One Door From Heaven

struck a bell in Micky's mind, and she recognized the sound as the ring of truth.
        Yesterday in the backyard, when Micky admonished the girl not to invent unkind stories about her mother, Leilani had said, couldn't make up anything as weird as what is.
        But a stepfather who had committed eleven murders? Who killed elderly women? And a little boy in a wheelchair?
        Even as instinct argued that she was hearing the clear ring of truth, reason insisted it was the reverberant gong of sheer fantasy.
        "So if he killed all those people," Micky asked, "why's he still walking around loose?"
        "It's a wonderment, isn't it?" the girl said. "More than a wonderment. It's impossible."
        "Dr. Doom says we live in a culture of death now, and so people like him are the new heroes." "What does that mean?"
        "I don't explain the doctor," Leilani said. "I just quote him." "He sounds like a perfectly dreadful man," Aunt Gen said, as though Leilani had accused Maddoc of nothing worse than habitually breaking wind and being rude to nuns.
        "If I were you, I wouldn't invite him to dinner. By the way, he doesn't know I'm here. He wouldn't allow this. But he's out tonight." "I'd rather invite Satan than him," said Geneva. "You're welcome here anytime, Leilani, but he better stay on his side of the fence."
        "He will. He doesn't like people much, unless they're dead. He isn't likely to chat you up across the backyard fence. But if you do run into him, don't call him Preston or Maddoc. These days he looks a lot different, and he travels under the name Jordan-'call me Jorry'-Banks. If you use his real name, he'll know I've ratted on him."
        "I won't be talking to him," said Geneva. "After what I've just heard, I'd as soon smack him as look at him."
        Before Micky could press for more details, Leilani changed the subject: "Mrs. D, did the cops catch the guy who robbed your store?"
        Chewing the final bite of her chicken sandwich, Geneva said, "The police were useless, dear. I had to track him down myself." "That's so completely radical!" In the gathering shadows that darkened but didn't cool tin- kitchen, in the scarlet light of the retiring sun, Leilani's lace shone as much with enchantment as with a patina of perspiration. In spite of her genius IQ, her street smarts, and her well-polished wise-ass attitude, the girl retained some of the gullibility of a child. "But how'd you do what the cops couldn't?"
        As Micky struck a match to light the three candles in the center of the table, Aunt Gen said, "Trained detectives can't compete with a wronged woman if she's determined, spunky, and has a hard edge."
        "Spunky though you are," Micky said as the second candle cloned the flame on her match, "I suspect you're thinking about Ashley Judd or Sharon Stone, or maybe Pam Grier."
        Leaning across the dinette table, whispering dramatically to Leilani, Geneva said, "I located the bastard in New Orleans."
        "You've never been to New Orleans," Micky affectionately reminded her.
        Frowning, Geneva said, "Maybe it was Las Vegas."
        Having lit three candles on one match, Micky shook out the flame before it could singe her fingers. "This isn't real memory, Aunt Gen. It's movie memory again."
        "Is it?" Geneva still leaned forward. The slow unsynchronized throbbing of the candle flames cast an undulant glow across her face, brightening her eyes but failing to dispel the shadow of confusion in which she sat. "But, sweetie, I remember so clearly… the wonderful satisfaction of shooting him."
        "You don't own a gun, Aunt Gen."
        "That's right. I don't own a gun." Geneva's sudden smile was more radiant than the candlelight. "Now that I think about it, the man who was shot in New Orleans-he was Alec Baldwin."
        "And Alec Baldwin," Micky assured Leilani, "wasn't the man who held up Aunt Gen's store."
        "Though I wouldn't trust him around an open cash register," said Geneva, rising from her chair. "Alec Baldwin is a more believable villain than hero."
        Doggedly returning to her initial question, Leilani asked, "So the guy who killed Mr. D-was he caught?"
        "No," Micky said. "Cops haven't had one lead in eighteen years."
        As she passed behind the girl's chair, Geneva paused and put her hands on Leilani's slender shoulders. With good cheer untainted by any trace of bitterness, she said,