and he’d pressed plenty of flesh over the last few years. There’s more to being a successful writer than pumping words into a keyboard. Much more.

Thank you, Colton said. The preacher’s grip carried a message, he thought, though he didn’t know or care what that message might be. He looked at the coffin again, but the moment had been shattered by the interruption, so he stepped away, hoping his sister would follow so he didn’t have to talk to anyone else.

The funeral director asked everyone to leave so they could complete their work. Colton had seen the backhoe on his way through the gate, sitting on the far side of the cemetery with its nose poking out of the edge of the woods and its operator sitting on the bucket eating a sandwich. What a job that must be for a man to explain when someone asks, what do you do for a living? But graves have to be covered, and caskets have to be lowered into vaults, and apparently the men burying his mother didn’t want to do either with family looking on because they stood with their hands by their sides and waited. To them it was a job, and the clock was ticking. The world doesn’t stop when someone dies, regardless who they are. It just digs a hole and keeps moving.

He heard Katrina’s voice at his back. I don’t think the preacher likes you.

I didn’t expect him to, Colton said without taking his eyes off the long line of vehicles half a football field away. I see you’re still a Harper. Nobody new in your life?

They come and go, she said.

They passed a headstone that caught Colton’s eye. What happened to him?

Motorcycle wreck, Katrina said. A car turned in front of him.

They say nobody respects motorcycles, Colton said. I think they’re just too hard to see. They should make them wear orange.

The paper said he was doing over a hundred. Not sure orange would’ve made any difference.

Couldn’t hurt though, he said.

Maybe they don’t want to wear orange.

That’s why we have laws, Sister ... to protect idiots from themselves.

Oh, so that’s why. I thought it was to protect people from idiots.

They started walking again. Colton glanced back just in time to see the top of his mother’s coffin sink into the ground. He hadn’t cried yet. Delayed shock, or something like that he supposed. No doubt he loved her. I should’ve called her more often.

Why didn’t you?

He shrugged. I didn’t want to upstage you.

She laughed. He had forgotten how pretty her laugh was. It made him think of when they were kids. Katrina laughed at everything, especially at him. She was the happiest person he knew. Older sisters should be that way. He looked at her and saw the wrinkles fanning out from the corners of her eyes. Crow’s feet, though she tried to cover them with makeup.

Why are you always so happy?

Beats the alternative, she said. Why are you always so negative?

I’m not negative.

Sure you’re not.

You think I’m negative?

Remember that time you won second place in that essay contest? You moped around the house for a solid week.

Because I got beat, he said. And look who beat me. Nat Kramer. Last I heard he sells used cars. I bet he tells everybody how he out-wrote Colton Rae. He should put it on a billboard.

Not everybody measures their self-worth by how they stack up against the great Colton Rae, Katrina said. People do it to me all the time and it sucks.

Being my sister has its advantages I bet.

Sure it does. People wake me up at all hours of the night just to ask me what you’re up to.

He caught himself before he took the bait, but just barely. So how many other classmates of mine have died?

Let’s see, Katrina said, sounding serious. You knew about Kacey Oaks.

That was right after graduation, he said, remembering how pretty Kacey had been in school.

Then there was Thomas Hatfield.

Did they ever find out who shot him?

Nobody ever went to jail for it if that’s what you mean, Katrina said. Everybody knows it was Luvell Mays because he raped her daughter.

He said it was consensual the way I remember it, Colton said.

Trust me, Cole, no woman ever had consensual sex with Thomas Hatfield.

Not even you?

She jerked her hand away and punched him in the arm. Colton jumped away and laughed, then looked around to see if anyone had noticed. The only people to their rear were the men lowering the coffin and the tall man in the black suit who drove the hearse. He heard the clattering of the backhoe across the way, then saw it jerk and sway its way out of the woods and onto the gravel road that circled the graveyard. When he looked back toward the gate, his heart stopped.

Damn.

Katrina stopped too. What?

He looked at the black tow truck coming through the gate. I may need a ride home.

I hope you don’t mean all the way back to New York because I’m a little low on gas money, she said.

Very funny, Colton said. My life may be about to end and you’re cracking jokes.

Believe me, little brother, if getting your car repo’d could kill you, I’d be dead half a dozen times over. Never lost a Beamer, though. That’s gotta suck.

