Divine Evil

the better part of a six-pack of beer. That'll do me fine until I locate a couple of tables, a lamp, a bed.”
    His eyes narrowed. “You're staying?”
    It wasn't precisely a welcome she heard in his voice. She stood and kept to the stairs where she was a head taller than he. “Yes, I'm staying. At least for a few months. Is that a problem, Sheriff?”
    “No-not for me.” He rocked back on his heels, wondering why she looked so edgily defiant with the gingerbread veranda at her back. “I guess I figured you were passing through or opening the place up for new tenants.”
    “You thought wrong. I'm opening it up for me.”
    “Why?”
    She reached down and gathered up both empty bottles by the neck. “I could have asked you the same question.
    But I didn't.”
    “No, you didn't.” He glanced at the house behind her, big and empty and whispering with memories. “I guess you've got your reasons.” He smiled at her again. “See you around, Slim.”
    She waited until he got in his car and pulled away. Reasons she had, Clare brooded. She just wasn't completely certain what they were. Turning, she carried the bottles into the empty house.
    By two o'clock the next afternoon, everyone in town knew that Clare Kimball was back. They talked about it over the counter in the post office, as sales were rung up in the market, while ham sandwiches and bean soup were consumed in Martha's Diner. The fact that the Kimball girl was back in town, back in the house on the corner of Oak Leaf Lane, touched off new gossip and speculation on the life and death of Jack Kimball.
    “Sold me my house,” Oscar Roody said as he slurped up soup. “Gave me a fair deal, too. Alice, how ′bout some more coffee down here?”
    “That wife of his had one fine pair of legs.” Less Glad-hill leered, pushing back on the counter stool to get a load of Alice's. “Mighty fine pair. Never could figure why the man took to drinking when he had such a spiffy wife.”
    “Irish.” Oscar pounded a fist on his chest and brought up a rumbling belch. “They gotta drink-it's in the blood. That girl of his is some kind of artist. Probably drinks like a fish too,
and
smokes drugs.” He shook his head and slurped some more. He figured it was drugs, plain and simple, that was screwing up the country he'd fought for in Korea. Drugs and homos. “She was a nice girl once,” he added, already condemning her for her choice of career. “Skinny as a rail and funny-looking, but a nice little girl. Was her who found Jack dead.”
    “Musta been a messy sight,” Less put in.
    “Oh, it was.” Oscar nodded wisely, as if he'd been on the scene at the moment of impact. “Cracked his head clean open, blood everywhere where he'd stuck himself on that pile of garden stakes. Went right clean through him, you know. Speared him like a trout.” Bean soup dripped on his grizzled chin before he swiped at it. “Don't think they ever got the blood all the way out of them flagstones.”
    “Haven't you two got anything better to talk about?” Alice Crampton topped off their coffee cups.
    “You went to school with her, didn't you, Alice?” Kicking back in the stool, Less took out a pack of Drum and began to roll a cigarette with his stained and clever mechanic's fingers. A few flakes of tobacco drifted down to his khaki work pants as he let his gaze perch like a hungry bird on Alice's breasts.
    “Yeah, I went to school with Clare-and her brother.” Ignoring Less's glittery eyes, she picked up a damp cloth and began to wipe the counter. “They had brains enough to get out of this town. Clare's famous. Probably rich, too.”
    “Kimballs always had money.” Oscar pushed back his frayed and battered cap with its lettered ROODY PLUMBING just above the brim. A few of the gray hairs he had left kinked out from below the sides. “Made a bundle on that sonofabitching shopping center. That's why Jack killed himself.”
    “The police said it was an accident,” Alice reminded him. “And all that stuff happened more than ten years ago. People should forget it.”
    “Nobody forgets gettin′ screwed,” Less said with a wink. “Especially if they was screwed good.” He tapped his cigarette into the thick glass ashtray and imagined putting it to the wide-hipped Alice right there on the lunch counter. “Old Jack Kimball pulled a fast shuffle with that land deal, all right, then he suicided himself.” His mouth left a wet ring at the base of the rolled paper. He spat out a