Divine Evil

this, Mrs. Stokey. It'll help a little.” She brought the cup to Jane's lips herself.
    “What time did he leave last night?”
    “ ′Bout nine, I guess.”
    “Was he with anyone? Was he going to meet anyone?” “He was by himself. I don't know if he was going to meet someone.”
    “He took the Caddy?”
    “Yes, he took his car. He loved his car.” She pulled her apron up to her face and began to weep and rock again.
    “Please, Cam.” Clare slipped an arm over Jane's shoulders. She knew what it was like to be questioned, to be forced to think, after the violent death of a loved one. “Can't the rest wait?”
    He doubted his mother could tell him anything helpful. Shrugging, he strode back to the window. The chickens were still pecking away, and the sun shone on the hay field.
    “I'll stay with her until the doctor comes.” Clare waited until Cam turned back. “If you want. I know you have things to… take care of.”
    He nodded and took a step toward his mother. There was nothing he could say to her, he realized. Nothing she would hear. He turned and left the house.
    When Clare pulled up in front of the sheriff's office three hours later, she was wrung dry. Doc Crampton had come and with his habitual skill had soothed and sedated the grieving widow. Clare and the doctor agreed that Jane shouldn't be left alone, so Clare had stayed downstairs after he'd gone, and somehow the afternoon ticked by.
    She bypassed the television and the radio, afraid she might disturb Jane Stokey. There were no books in sight,so she paced until a combination of concern and restlessness had her creeping upstairs to check on Jane.
    She was sleeping deeply, her tear-streaked face lax with the drug. Clare left her alone and wandered around the house.
    It was scrupulously neat. She imagined Jane dusting and scrubbing day after day, going from room to room chasing down dirt. It was depressing. When she came across Biff's den, she hesitated at the doorway.
    Don't handle death well, do you, Clare? she thought, and made herself step over the threshold.
    It was obvious Jane wasn't allowed to wield her dust rag and broom in here. There was a deer head on the wall, cobwebs stringing from antler to antler. A glassy-eyed squirrel scampered up a log. A pheasant, its iridescent wings dusty, posed on a stand as if in midflight. A gun rack held rifles and shotguns. No dust on them, she thought with a grimace of distaste.
    A leather Barcalounger sat in one corner beside a table that held an overflowing ashtray and a trio of Budweiser cans. In a glass display case was a collection of gleaming knives. A buck knife, a Bowie, another with a hooked and jagged edge. And oddly, she thought, a beautiful antique dagger with an enameled hilt.
    There was a pile of pornographic magazines. The hardcore stuff. No
Playboy
for old Biff, she thought.
    She saw a shelf of paperbacks, which surprised her. He hadn't seemed like a reader. Then she saw by the spines and covers that the books were merely an extension of the magazines. Hard porn, grisly murders, with a few lighter men's adventures. She thought she might be able to pass an hour with
Mercenaries from Hell.
As she slipped it from the shelf, she noted a book behind it.
    The Satanic Bible.
Nice stuff, she mused. Biff Stokey had been a real prince of a guy.
    She set both books back, then rubbed her fingers clean on her jeans. It was with profound relief that she heard a knock on the door downstairs.
    Now, relieved from her duties by Mrs. Finch and Mrs. Negley, she sat in her car in front of Cam's office and wondered what to say to him.
    When nothing came, she climbed out of the car, hoping this was one of those times when planning wasn't necessary.
    She found him at his desk, machine-gun typing with two fingers. Beside him a cigarette smoldered in the ashtray, and a chipped ceramic mug looked like it might hold coffee.
    She could see by the rigid set of his shoulders how tense he was. If it hadn't been for the kiss they had shared on her front porch swing, she would have found it easy to walk over and massage the tension from his shoulders. But a kiss, that kind of kiss, changed things. She'd yet to work out if that was for the best.
    Instead, she walked over, perched on the corner of the desk, and picked up his neglected cigarette. “Hi.”
    His fingers hesitated, continued. “Hi.” Then stopped. He turned in the swivel chair to study her. She looked fresh, soft. Two things he needed badly just then.