It does.

Looks like somebody’s back to being just a plain ole ordinary nerd again. That’s gotta suck a little bit too.

BO rolled into Echo City in a white Ford Grenada with the right front fender missing. Not missing, exactly, more like removed, crushed, and tossed over a bridge in New Jersey. Name of river unknown.

Riding shotgun was his father, Tom.

You sure you remember where this house is, Pops? We been driving twelve hours straight and you’re not giving me the warm and fuzzy over there.

The old man turned his face from the window and nodded. One-thirty-three Englewood.

Street names you remember, Bo said. Sons you forget.

A man never forgets his son.

No, he just forgets to tell his son about the other son, Bo said. And the daughter. Let’s not forget about the daughter. What if I’d met this broad and hooked up with her, Pops? Not knowing she was my sister. You ever thought about that? You’d have grandkids running around with arms growing outta their foreheads.

The old man waved him off with a scowl, then turned back to the window. Bo checked the map on the seat between them while sitting at a traffic light, careful not to let it turn green and catch him unaware. Small town cops love hassling out-of-towners. Give them any reason at all and they’ll have you on the side of the road asking about warrants and registration and what’s that you got in the little bag under the seat?

They turned off Main onto Third.

So much has changed, the old man said. Hardly any of this was here.

Towns do that, Pops. Maybe we better swing by that funeral home and make sure they didn’t let out early or something. I get popped again and I’m habitual. You hearing me over there? Pop!

If you don’t get that box I’ll be popped, the old man said with his face still glued to the window. I’m too old to go to prison.

Yeah? Well, that’s your own fault for not telling me what that broad’s been doing to you all these years.

I wish you wouldn’t use that word.

It’s a word, Bo said. Sticks and stones.

They turned the corner onto a residential street with lots of trees lining both sides. Most of the houses looked old but well kept.

These trees were little more’n shrubs last time I was here, the old man said. And that house, over there, the one with the balcony.

The old man sat silent, staring out the window as the car rolled down memory lane. Two houses clicked by, then a third. Bo alternated his attention between his father and the street in front of him, waiting.

What about it, Pops?

What about what?

The old house with the balcony.

The old man searched his window. I don’t see it.

It’s behind us, Bo said. You were telling me something about it.

Oh, I guess I missed it. Can we go back?

No we can’t go back. I’m cuttin’ it close enough as it is. Go back. Geez, Pops, sometimes I think you’ve got a chip in your marble.

Bo stared at the back of the old man’s head longer than he meant to and almost clipped a Volkswagen parked too far from the curb. He jerked the steering wheel to the left and heard the thunk of the old man’s forehead smack the glass. See what you made me do? You deserved that, you know. What balcony?

There used to be one on this street somewhere, the old man said.

One what?

House with a balcony. He made a noise that sounded half snort, half laugh. Prettiest thing you ever did see.

The balcony?

Tom looked around at his son with a mischievous glint in his eye. Dawn Wilson. She’d stand out on that balcony every morning like a Greek goddess, like the sun came up just for her.

Did it?

The old man turned back to the window and didn’t answer.

THE tow truck, stopped the way it was, blocked a long line of cars trying to leave through the only way in or out, forcing them to bear witness to what was about to transpire. Colton’s red BMW M3 convertible sat behind a silver Dodge 4x4 and in front of a pale green Ford Taurus. Somebody had to move before the tow truck driver could get to his car, and nobody could move until the truck moved. A stalemate of sorts.

I don’t think I’ve ever had my car repo’d with so many witnesses, Katrina said.

They walked toward the truck until the driver climbed out and started toward them. He was a husky fellow with a stringy beard that hung to his collar. He wore a light blue shirt with a name on a tag above the left pocket, though Colton couldn’t yet make out the letters.

Someone honked a horn up near the gate.

You should pull forward and let these people out, Colton said as the driver reached them.

The burly man wiped his hand on his shirt and stuck it out with an eager grin. Damn me if it ain’t ole Cole, he said, then he stopped with his hand hanging in mid air. It’s me, Joe. Joe Gilbert.

