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“How was it?” I asked.

“Oh, fine. But a funny thing happened afterward.”

“What sort of funny thing?”

“Well, believe it or not, I think I saw Mary Dawes.”

My first reaction was to laugh. “You must be kidding.”

“No, sir,” he said seriously. “Not a bit.”

“Must’ve been some woman looks like Mary.”

“Could be, but then she’d just about have to be her twin,” Al said. “I stopped in at the Blue Moon for lunch enough times to know Mary Dawes when I see her.”

“Al, she’s been dead a year. You know that.”

“All I know is what I saw last Sunday.”

“You talk to this woman?”

“I tried to, but she hustled off into the crowd before I could.”

“Did she see you?”

“I don’t know. Might have.”

“If she did, why would she avoid you like that?”

Al shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Mary,” I said. “Mary Dawes.”

“Yes, sir. Mary Dawes.”

I didn’t believe it then. I’m not positive I do even now. But after Al left I couldn’t get rid of the notion that Mary might still be alive. I was still chewing on it when Doc Dunaway came in. It was early afternoon then and there weren’t any other customers. I drew him a pint of lager, his only tipple, and when I set the glass down in front of him, he said, “You’ve got a funny look, Luke. Something the matter?”

“Well, I don’t know,” I said, and I told him what Al had told me.

He drank some of his beer. “It couldn’t have been Mary,” he said. “A woman who looks like her, that’s all.”

“That’s what I said. But Al sure sounded convinced. If he’s right, then Tully’s innocent like he claimed and somebody really did frame him — for a murder that never happened.”

“Then how do you explain Mary’s sudden disappearance? Where did the blood in her room come from, the blood on her clothes and Tully’s knife and in the bed of Tully’s pickup?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about that. Suppose it was all part of a plan. Suppose whoever wanted to frame Tully paid her to disappear the way she did. Paid her enough so she wouldn’t mind having herself cut and spilling some of her blood.”

“Sounds pretty far-fetched to me.”

“Not if whoever it was hated Tully enough.”

“You don’t mean J.B?”

“Well, he’s the first one I thought of,” I said. “Only J.B. doesn’t have much money and it would’ve taken plenty to convince Mary. And he’s not too smart, J.B. isn’t. I just can’t see him coming up with a plan like that.”

“Who else could it be?”

“Somebody with both brains and money. Somebody who was sick and tired of Tully and his bullying and carousing and killing of defenseless animals—”

I stopped. Of a sudden, the back of my scalp started to crawl. Doc? Doc Dunaway?

No, it couldn’t be. But then I thought, yes it could. He was a vet for forty years and he loved animals and he was smart as a whip and he had a nice fat nest egg put away from the sale of his veterinary practice. Old and arthritic, sure, but a man didn’t have to be young and hale to steal a knife out of an unlocked truck or help mess up a cabin and sprinkle some blood around or hide a box under a porch or make an anonymous telephone call. And a vet would know exactly how and where to make a surgical cut on a person’s body that would bleed a lot without doing any real damage...

Doc sat watching me through his spectacles. His eyes have always been soft and kind of watery; now they seemed to have a hard shine on them, like polished agates.

Pretty soon he said in his quiet way, “Won’t do to go around speculating, Luke. That’s how ugly rumors get started and folks get hurt.”

“Sure,” I said, and my voice sounded funny. “Sure, that’s right.”

“Chances are it wasn’t Mary Al Phillips saw. And even if it was, why, she might not be in the capital for long. Might decide to leave the state entirely this time, move back East somewhere.”

“Why would she do that?”

“For the sake of argument, let’s say your theory is correct. The person who conceived the plan might have kept in touch with her, mightn’t he? Might offer her more money now to move away so far she’ll never be seen again by anyone from this county. Then there’d be no proof she’s alive. No proof at all.”

I didn’t say anything. My throat felt dry.

“Know what I’d do if I was you, Luke?”

“... What’s that?”

“I wouldn’t mention what Al Phillips told you to anybody else. I’d just forget about it. Tully Buford belongs where he’s at, behind bars. Ridgedale is better off without him.” Doc finished his beer, laid some money on the bartop, and eased himself off the stool in his slow, arthritic way. Then he said, “Well, Luke? Are you going to take my advice?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said.

“Better think on it long and hard before you do anything,” he said, and shuffled out.

Think on it long and hard? I haven’t done anything else. And I still can’t make up my mind.

I’m a law-abiding citizen; I always try to do the right thing, always want to see justice done. It’s just not right for an innocent man to be sitting in prison for a crime that never happened in the first place-even a man like Tully Buford. My duty is to go to the sheriff and tell him what I suspect.

But what can he do? Nothing, that’s what. Not without proof that Mary’s alive and Tully was framed, and I don’t have a shred to give him. Just a lot of unsubstantiated maybes and what-ifs.

And I could be mistaken about Doc Dunaway. I don’t think I am, not after the conversation we had, but I could be. There wouldn’t be any justice in smearing his good name without evidence, would there? I sure wouldn’t want that on my conscience. Besides I’ve always liked Doc; he minds his own business, never bothers anybody, just wants to be left alone to live out the rest of his days in peace.

And there’s no denying he was right about Tully. Tully might not be guilty of murder, but he’s guilty of plenty of other crimes and he belongs in prison. You wouldn’t get an argument about that from anybody in Ridgedale.

I don’t know. I just don’t know.

What would you do?

Caius

(with Barry N. Malzberg)

Caius watches the lights on the board, red, red, red, red, with eager eyes (not that he could be seen) and fast-beating heart (not that he could be monitored). Elbows on the table, headphones tight against his ears. Throat cleared to allow his mellifluous voice to draw slowly, exquisitely, the pulp of his listeners’ desires.

Jeremy, his engineer, picks one red light at random. No screening except for the FCC mandated seven-second delay — Caius does not need to have his calls screened. There is no listener, no heckler, no type of problem or question that he cannot address with knowledge, wit, perfect aplomb.

This caller, as usual, is one of the faithful. Stan in Cheyenne. How’re they screwing you, Stan, he asks, up there in the cold, cold Rockies? Stan mumbles, grumbles, spews harsh and bitter words into his ears. One and a half minutes of Stan is sufficient. Caius deftly cuts him short, waves to Jeremy to put on another caller.

Georgiana in Seattle. Yes, of course, he says to her, let’s talk about the rule of the gun and the rule of law, not that there’s any difference in these United States. He draws her out slowly, inexorably, tugging on and loosening the strangling rope of her consciousness.