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A gopher, pushing two fistfuls of soil, poked his little brown head out of a new-made hole among the roots of a pecan. "Hi guy," A
From the barn came the sounds of metal on metal. Karl pitchforking manure into the wheelbarrow.
Why not? A
Karl had an audience. Pesky and Gideon looked on adoringly as the big man mucked out their shelter. Pesky kept nudging Karl's behind. A
Under his breath, Karl was whistling, "We'll be quiet as a mouse and build a lovely little house for Wendy," from Peter Pan.
A
"You been putting hoof-flex on it," Karl returned. "That's good. Nobody else bothers."
"You bother," A
"It's no bother," Karl said.
A
"I thought you'd be off today."
"Tomorrow and Saturday."
A
"Nothing," Karl said. "Maybe I'll go to town. Go to the show."
"Not much playing. I went weekend before last. Saw the new Schwarzenegger film. Did you see that?" A
"Weekend before last I went home to Van Horn," he said. Van Horn was a little town an hour south on Highway 54. "My mom wanted me to lift things down from the shelf in the garage. She's got a garage." Karl started to whistle again, lifting the handles of the full wheelbarrow easily and wheeling it toward the gate.
Pesky butted his head against A
ALIBIS.
They came right after CLUES.
9
TIME to have another "beer" with Christina Walters. A
Rubberbands clamped in her teeth, she rebraided her hair. "Stalling?" she asked her reflection in the bathroom mirror. "Or primping?" For the fourteenth time she glanced at the clock: 6:17. When did one drop in on a mother-and-child? When did four-year-olds eat supper? A
Not like me, A
6:21.
A
Christina and Alison lived in one of the two-bedroom-with-garage houses sprinkled down the curving roadway from where the seasonals, A
The unmistakable racket of plastic wheels on pavement let A
"Hi," A
It was a stupid question. Alison probably knew it but, being a well-brought-up child, chose to overlook it. "Momma's in the back," she a
A
Alison nodded, starting up her trike again with burring engine noise blown out through pursed lips.
Christina, wearing white painter's overalls and a pale yellow tank top, knelt near the chainlink fence weeding a flower bed rich with the colors of marigolds and snapdragons.
"Exotics," A
"Good evening," Christina returned, mocking A
"More or less," A
Christina nodded appreciatively as she read the label on the wine bottle. "I like reds better than whites. Even in summer I like the warmth."
A
"It'll be better aged an hour or so." Christina set the wine just inside the porch door. "Ally and I were going to come by and abduct you this evening. We need your expert advice.
"Honey? Ready to go?" she called, shooing A
"Do you want to tell Ranger Pigeon where we're going?" Christina asked as the three of them walked out the drive and turned up past the seasonal housing.
"A
Alison bounded away ahead of them, then walked backward several yards in front. "Dottie's neighbor's cat had kittens. Momma said I could have one and that you knew how to pick the best one because you had an orange cat."
"Dottie Bernard lives up at the highway camp," Christina explained. "She sits with Alison week days."
A
In the end Christina may have been sorry she asked A
" Piedmont doesn't have anyone to play with," Christina said half accusingly.
" Piedmont was an only child," A
"Like Ally." Christina looked sad for an instant then banished it with a smile. "Two kittens," she said.
Alison picked out two black kittens, one with a white mustache, one with two white front paws. They carried them home in a cardboard VCR box. Under A
"You mustn't play with them too much," A