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"SALLY," I SAID QUIETLY into the telephone on Martin&039;s desk "I want to have lunch with you at my place or your place soon, okay? I need to ask you some questions You covered the Julius disappearance, didn&039;t you? Do you still have a file on it somewhere, of your notes you took at the time?" Sally, cohostess at my bridal shower, had worked at the Lawrenceton Sentinel for at least fifteen years

"I don&039;t keepanniversaries or on the water contest, but I do keep my notes on major crimes" She sounded a little testy

"Okay, okay!" I said hastily "I&039;s!" "Yes, I have the file right here," she said in a mollified tone "And I can certainly understand why you&039;re interested My better half - well, ation techniques, so I&039;m footloose and fancy free for two days What suits you?" "What about here, tomorrow, for lunch at noon?" I asked I knew Sally, like all of Lawrenceton, wanted to see the house

I hung up as Martin ca and relaxed after his session with the Soloflex He played racquetball at the Athletic Club too, but so the exercise equipment at home "I&039;m sweaty," he warned me I didn&039;t care since I could use a shower el and I had finished our measurements later in the afternoon, and there was a four-inch question ured that was just where Mrs Zinsner had dee I didn&039;t think four inches was enough space to hide three bodies, and Angel agreed I hugged Martin, sliding my hands around his waist and up his back

"Roe," he said hesitantly

"U on it"

"Working on it"

"Yeah I suppose you didn&039;t tell ot married in case I wouldn&039;t ht? Or did you just hope I wouldn&039;t ever ask? Or did you just think I was desperate or stupid enough not to notice that there were a few holes in your story?"

"Well"

"I&039;ll give you a clue, Martin There&039;s only one correct answer to that"

"I was afraid you wouldn&039;t marry me if you knew"

"And that was the correct answer"

"Good"

"So now I have to decide how I feel about you wantingall the facts about your life Am I flattered that you were so anxious to keep me that you wouldn&039;t risk it? Sure" I traced his spine with ry that you treated me like some fifties little woernail in He gasped "Martin, you have to be honest withlied to, no oing to have Sally Allison over to lunch, Martin and I had also been invited to dinner at the hora&039;s division chiefs This man, Bill Anderson, was a new employee, hired by Martin&039;s boss and sent to Lawrenceton to evaluate and expand the plant&039;s safety program So I ith a certain sense of anticipation Martin was shaving as I groped past him into the bathroom for a quick stop onto find our routine He liked to be at his desk when the other Pan-Ara executives arrived And Martin always looked spic and span His clothes were all expensive and he liked his shirts taken to the laundry to be starched, which frankly suitedthe in the world, and Martin, who could do a competent job of it, didn&039;t have the tiency Luckily, we both liked noncommunication until coffee had been consumed He would come downstairs and make his own breakfast and pour his own coffee By that time I would have finished the front section of the paper, which I had fetched from the end of the driveway He would read that, then I would hand him the inside sections Martin was not much interested in team sports, I had noted silently One-on-one sports, now that was so he checked the scores on When Martin had finished the paper and his breakfast, we had a brief conversation about appointments for the day He went upstairs to brush his teeth I poured another cup of coffee and worked the crossword puzzle in the newspaper

He caathered his briefcase, checked withelse, toldto be out of his office one by seven-thirty, or earlier

I felt we had el reported about eight-thirty "Shelby says," she began without preamble, "that we need to find out if an aerial search was made, particularly of the fields around the house" "Hmmmm," I said, and made a note on my list "I&039;ll remember to ask that at lunch A local reporter is a friend ofover for lunch" "You sure have a social life"

"Oh?"

"You&039;re always having people over, or you go out, or people call you, seerew up here I expect if you were still in the town you were born in, it would be the sael doubtfully "I&039;ve never had that rew up, we lived way out in the swamps I had my brothers and sisters What about you?"

"I have a half-brother, but he&039;s in California He&039;s a lot younger than me" "Well, except for some Cubans, it was just us out there We pretty an to date but even then, I was usually glad to get hoood at small talk, and if you didn&039;t talk and drink, they wanted to do the other thing, and I didn&039;t" We sel clammed up, and I realized she would only speak about herself in rationed drips, and I had hadair to measure the outside of the house Then we measured each inside roouess sohed, a co shown that the walls were only walls and not secret corisly contents So el said drily "The next tiet to the bathrooo forty-one inches from the newel post, due east, then north two feet" I stared at her blankly for a second and then suddenly began to laugh Maybe our strange association was going to be el looked down at the plans

"There was so,room, runs up one end of your bedrooh the attic and out the roof"

"Right"

"It seemed to ht be sealed up in there," I said breathlessly

"They ht not But we can see"

"Who can we call to knock it down?"