Colton wouldn’t have recognized him in a million years. He grabbed his hand and gave it a firm shake. Joe Gilbert ... how in the world have you been? Colton didn’t care how Joe had been, but he saw a glimmer of hope that if he played his cards right he might escape the moment without half the town knowing he couldn’t make his car payment.

Joe dropped his hand back to his side and squeezed his lips together as he nodded to Katrina. Kat.

Don’t just stand there with your tongue hanging out, she said. You’ve got all my relatives blocked in with your truck.

About that, he said, looking at Colton again. This is awkward as hell for me, Cole, but I got a repo order on the Beamer.

How awkward do you think it is for me, Joe? Couldn’t you have picked a better time?

Wasn’t my idea, Joe said. Wally got a call from your finance company this morning saying the car’d be at your mother’s funeral.

Wally sounds like a fine man, Colton said. You be sure to tell him I said so.

He ain’t as bad as that, Joe said. We’ve been kinda slow these last couple months and I guess he couldn’t risk letting this one get away. That finance company wants it awful bad.

So do I, Colton said. Without my car I’m stranded. Look, you’ve got my word I won’t leave. Just move the truck and let these people go home. I’ll follow you back to Wally’s.

Joe looked back over his shoulder at the congestion he had caused. Another horn blew.

Do you want to be the one everybody sees taking my car at my mother’s funeral?

Yeah, Katrina said. Don’t you know who my brother is?

Joe shuffled his feet. I know who he is, Kat, and believe me I’m not enjoying this one bit.

You’re not helping, Colton said to Katrina, then to Joe, Have you ever driven a BMW M3?

The only thing I’ve ever driven that started with a B is a Buick, Joe said. Unless bob truck counts.

Move your truck so these people can leave and I’ll let you take it for a spin. You can let the top down. That thing hugs a curve like you wouldn’t believe.

Wally’d fire me.

Wally don’t have to know.

Joe looked at Katrina.

Move the damned truck, she said.

Joe’s face softened. You give me the keys and I’ll move.

Deal, Colton said, jamming his hand into his pants pocket. He withdrew the key and passed it off to Joe by way of a handshake. Onlookers might think the burly tow truck driver was just another admiring fan.

Joe pocketed the key and smiled at Katrina, then trotted back toward his truck.

You and Joe Gilbert? Seriously?

I had a bad run of luck, she said.

The diesel engine revved and the truck lurched forward, unblocking the exit. Cars began to flow through the gate and out of the cemetery, until the narrow gravel drive emptied and only a handful of empty cars remained parked alongside. Colton looked back toward the sound of the backhoe, which by now had reached the gravesite, and saw his Aunt Marge walking toward him.

Don’t look now, he said, but his sister had already seen her coming and cursed under her breath.

What in heaven’s name is that fool doing, Aunt Marge said as soon as she reached them.

Nothing, Colton said. He just stopped by to pay his respects.

Well he certainly made a mess of it!

You might as well tell her, Katrina said.

Tell me what?

Thanks, Colton said to Katrina. I’ve been having some trouble with my car. He came to take it to the shop for repairs.

Couldn’t you have driven it in yourself? A funeral is hardly the place for all this commotion.

The shop absolutely insisted on taking it in, Katrina said.

Well then get your bags and I’ll take you home with me, Aunt Marge said. I’ve got a pot roast in the refrigerator.

I dropped my suitcase off at Mom’s this morning. He looked over at Katrina. I thought I saw some of your things in one of the bedrooms.

You probably saw a lot of her things there, Aunt Marge said. She’s been living there for over a year.

Seven months, Katrina said, and Mom said it was okay so I don’t see what concern it is of yours.

Let’s not argue in the cemetery, he said before his aunt had time to respond. I appreciate your offer, Aunt Marge, but I’d like to spend a little time at the house. You understand.

Aunt Marge smiled and patted him on the arm. Of course I understand. She glanced at Katrina, then added, You built it.

Katrina rolled her eyes. The animosity between his aunt and sister had existed so long it was impossible to remember how it began, and impractical to try and head it off. Sometimes Colton took pleasure in watching them go at each other, but today was not the day, and now was not the time.

I wonder if you could do me a favor, Aunt Marge said. Colton told her he would try, then she mentioned some letters. They aren’t worth anything ... not to anyone but Maple and me. Just me now. We used to write each other once a week without fail.

