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They gathered at Ozzie&039;s car in front of Mrs Pickle&039;s house Jake answered questions,

"That&039;s not your Volkswagen under there, is it, Jake?"

Jake stared in stunned silence at Carla&039;s landmark He shook his head

"I didn&039;t think so Looks like that&039;s where it started"

"I don&039;t understand," said Jake

"If it ain&039;t your car, then soht? Notice how the floor of the carport is burnin&039;? Concrete don&039;t norasoline, parked it and ran away Probably had so off"

Prather and two volunteers agreed

"How long&039;s it been burning?" Jake asked

"We got here ten o," the chief said, "and it ell involved I&039;d say thirty ood fire Somebody knehat they&039;s doin&039;"

"I don&039;t suppose we could get anything out of there, could we?" Jake asked in general, knowing the answer

"No way, Jake It&039;s too involved My o in there if people were trapped It&039;s a good fire"

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, look at it It&039;s burnin&039; evenly through the house You can see flames in every nstairs and up ·That&039;s very unusual In just a h the roof"

Two squads inched forith the lines, shooting water in the direction of the s by the front porch A s for a minute or two as the water disappeared into the flames

with no noticeable effect, the chief spat and said, "It&039;ll burn to the ground" With that he disappeared around an engine and began shouting

Jake looked at Nesbit "Will you do me a favor?"

"Sure, Jake"

"Drive over to Harry Rex&039;s and bring him back I&039;d hate for him to miss this"

"Sure"

For two hours Jake, Ozzie, Harry Rex, and Nesbit sat on the patrol car and watched the fire fulfill the chiefs prediction Frohbor would stop by and extend sympathies and ask about the family Mrs Pickle, the sweet old woman next door, cried loudly when informed by Jake that Max had been consumed

By three, the deputies and other curious had disappeared, and by four the quaint little Victorian had been reduced to sn of smoke from the ruins Only the chimney and burnt frames of two cars stood above the reh the waste looking for sparks or hidden flaht soe

They rolled up the last of the lines as the sun began to appear Jake thanked theh the backyard and surveyed the dae

"Oh well," Harry Rex said "It&039;s just a house"

"Would you call Carla and tell her that?"

"No I think you should"

"I think I&039;ll wait"

Harry Rex looked at his watch "It&039;s about breakfast ti, Harry Rex Nothing&039;s open"

"Ah, Jake, you&039;re an amateur, and I&039;m a professional I can find hot food at any time of any day"

"The truck stop?"

"The truck stop!"

"Okay And e finish we&039;ll go to Oxford to check on Row Ark"

"Great I can&039;t wait to see her with a butch haircut"

Sallie grabbed the phone and threw it at Lucien, who rued properly next to his head

"Yeah, who is it?" he asked, squinting through theinto the darkness

"Is this Lucien Wilbanks?"

"Yeah, who&039;s this?"

"Do you know Clyde Sisco?"

"Yeah"

"It&039;s fifty thousand"

"Call "

Sheldon Roark sat in the ith his feet on the back of a chair, reading the Memphis Sunday paper&039;s version of the Hailey trial On the bottohter and the story about her encounter with the Klan She rested comfortably in the bed a few feet away The left side of her head was shaved and covered with a thick bandage The left ear was seith twenty-eight stitches The severe concussion had been downgraded to a mild concussion, and the doctors had promised she could leave by Wednesday

She had not been raped or whipped When the doctors called him in Boston they were short on details He had flown for seven hours not knohat they had done to her, but expecting the worst Late Saturday night, the doctors ran more X rays and told hirow back She had been frightened and roughed up, but it could have been much worse

He heard a co with a nurse He laid the paper on her bed and opened the door

A nurse had caught Jake and Harry Rex sneaking down the hall She explained that visiting hours started at 2:00 PM, and that happened to be six hours away; that only family members were allowed; and that she would call security if they didn&039;t leave Harry Rex explained that he didn&039;t give a da hours or any other silly rules of the hospital; that it was his fiancee and that he would see her one last time before she died; and that if the nurse didn&039;t shut up he would sue her for harassment because he was a lawyer and hadn&039;t sued anybody in a week and was getting anxious

"What&039;s going on here?" Sheldon said

Jake looked at the sreen eyes, and said, "You must be Sheldon Roark"

"I aance The one-"

"Yes, I&039;ve been reading about you It&039;s okay, nurse, they&039;re with me"

"Yeah," Harry Rex said "It&039;s okay We&039;re with hiarnishee your check"

She vowed to call security, and stormed down the hall

"I&039; hands with Sheldon Roark

"Step inside," he said They followed him into the small room and stared at Ellen She was still asleep

"How bad is she?" Jake asked

"Mild concussion Twenty-eight stitches in her ear, and eleven in her head She&039;ll be fine Doctor said she ht and we talked for a long time"

"Her hair looks awful," Harry Rex observed

"They yanked it and cut it with a dull knife, she said They also cut her clothes off, and at one time threatened to bullwhip her The head injuries are self-inflicted She thought they would either kill her or rape her, or both So she banged her brains out against the pole she was tied to Must have scared them"

"You mean they didn&039;t beat her?"

"No They didn&039;t hurt her Just scared the hell out of her"

"What did she see?"