"Shoot, I can do it But you got to think, here, Roe What if there&039;s nothing there? What if you&039;re just knocking down a perfectly good chimney for the hell of it?"

"It&039;s my chimney" I crossed my arms on my chest and looked up at her "So it is," she said "Then let&039;s go You go up there and look, and I&039;ll go to the garage and get a sledgehaht need" I let down the attic steps and cli in through the circular vent at the back of the house, I calinal floorboards, wide and heavy They creaked a little as I crossed to look at the chih, the bricks looked a little different froh I couldn&039;t say they looked newer And the chimney ider I remained skeptical I felt sure the police would have noticed fresh brickwork

Angel caehammer in her hand She eyed the bricks She slid on a pair of clear plastic safety goggles I stared at her

"Brick fragments," she said practically "You should stand well back, since you don&039;t have safety glasses"

I retreated as far as I could, back into an area where I could barely stand, and on Angel&039;s further advice I turned my back to the action I heard the thunk as the haradually that sound becael was still, and I turned

She was looking at soed bricks and mortar chips

"Oh, shit," she breathed

I felt el and stood by her looking down as she was doing In the rubble was a sure wrapped in blankets blackened by smoke and soot

My hand went up over estdown at that little bundle Then I knelt and with shaking hands began to unwrap the blanket A tiny white face looked up at el did, too, though she afterward denied it hotly "It&039;s a doll," she said, kneeling besidemy shoulders "It&039;s a doll, Roe It&039;s china" She shook entle

Later on, after we&039;d both showered and Angel had called a mason to come repair the chiotten sealed up, how the doll had been left inside I figured that the story of Sarah May Zinsner&039;s desire for a closet and her husband&039;s sealing one up out of sheer cussedness had its basis in whatever had happened by the chi that she&039;d ordered an extra fra, to store - who knehat? Maybe she&039;d intended the shelving for the use of thein the attic But that final change had been the straw that had metaphorically broken John L Zinsner&039;s back He&039;d had the shelves bricked up, and while the hters of the house had set her wrapped-up "baby" teht) on the shelves Now I had it, all these years later, and it had scared the hell out of Angel andstrawberries for lunch, I didn&039;t tell her about &039;s adventure She would be horrified that I was looking for the Julius family; also, I didn&039;t care to relate how deeply upset I&039;d been when I&039;d seen that tiny white face

For once, she didn&039;t sense that I was less than happy That was remarkable, since we spoke on the phone or in person almost every day She was all the family I had, since my father hadI had in common, I realized, with the Julius faled from the southern cobweb of fa," Mother said She was as proud of each sale as though it were her first, which I found sort of endearing When I was in un to work but before she was independent and very successful, I&039;d felt each house she sold should be celebrated by a party Mother seemed just as driven now as she had been after she&039;d separated froe earner;child support payments

"Which one?" I asked, to show polite interest

"The Anderton house," she said "Remember, I told you I had it sold last week I was scared until the lastto back out Some idiot told them about Tonia Lee Greenhouse" Tonia Lee, a local realtor, had been h" "That&039;ll make Mandy happy By the way," the si to dinner at Bill Anderson&039;s tonight You sold them a house, didn&039;t you? What&039;s his wife like?"

"Nice enough, not too bright, if I re, with an option to buy"

After we said our good-byes, and I returned tobecause the attic escapade had ine what my mother would do into picture the pope tap dancing

Sally arrived punctually, in a very expensive outfit that she intended to wear to rags Sally had been forty-two for a number of years She was an attractive woman with short permed bronzey hair She was neither sli the past two or three years, Sally had been close to breaking into the big tier paper, but it just hadn&039;t happened She had settled for being the ularly came and went at the Sentinel as they learned their trade For the first tinition of the big things I&039;d undergone since last we met, the fact that I was now a respectable married woman, and not only married, but er who presumably had an excellent incoreat, Roe," Sally pronounced

I don&039;t knohy people seeular sex supposed to reat I looked since we&039;d come back from the honeymoon Maybe only married sex made you look better

"Thanks, Sally Come on in and see the house"