How do you know she kept them, Colton asked, picking up the hint that his aunt would like to have them.

She mentioned them a while back. We were sitting on her back porch talking about old times and she told me she saved them. Said she likes to sit and read them whenever she starts feeling lonely. She missed you so much after you moved away. She hesitated, then patted him on the arm again. Now don’t you go feeling guilty. Maple was as proud as she could be of you. She knew you belonged to the world as much as to her.

Oh please, Katrina said. He writes books. You make him sound like Brad Pitt.

I prefer Leonardo.

You’d settle for Pee-wee Herman.

Stop it you two! Have some respect for your mother.

You’re right, Katrina said. Colton had thought the same thing but his sister beat him to saying it aloud. Come by the house whenever you like and pick up the letters.

Absolutely, Colton said. I’m sure she wanted you to have them.

Thank you, Aunt Marge said. Thank you both. Tears crept into her eyes. She got a bit angry at me when I told her I threw the letters she sent me away. We were different that way, your mother and me. She saw value in everything. She dabbed at the corner of her eyes with a handkerchief. They’re very personal. You understand.

We promise not to read them, Colton said. Next thing he knew, his aunt had the fat of his cheek between her thumb and forefinger squeezing it numb, telling him what a good boy he was.

I’ll be by after I freshen up, she said, then hurried away to her Oldsmobile.

I never liked her, Katrina said.

Really, because you hide it so well.

No way she’s getting that box before I read those letters.

Would you want somebody reading your private letters?

I don’t write letters, she said.

Email then.

Know what’s in those letters?

No, he said, and I don’t want to.

Proof that our mother was a woman once, just like all other women.

Meaning?

Sex.

Ha! More like recipes and town gossip, Colton said.

Aunt Marge wouldn’t be in such a tizzy to get them back if they were recipes and gossip.

I wouldn’t call it a tizzy.

What? You didn’t see how jerky she was?

She wasn’t jerky, Colton said. And why would you want to read about our mother’s sex life?

It’d be nice to know she had one after Dad ran off.

Well leave me out of it. I’d rather remember her the way she was.

I thought writers were curious.

We have our limits.

The Dodge 4x4 parked in front of Colton’s car pulled away, leaving his BMW and the green Ford Taurus as the only two vehicles not already in motion. He had wondered if the old beater belonged to his sister, but figured he’d find out soon enough without asking.

That’s my chariot, she said, as if she had read his mind. Still want that ride?

Joe Gilbert backed the tow truck up to Colton’s car and tilted the flat bed toward the ground. Another lever extended the bed toward the car, so that when it stopped moving the back edge touched the ground two feet in front of the Beamer’s front wheels.

I guess he decided not to drive your fancy car, Katrina said. Don’t feel bad. He never wanted to drive mine, either.

Ha ha, Colton said. He stepped forward so Joe could hear him over the rattle of the truck’s diesel engine and the clatter of the log chain snaking its way down the diamond plate ramp toward his car. You’re not dragging my car up that ramp.

Don’t worry, Cole, I won’t hurt it.

This car cost more than you make in a year.

More than you make too, Joe said, or I wouldn’t be here.

Colton heard his sister laugh behind him. This is a finely-crafted piece of German engineering!

Joe looked at him with none of the admiration he had seen in his eyes a few minutes earlier. Then I’m sure it’ll survive the trip up my rollback.

Let me follow you back, he said. Hell, I’ll drive the truck and you drive the car.

Joe released the lever and stopped the chain just as the hook touched gravel.

I’m too big to fit in that little sardine can and you don’t have a commercial license to drive the truck, Joe said. Besides, I called Wally and he said if I come back without the Beamer he’ll fire me. He turned and looked at Colton with all the seriousness a man could muster. I ain’t smart like you, Cole. This is the best job I’ll ever have.

NICE house, compared to the dumps Bo had lived in. Average for the neighborhood, at least the part he saw during his three-block walk from the car. A two-story job. Red brick with a white front. Real wood, too, not the cheap vinyl stuff, and the covered porch wrapped around the side so a body could sit outside in one of them wicker chairs and watch it rain. Birthing writers paid more than turning tricks on a San Francisco street, he supposed, not that he knew or cared what lifestyle his own mother led these days. Had not the old man wanted a son, Bo Rae might’ve been flushed down the toilet by a pimp named Larry. How’s that for knowing your family tree? You won’t get that information off Ancestry dot com. The old man let the name slip once when he was drinking. He let a lot of things slip when he drank, like how he already had a son. A daughter, too.

