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“Can we get down, Mother?”

“Can we get down?”

“May we,” Mrs. Madsen corrected automatically. “Normie, are you finished? I want you to walk your sisters back to school.”

Normie excused himself and pushed his chair away from the table. Niels reached one hand out and took his son’s arm. He looked directly into the boy’s face. “What I was discussing with your mother had to do with the practice. And anything concerning the practice-”

“-is not to be repeated outside this house. I know, Father.”

“Good boy. You can come by the office after school if you like.”

There was a clatter of shoes and a general banging of the door, three, four, five times. Niels had never been able to figure out how three children could sound like a horde of Huns ransacking a town.

Satisfied that their offspring had well and truly departed, he turned to Ruth. “So, what sort of things does one hear around?”

“I’m curious. Why the sudden interest in Jane Ketchem?”

“She’s asked me to petition the court of probate to have her husband declared legally dead.”

Ruth arched her brows. “Interesting.” She broke open a roll and buttered it. “The general consensus among the gossips-not that I’m one of that number, mind.”

“Of course not.”

“Is that Jonathon Ketchem ran off on her. The disagreement is whether he took off because he couldn’t find work, because he had a girl waiting, or because she drove him away.”

“Huh. I hadn’t heard the story about there being another woman involved.”

“Oh, people say he was paying a lot of attention to one of those Henderson girls whose father worked on Ephraim Ketchem’s farm. I forget which one. Evidently, she did leave shortly after he disappeared. Supposedly headed out west to seek her fame and fortune.”

“That makes sense.” He helped himself to another serving of butter beans. “I never could believe it was poverty that made him take off for a shoe-leather divorce. Things were starting to get tight around here in ’30, but the younger Ketchems got a reasonable price for their farm when the dam was being raised. Certainly no worse than anyone else caught up in the shuffle. There should have been enough to buy new land elsewhere or start himself in a business.”

“Maybe he ran off with the money, too.”

“Maybe.” He thought about Jane Ketchem’s shoes and outdated dress. “What’s this about her driving him away?”

His wife looked at him speakingly. “Consider that the Ketchem girl was six when her father disappeared. Same age as Normie.”

“So.”

“So, in the six years after we had Normie, I had two more babies and lost a third. Maybe it was just that God chose not to bless the Ketchems with any more children…”

“Or maybe there wasn’t any chance for any more. I see your point.” He folded his napkin and stretched. “I’ll see what I can do for her, poor lady. If she did damp the fire down until he left for good, she’s paid dearly for it.”

Ruth stood and began to stack the dishes. “Can you really argue for Jonathon Ketchem to be declared legally dead? When no one except Jane and her daughter believe it? What on earth are you going to say to the judge?”

“Oh, no problem with that.” He grinned up at her. “I’ll just bring in Normie and have him testify as to how Ketchem was set upon by murderous hoboes.”

Chapter 11

NOW

Sunday, March 19, the Second Sunday in Lent

Russ hung up his parka in the mudroom, pried off his boots, and walked into his darkened kitchen on stockinged feet. Lord, he was tired. He had pulled two shifts a day since Friday, and his body was letting him know he was too old for that schedule. Contrary to his less-than-charitable thoughts, Lyle, like Noble, really had been knocked out by a nasty stomach flu. His deputy chief had told him over the phone that he hadn’t been more than five feet from the bathroom since the thing started.

He flicked on the light and went to the refrigerator to see if there was anything to eat. Linda was gone again-off for a week to visit her sister in Florida. Her girlfriend Meg had driven her down to Albany to catch the plane, because covering one-fourth of his department hadn’t left Russ with enough time to do it himself. That rankled. He hated not being there for her when she needed him.

He pulled a Coke out of the fridge, nudged the door shut, and wandered into the pantry, hoping there would be some Tuna Helper or something. Although he normally enjoyed cooking, to night he wasn’t up for anything more than opening a box and a can. Thank God he had had the sense to assign his two part-time officers tonight duty. If he’d had the patrol tonight, with its homeward-bound tourists getting lost and running into each other, or its domestic calls, which were always worse on Sunday nights, after a weekend of togetherness with another crappy Monday morning staring people in the face… he’d probably have driven off the Route 100 bridge into the river.

No Tuna Helper. He slid a box of macaroni and cheese off the shelf and got a pan from under the counter. He should have just told his mom he was coming over for dinner tonight, but the price for a hot meal would have been listening to her razor-thin slices at Linda for abandoning her hardworking husband for sun and fun with a divorcée. He had pointed out that he was welcome to join Linda on her annual sisterfest. The last time he had gone had been two years ago, and the pleasure of escaping from the cold March weather hadn’t made up for the boredom of hanging around a Fort Lauderdale condo while the two women shopped and got their nails done. Plus, he called the station house so many times to see how they were doing without him that Linda claimed flying back home would be cheaper than the phone bill.

He put water on to boil and collapsed into one of the kitchen chairs with his Coke. Linda had done something different with a St. Patrick’s theme. There was a new tablecloth on the table, new place mats and napkins, and curtains festooning the windows. All green-and-white fabrics, tweed and tiny gold-edged shamrocks and presumably Irish shepherds helping Irish shepherdesses over a stile. Their house was a laboratory for Linda’s burgeoning drapery business, which meant they were more or less in a state of constant redecoration. At least she had farmed out some of the work-three neighboring women stitched away at ruffles and blinds and whatnot, so Linda could meet her orders without sewing eighteen hours out of twenty-four.

The rattle of the lid on the pot told him the water had come to a boil. He heaved himself out of his chair and poured the macaroni in, stirring it with a big wooden spoon. Maybe he should have just said the hell with it and gone to Florida. Maybe he would. Just fly down there, surprise her. They could go out to dinner together, take a long walk, rent a boat and get out on the ocean. Well, no, she didn’t really care for long walks and she didn’t do too well on the water unless she was in something pretty big. Okay, he could swallow his dislike of sunbathing and lie around on the beach with her. He could make the ultimate sacrifice and take her shopping. Anything. They just needed to spend some time together and talk about something other than who bought the groceries and who was going to the bank.

He drained the pot, went upstairs, and changed out of his uniform into sweats. Back downstairs he ate his mac and cheese in front of the TV, flicking from one lousy show to another, wondering why the networks couldn’t schedule one of the NCAA finals on a night when he was at home. He rinsed out his bowl and loaded the dishwasher. He wandered down to his cellar workroom, but the thought of putting in time on one of his projects made him feel as if a lead blanket had been placed on his shoulders, so he went back upstairs. He thought about calling a few airlines to see how much it would cost for a last-minute ticket to Florida. He thought about calling his sister Janet, catching up with what his nieces were doing. He thought about calling his mom.