Divine Evil

his eyes.
    Crazy Annie stood in front of Cam's car and patted the hood as though it were the family dog. She crooned to it, pleased with its shiny blue surface. If she looked close, she could see her face reflected in the wax. It made her giggle.
    Mick Morgan spotted her through the window of the sheriff's office. Shaking his head, he opened the door.
    “Hey there, Annie, you'll get Cam pissed if you put fingerprints all over his car.”
    “It's pretty.” But she rubbed the hood with her dirty sleeve to remove the smudges. “I won't hurt it.”
    “Why don't you go down to Martha's for some supper?”
    “I got a sandwich. Alice gave me a sandwich. A BLT on wheat toast, hold the mayo.”
    “She's all right.” Cam stepped off the sidewalk. The walk back from the funeral parlor hadn't mellowed his mood. But seeing Annie stroking his car had his lips curving. “How's it going, Annie?”
    She focused on him. Her bracelets jingled as she fussed with the buttons of her blouse. “Can I have a ride on your motorcycle?”
    “I don't have it with me today.” He watched her bottom lip poke out, a little girl gesture that was pathetic on theaged face. “How about a ride in the car? Want me to take you home?”
    “I can sit in the front?” Sure.
    When he bent to pick up her sack, she grabbed it and pressed it against her. “I can carry it. It's mine. I can carry it.”
    “Okay. Climb on in. Do you know how to put your seat belt on?”
    “You showed me last time. You showed me.” Hefting her bag and her hips into the car, she set her tongue between her teeth and went to work on the seat belt. She gave a little cry of pleasure when it snapped into place. “See? I did it myself. All by myself.”
    “That's good.” Once inside, Cam let the windows down. Since Annie had skipped a few baths, he had to be grateful the evening was warm and breezy.
    “The radio.”
    He pulled away from the sidewalk. “It's this button.” He pointed, knowing she wanted to turn it on herself. When Billy Joel rocked out, Annie clapped her hands. Bracelets slid up and down her arms. “I know this one.” The wind ruffled her gray hair as she sang along.
    He turned down Oak Leaf Lane. When they passed the Kimball house, he slowed automatically, but he didn't see Clare in the garage.
    Annie stopped singing and craned her neck to keep the Kimball house in view. “I saw a light in the attic.”
    “There wasn't a light in the attic, Annie.”
    “Before there was. I couldn't sleep. Can't walk in the woods at night. It's bad at night in the woods. Walked into town. There was a light way up in the attic.” She screwed her face tight, as one memory lapped over another. Had someone screamed? No, no, not this time. This time she hadn't hidden in the bushes and seen men hurry out anddrive away. Hurry out and drive. She liked the rhythm of those words and began to hum them to herself.
    “When did you see a light, Annie?”
    “Don't remember.” She began to play with the power window. “Do you think Mr. Kimball was working late? He works late sometimes. But he's dead,” she remembered, pleased with herself for not getting mixed up. “Dead and buried, so he wasn't working. The girl's back. The girl with the pretty red hair.”
    “Clare?”
    “Clare,” Annie repeated. “Pretty hair.” She twined her own around her finger. “She went away to New York, but she came back. Alice told me. Maybe she went up to the attic to look for her daddy. But he's not there.”
    “No, he's not.”
    “I used to look for my mama.” She sighed and began to play with her bracelets, tracing the engraved letters on the silver one. “I like to walk. Sometimes I walk all the livelong day. I find things. Pretty things.” She held up her arm. “See?”
    “Mmm-hmm.” But he was thinking of Clare and didn't look at the silver-plated bracelet with
Carly
engraved on it.
    Clare felt foolishly shy as she walked around to the side entrance of the Cramptons′ neat two-story brick house. The patient entrance, she thought sourly, then sighed. But she wasn't going to see Doc for a simple checkup, or a case of the sniffles. She just needed to see him, to hook one more link in the chain that led back to her father.
    Still the memories came sneaking back, those childhood images of sitting in Doc's lemony-smelling waiting room with its paintings of ducks and flowers, reading tattered Golden Books, then ancient copies of
Seventeen.
Going into the examining room to sit on