Chase: Roman

name of the school, do you?’ Chase asked the old man, the tired old man.
        ‘No,’ Harry Karnes said. ‘But it wasn't parochial. I remember, at the time, how Anne was afraid he might be Catholic. She didn't want Mike taking any kinds of lessons from a Catholic, in private.’
        ‘You have to be careful,’ the old woman said. : I always tried to be careful where he was concerned. You were the one didn't keep close enough eye on him. Maybe if we'd both watched out, he wouldn't have gone wild like he did.’
        ‘One last thing,’ Chase said. ‘And this might be kind of upsetting. If you don't feel like thinking about it, just say so.’
        Anne Karnes looked at Glenda's bare legs, frowned, looked back at Chase. Harry stared over Chase's shoulder, like a glass-eyed mannequin.
        Chase said, ‘The funeral was Thursday, I believe. Did you notice anyone at the service whom you'd never seen before?’
        ‘A lot of people,’ Anne said.
        ‘His friends mostly,’ Harry said.
        The old woman said, ‘We hadn't met most of his friends. Once or twice he had someone here for an evening or overnight, but they were always giddy young men. I told him not to bring any more of them around if they couldn't sober themselves and act adult. And, of course, there were the girls that he -he'd known, girls from school and college.’
        Chase described Judge as Brown had summed him up. ‘Was there anyone like that?’
        ‘I wouldn't remember,’ Anne said. ‘There were so many.’
        ‘Mr Karnes?’
        ‘I don't recall him, no.’
        The old man was crying. The tears hadn't come out of the corners of his eyes yet, but they hung there in fat droplets.
        His wife saw his state and said, ‘I guess I blame the boy too much. He wasn't a wicked boy. And you can't blame a child for its faults, can you? You have to go back to the parents, to us. If there was anything bad about Mikey, if he wasn't perfect, then it's because we weren't perfect ourselves. You can't raise a godly child when you have done wicked things yourself. It was us. Wasn't it, Dad?’
        ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We sinned, and we can't blame the boy.’
        Chase was too depressed by them to remain any longer. He stood up abruptly and took Glenda's hand as she stood beside him. ‘Thank you for your time and trouble,’ he said. ‘Sorry to have brought this all back into your minds again.’
        ‘Not at all,’ Mike's mother said. ‘We're glad to help.’
        Glenda spoke for the first time since they'd come into the living room. She picked up an evening paper and said, ‘Is this today's paper?’
        ‘Yes,’ Anne said.
        ‘If you've read it, I'd like to have it. I didn't get a chance to pick one up today.’
        ‘Go ahead,’ Anne said as she started them toward the hallway and the front door. ‘Nothing good in it anyway.’
        ‘You were in the army,’ Harry Karnes called after them. He had turned sideways in his chair and was staring at Chase's open collar.
        ‘Yes,’ Chase said.
        ‘I think that was what Mike needed. If we could have persuaded him to join the army and go to college later, maybe they'd have whipped him into shape, put sense into him. Maybe what he needed was a year or two over there, where you were.’
        ‘That's the last thing he needed,’ Chase said.
        ‘Maybe, maybe not.’
        ‘Take my word for it,’ Chase said, the sympathy completely gone from him now, angry at the casualness with which the old man suggested sending his son to a living hell.
        At the door, Mrs Karnes thanked him again and said she was happy to have met Glenda. She also said, ‘Dear, aren't you cold in that little bit of a dress you're wearing?’
        ‘Not at all,’ Glenda said. ‘It's a summer night.’
        ‘Still and all -’
        Glenda interrupted her. ‘Besides, I'm a practicing nudist. I'd actually prefer going without any dress at all, if the law allowed.’
        ‘Well, goodnight,’ Anne Karnes said. She gave them a terribly strained smile and closed the door.
        Chase said, ‘You seem so soft and cuddly and sweet - until that acid streak shows up. You continue to amaze me.’
        She took his arm as they walked to the car. ‘Well, dammit, they made me sick. They aren't the least bit sorry for their son - only for themselves. And if he'd gone off to war and been killed that way, they'd have been proud as