The old man doesn’t drink anymore. Mostly he sits and stares inside himself and doesn’t like what he sees if you can tell a thing like that by the look on a man’s face.

Bo never had any use for books, himself. Couldn’t say he’d read one all the way through, not counting comic books and the ones his teachers made him read in school. Elementary school, not high school, by which time he had honed the art of cheating into a thing of beauty. Two community colleges offered him partial scholarships after graduation, both of which he unceremoniously declined, though he did take half a semester learning to be a motorcycle mechanic. Man, when they’d fire up one of them Harley Davidsons inside that shop with nothing open but the rollup door, it’d rattle a man right down to his spleen. Prettier’n ZZ Top doing Mexican Blackbird. The school didn’t think much of him riding away on one of the bikes, though. Neither did Detroit PD, or maybe it was the chase that pissed them off so much.

The ex-wife’s house looked different from what the old man described. This one couldn’t be more’n ten years old, but the mailbox said 133 and he was definitely on Englewood, so he crossed the front yard and walked around back like he owned the place, not afraid of the neighbors because they would all be at the funeral. Maybe they liked the old woman, maybe they didn’t, but they’d go. They’d go because Colton Rae was there. Colton Rae, writer extraordinaire, come home to send his momma to the Promised Land. Glory hallelujah. Maybe he should’ve parked in the driveway and saved himself the walk.

There you go getting ballsy again.

The porch wrapped around the back just like he suspected. He’d stayed in a house like that once. A cabin, not a house. The old man had taken him there when he was ten. Somewhere on Kentucky Lake, though he couldn’t find the place again if you held a gun to his head. Neither of them had been that far south since, though they had stayed in an assortment of cabins. The old man, in his prime, had been something of an outdoorsman. Maybe it came from having such a hard go at things indoors.

Locks had never been much of a challenge to Bo. Some men poked and prodded at them with pick tools, but Bo picked them with his boot. Noise made no difference to an empty house. Splinters of wood hit the tile floor and he stepped in, careful to wipe his boots on the bristly mat outside the door. Footprints had done him in more than once, and he didn’t care to spend the coming winter in jail.

Ordinarily, he would start in the bedroom, because that’s where rich women kept their jewelry, but this job wasn’t ordinary. Far from it. This job required the skill of a surgeon. In and out without bleeding the patient to death. Sorry about the back door. Stitch that up for me nurse.

The attic was neat and tidy as far as attics go. He’d never seen the box, but how many boxes that look like treasure chests could an old woman have, and where would she keep it except in the attic? He swept the room left to right, over and around boxes and mismatched pieces of furniture, then spotted a wooden box against the wall directly in front of him. It looked like something out of the eighteenth century. Like a miniature treasure chest. Not nearly as heavy as it looked, though. Too light to be antique old, and the hardware was brass, not steel or iron. No telling where the key was, and he wasn’t about to waste time looking for something he could render useless with a pry bar. He shook it and heard the rustle of paper. Letters, according to the old man. Proof of a mistake he had made so many years ago.

COLTON peered through the milky sheet of plastic stretched across the hole where a window should’ve been, then gave his sister the all clear. She pulled out of the cemetery drive and onto the two-lane blacktop that would take them back to town.

How long have you not had a window?

Sucks, don’t it, she said. Look on the bright side, nobody can see you riding with me. Everybody saw your car on Joe’s rollback, though. I bet he took it down Main Street just so they would.

I sent you a grand for your birthday.

Did you feel the car shudder when we pulled out back there?

Felt fine to me.

It cost me nine-fifty to get the fuel rail cleaned out. I can live without a window.

You should’ve told me you needed more.

Mom made me promise not to. She said your last couple books sucked. She figured you might be running low. Looks like she was right.

She said my books sucked?

Not in those exact words.

Exactly what words did she use?

Uh, let me see ... I think what she said was they were like grading a bad homework assignment. No, come to think of it, that was Aunt Marge. Mom said you must be tired.

Anybody else tell you my books suck?

