banners-the tawdry graffiti of the country dancing crowd-covered the walls. It was 7 p.m. on a Monday night and the place was cold and empty and down-at-the-heels, like an old tart at midweek. But I knew what it would be like come Saturday midnight: the air hazy blue with tobacco smoke and loud with the wail of amplified fiddle and six-string guitar, the wooden floor packed with blue-jeaned, Western-shirted guys and gals wearing polished boots and silver belt buckles big as pie plates, arms linked, hip-to-hip, stomping and yeeha-ing happily through the Cotton-Eyed Joe.
There was no yeeha tonight, only the muted revelry of the barbecue joint at the front of the dance hall. This room was smaller and cozier, paneled with splintery barn siding and decorated with Texas memorabilia: rusty license plates that went back to the twenties, a Don't Mess with Texas sign over a Texas A &M trash barrel, Texas flags (all six of them), paintings of old barns and privies afloat on improbable oceans of bluebonnets, the stuffed head and shoulders of an enigmatic longhorn with red marbles for eyes. George Strait crooned a ballad on the jukebox, a cowgirl waitress in skintight jeans and Dolly Parton boobs shouldered a tray of beer pitchers through the crowded tables, and diners were hunched earnestly over plates of Tex-Mex, which is traditionally served in portions designed to satisfy the appetites of the entire Dallas defensive line. There was enough food on the tables to feed a third-world country for a week.
I did a quick scan of the room. Tom wasn't there, so I took a table against the far wall, putting as much distance as possible between me and the jukebox. I accepted a menu from the top-heavy waitress and ordered a Dos Equis. While I was waiting, I sat back to think about my conversation with Mother Winifred,- which had taken place at the foot of the garden in a fenced-in corner that was the home of a black and white potbellied pig named Delilah.
"Gabriella thought up her name," Mother had said as
she opened the gate. "She built that clever little house over there, too." The house, which was about five feet tall at the peak of its pitched roof, looked like a Hansel and Gretel cottage, with casement windows, a chimney pot, and a window box full of colorful plastic flowers. There was a miniature wooden ramp Delilah could walk up, and a pig-size swinging door, with her name painted on it in Old English letters. Mother dumped a panful of apple peels into a small trough and Delilah began happily to sort them out, deciding which to eat now and which to hide in her mound of hay and save for a midnight snack.
I knelt down and scratched Delilah's back while I made a full confession.
"You mean, Dwight didn't do it?" Mother exclaimed when I'd finished. "But I thought you said-"
"I jumped to the wrong conclusion," I said. There'd been plenty of justification, of course, but when it came down to it, that wasn't an excuse. I stood up. "I'm sorry, Mother."
"It's not your fault," Mother said.
"Yes it is," I said unhappily. "Of all people, I should know better." Some of my clients had been falsely accused, and I'd had to work hard to get them acquitted. And here I'd gone and done it myself. "It was a terrible mistake."
"Perhaps," Mother said. "But I do see the Lord's hand in it."
Mother must have better eyes man I have. "Where?"
She smiled. "Well, if Dwight hadn't gotten drunk and spent the night in jail-"
"You think the Lord put him there?"
"He works in mysterious ways, my child." She went to a faucet and refilled Delilah's water pan. "Of course, I'm glad to know that Dwight is innocent," she added. "Except for stealing Mother's journal, of course." She put the pan on the ground and Delilah, still chortling happily about her treasure trove of apple peels, trotted over for a drink. ' 'But now we're back where we started. If Dwight didn't set the
fires, someone else did." She looked up at me, distressed. "I'm sorry to tell you, but the sisters are very upset over the fire on Sophia's porch last night, especially in view of the fact that you are here to stop such things."
I wasn't surprised. Some probably thought that last night's fire might have been provoked by my presence, as perhaps it had.
"I've been wondering about Father Steven," I said. "Sadie told me that his face was scarred in a fire. Is that true?"
"So I've been told," Mother said. She bent over to stroke Delilah's happy pink ears. "It happened at St. Agatha's, some years ago. I don't know any of the details, but I'm sure Sister Olivia does." She straightened up, and Delilah, courting more attention, rubbed against her ankles like a cat.
I already had quite a few questions for Sister Olivia. I added that one to the list.
"I also heard that Father Steven is 'on probation,' " I said, "for something that happened in the past-at St. Agatha's, I assume. What does that mean?"
Mother gave an exasperated sigh. "Don't the sisters have anything better to do than gossip? But it's true, I'm afraid. There were several incidents involving… well-"
"Boys, I was told."
She shook her head. "So sad, really. The poor children. But the bishop is to be commended. He's taken quite a firm stand on the matter. Father Steven has the strictest orders not to-" Her jaw tightened. "But that has nothing to do with your investigations, I'm sure. Unless you think he could somehow be involved with-"
"With what? The fires?"
She looked at me. "Oh, surely not."
' 'He was here when each of the fires occurred, even last night. Did you believe him when he said he'd come after a book?"
"I took what he said at face value, I'm afraid." She
shook her head helplessly. "What possible motive could he have?"
"I don't know, Mother," I said. "But perhaps I'll have more answers after Sister Olivia tells me about the fire at St. Agatha's, and how Father Steven was injured."
I was still thinking about my conversation with Mother Winifred when Tom and his father walked in.
"How come you're not sitting under the longhorn?" Tom asked, jerking his thumb toward the table in the corner. "That's where Lyndon Johnson always used to sit when he stopped here."
"I didn't wear a hat," I said.
Tom Senior's blue eyes glinted. "Woman's got a right good sense of humor," he said to his son. "Makes up some for that outlandish name of hers." He spoke in an exaggerated Texas drawl that, to out-of-state ears, would probably sound like a parody. It wasn't. People in Texas- especially in rural Texas-really do talk that way.
"Hello, Mr. Rowan," I said.
He pulled out a chair and sat down. "What I wanta know," he said abruptly, "is how come you broke it up with my boy." His lopsided grin showed that he was only teasing. "Not good-lookin' enough for you?"
Tom's father was a tall, slightly stooped man in his mid-seventies with a weather-beaten face and thick, silvery hair. Except for a look of weariness and a few more lines, he didn't look much different from the man I'd met in Houston eight or nine years before. He was wearing a tweed sport jacket with an array of pins on the lapel-Chamber of Commerce, Knights of Columbus, Lions Club-and a bolo tie.
I grinned back. "How do you know Tom wasn't the one who broke it up with me? Maybe I wasn't pretty enough for him."
He chuckled shortly. ' 'If I thought the boy was that stupid, Fda drowned him when he was a kid. How the hell are you, China?"
"I'm fine," I said, and glanced at Tom, suddenly (and in spite of myself) feeling finer. He was relaxed and handsomely blond in a suede vest, open-collared blue shirt, and city-blue denims. He smiled, and I remembered yesterday's kiss. The electric tension was suddenly there again, crackling in the air, hghtning before a storm. I smiled back, tipping my head nonchalantly, but I'm not sure I brought it off.