Divine Evil

parlor was only a few blocks away. He needed to walk.
    People greeted him with nods and hellos. He knew without hearing that they whispered and murmured the moment they were out of earshot. Biff Stokey had been beaten to death. In a town that size, it wasn't possible to keep such an aberration secret. It was also no secret that Cameron Rafferty, Stokey's stepson and the town sheriff, had been the deceased's biggest enemy.
    Giving a half laugh, Cam turned the corner at Main and Sunset. It was a hell of a note when the investigating officer and the chief suspect were one and the same-especially since the officer was the suspect's only alibi. He knew he'd been nursing a beer and reading a Koontz novel the night Biff had been killed. As his own witness, he could eliminate himself as a possible suspect. But there was bound to be speculation muttering around town.
    He'd been in a fistfight with Biff and thrown him in jail only days before the murder. Everyone in the bar had seen just how much hate there was between them. The story had spread across town like brushfire, singeing the edges from Dopper's Woods to Gopher Hole Lane. It would have been recounted and replayed over supper tables. Out-of-town relations would have heard the news on Sunday during discounted-rate phone calls.
    It made him wonder if someone had used that very convenient timing.
    Biff hadn't been killed for a car stereo and some beer. But he had been killed, viciously and purposefully. However much Cam had hated him, he would find out why. He would find out who.
    There was a crowd of people outside Griffith's agedwhite brick building. Some were talking to each other, others were hanging back and watching. There was such a tangle of pickups and cars along the quiet street that anybody would have thought there was going to be a parade. From a half block away, Cam could see that Mick Morgan was having trouble restoring order.
    “Look now, there's nothing for y'all to see here, and you're just going to upset Miz Stokey.”
    “Did they bring him in the back, Mick?” someone wanted to know. “I heard he was carved up by some motorcycle gang from D.C.”
    “Hell's Angels,” someone else chimed in.
    “No, it was junkies from over the river.”
    There was a small, vicious argument over this.
    “He got drunk and picked a fight again.” This came from Oscar Roody, who shouted over the din. “Got his head bashed clean in.”
    Some of the women who had poured out of Betty's House of Beauty next door added their own viewpoints.
    “The man made poor Jane's life a misery.” Betty herself wrapped her arms around her own expansive bosom and nodded sagely. “Why, she'd have to save up for six months before she could come in and get herself a perm. And he wouldn't let her have so much as a rinse put on.”
    “What Jane needs now is a woman's shoulder.” Min, her hair rolled up in pink plastic curlers, stared at the front window of the funeral parlor with glittery eyes. If she could get in first, she might even get a peek at the body.
That
would be worth something at the next Ladies Club meeting. She elbowed her way through the crowd and started for the door.
    “Now Miz Atherton, ma'am, you can't go in there.”
    “You move on aside, Mick.” She brushed at him withthe back of her chubby hand. “Why, I've been friends with Jane Stokey since before you were born.”
    “Why don't you go finish having your hair done, Mrs. Atherton?” Cam stepped forward, blocking her path. At his appearance, the arguments settled down to murmurs. Eyes narrowed against the sun, he scanned the crowd. Here were friends, men he might share a beer with, women who would stop him on the street to pass the time of day. Most of them looked away now. Across the street Sarah Hewitt leaned lazily against the trunk of a tree, smoking and smiling at him.
    Min patted her curlers. In the excitement she'd forgotten about them, but it couldn't be helped. “Now, Cameron, I'm not the least bit concerned about my appearance at a time like this. I only want to offer your mother my support in this difficult time.”
    And you'd suck her dry, he thought, so that you can pass out her misery over manicures and on street corners. “I'll be sure to pass your sympathies along to her.” Slowly, he looked from face to face, from eye to eye. Some backed away, others studied the fading bruises on Cam's jaw, around his eye. Bruises Biff had put there only days before.
    “I'm sure my mother could use your