Katrina took her eyes off the road just long enough for Colton to see the perplexed expression on her face, as if she really didn’t understand what she had said wrong. So what, I look like I’m in a book club?

Did you think they sucked?

She frowned.

You didn’t read them.

Don’t take it personal, Cole. I’m not a reader. Not everybody reads, you know.

But I’m your brother.

Yeah, and I’m your sister. How many times have you come to my shop for a haircut?

It’s not the same.

Yeah, it is. Just because you write books doesn’t make you special.

I never said I was special.

Give me a break. You’ve been strutting around here all day like you’re cock of the walk.

So you never read any of them?

I tried to read the first one.

Tried? The first one was actually good.

If they’ve still got their clothes on by the end of the first chapter I lose interest. Everybody said your first ones were really good, though. Maybe you just hit a slump.

It’s not my fault, he said. The damned editors take what I write and rip it to shreds.

Why do you let them?

It’s how the publishing business works. Nothing I can do about it.

Maybe I’ve got something that’ll cheer you up, Katrina said. Remember Connie Burk?

Nobody forgets their first time. Connie was Katrina’s friend in high school. One night during a slumber party she slipped out of Katrina’s room and into his. Until that night she had acted like she didn’t know he existed.

Vaguely, he said, trying to sound disinterested. Katrina could be like a dog with a bone if she thought she had something on you.

She laughed. She comes into my shop once a month for highlights.

Good for her.

Guess who she asked about last week?

Joe Gilbert?

Stop it, she said. Connie’s super nice and she’s always had a crush on you. Whatever you did for her that night must’ve left an impression.

I’m in the middle of a divorce. The last thing I need is another woman.

She’s read all your books.

Didn’t she marry Ben Hewett?

Hewlett, Katrina said. They’ve been divorced for years. She asked me if I’d get you to sign one before you go back to New York.

Bring it by the house. The book, not Connie. I’ll sign it and she can pick it up next time she comes in for highlights.

You treat all your fans that way?

No, some of them I give the keys to my car in the middle of a cemetery.

Katrina lifted her foot off the gas and rolled past a speed limit sign as they crossed into the city limits. You’ll get used to being broke. It’ll still suck, but you’ll get used to it.

Not me, Colton said. This divorce is a temporary setback. I’ve got a new book in the pipes and my agent promised me a big launch party.

Is it any good?

The book? It’ll do. The one I’ve got in my pocket, though, that one’s going to be a bestseller.

She looked at him. Must be a small book if you’ve got it in your pocket.

Not the book, he said with a laugh. An idea for a book.

Is that what you scribbled on the card at the funeral?

You noticed that, huh?

Aunt Marge noticed, too, Katrina said. I saw her frown.

Did Mom go sudden?

Katrina looked at him for entirely too long, then back at the road. When you switch gears you don’t give any warning, do you?

Sorry, Colton said. Aunt Marge said she did.

Nobody expected it, if that’s what you mean. Otherwise nobody knows. I came home from work and found her in bed. Her phone was on the nightstand and nothing was knocked over, so I guess she didn’t try to call anybody.

Did she look peaceful? I mean, like she did today?

She looked dead, Cole. I didn’t take any pictures so you’ll have to use your imagination.

Sorry, Colton said. It must’ve been tough on you ... finding her like that.

It was, and I’d rather not talk about it.

Colton watched the town click past his corner of the windshield. Not much had changed since his last trip down. The newspaper did a story on him that time.

I hope I go sudden, he said.

Not me. I want time to prepare.

Delete photos, stuff like that?

Very funny. Maybe you should start writing comic books instead of mysteries.

It’s bad enough you’ve never read my books, but at least you could get the genre right.

John who?

He knew she was playing dumb just to get under his skin, so he let it pass. Katrina turned onto Milan Street and blended into the afternoon rush. She complained about the traffic, so he told her she should see New York sometime. She told him she’d rather not. A blue minivan honked its horn at an old man who almost stepped from the curb into traffic.

So it’s okay about the house? Me staying there, I mean?

It belongs to you now, he said. You can stay there as long as you like.

He felt her eyes on him without turning his head.

How does it belong to me? You paid for it. It made the paper. Like Elvis giving his momma Graceland.

It’s nothing like Graceland, Colton said. "The old