"Notcross, white robes, about a dozen men Sheriff said it was a pasture eleven miles east of here Owned by some paper company"

"Who found her?" Harry Rex asked

"The sheriff received an anonymous phone call from a fella by the name of Mickey Mouse"

"Ah yes My old friend"

Ellen moaned softly and stretched

"Let&039;s step outside," Sheldon said

"Does this place have a cafeteria?" Harry Rex asked "I get hungry when I get near a hospital"

"Sure Let&039;s have coffee"

The cafeteria on the first floor was empty Jake and Mr Roark drank black coffee Harry Rex started with three sweet rolls and a pint of s aren&039;t going too well," Sheldon said

"The paper is very kind," Harry Rex said with a ettin&039; his ass kicked all over the courtrooreat outside the courtroo at hi his house"

"They burned your house!"

Jake nodded "Last night It&039;s still sht I detected the sround It took four hours"

"I&039;m sorry to hear that They&039;ve threatened me with that before, but the worst I&039;ve had was slashed tires I&039;ve never been shot at either"

"I&039;ve been shot at a couple of times"

"Do y&039;all have the Klan in Boston?" asked Harry Rex

"Not&039;that I know of"

"It&039;s a shame Those folks add a real dimension to your law practice"

"Sounds like it We saw the television reports of the riot around the courthouse last week I&039;ve watched it pretty close since Ellen became involved It&039;s a famous case Even up there I wish I had it"

"It&039;s all yours," said Jake "I thinkfor a neyer"

"How many shrinks will the State call?"

"Just one He&039;ll testify in the uet it by late tomorrow afternoon"

"I hate that Ellen will miss it She called me every day and talked about the case"

"Where did Jake go wrong?" Harry Rex asked

"Don&039;t talk with your mouth full," Jake said

"I think Jake has done a good job It&039;s a lousy set of facts to begin with Hailey co on a rather weak plea of insanity Juries in Boston would not be too sympathetic"

"Nor in Ford County," added Harry Rex

"I hope you have a soul-stirring final summation up your sleeve," Sheldon said

"He doesn&039;t have any sleeves," said Harry Rex

"They&039;ve all been burned Along with his pants and underwear"

"Why don&039;t you come over tomorrow and watch?" Jake asked "I&039;ll introduce you to the judge and ask that you have privileges of chambers"

"He wouldn&039;t do that for me," Harry Rex said

"I can understand why," Sheldon said with a sht just do that I had planned to stay until Tuesday anyway Is it safe over there?"

"Not really"

Woody Mackenvale&039;s wife sat on a plastic bench in the hall next to his roo to be brave for her two small sons seated next to her Each boy squeezed a well-used wad of Kleenexes, occasionally wiping their cheeks and blowing their noses Jake knelt before her and listened intently as she described what the doctors had said The bullet had lodged in the spine-the paralysis was severe and permanent He was a foreman at a plant in Booneville Good job Good life She didn&039;t work, at least until now They would make it somehow, but she wasn&039;t sure how He coached his sons&039; Little League team He was very active

She cried louder and the boys wiped their cheeks

"He saved my life," Jake said to her, and looked at the boys

She closed her eyes and nodded "He was doing his jotx We&039;ll make it"

Jake took a Kleenex froroup of relatives stood nearby and watched Harry Rex paced nervously at the end of the hall

Jake hugged her and patted the boys on the head He gave her his phone nu He promised to visit Woody when the trial was over

The beer stores opened at noon on Sunday, as if the church folks needed it then and would stop on the way home from the Lord&039;s house to pick up a couple of six-packs, then on to Grandmother&039;s for Sunday dinner and an afternoon of hell-

raising Oddly, they would close again at six in the afternoon, as if the same folks should then be denied beer as they returned to church for the Sunday night services On the other six days beer was sold froht But on Sunday, the selling was curtailed in honor of the Alht a six-pack at Bates Grocery and directed his chauffeur toward the lake Harry Rex&039;s antique Bronco carried three inches of dried mud across the doors and fenders The tires were ierous, with thousands of splattered insects caked around the edges The inspection sticker was four years old and unseen from the outside Dozens of empty beer cans and broken bottles littered the floorboard The air conditioner had not worked in six years Jake had suggested use of the Saab Harry Rex had cursed hiet for snipers No one would suspect the Bronco

They drove slowly in the general direction of the lake, to no place in particular Willie Nelson wailed fro along His nor, it was heinous Jake sipped his beer and searched for daylight through the windshield

The heat as about to be broken Dark clouds looe the rains fell and showered the parched earth It cleansed and re like Spanish moss from the trees It cooled the scorched pave that rose three feet above the highway The red baked gullies absorbed the water, and when full began to carry tiny streaer field drains and road ditches The rains drenched the cotton and soybeans, and pounded the crop rows until small puddles formed between the stalks

Remarkably, the windshield wipers worked They slapped back and forth furiously and rerew Harry Rex increased the volume of the stereo

The blacks with their cane poles and straw hats caes and waited for the storm to blow over Below them, the still creeks caullies rushed doard and stirred the small streams and brooks The water rose and na and crackers and told fishing stories

Harry Rex was hungry He stopped at Treadway&039;s Grocery near the lake, and boughtof Cajiin-spiced red-hot barbecue pork skins He threw the downpour Harry Rex parked next to a small pavilion over a picnic area They sat on the concrete table and watched the rain batter Lake Chatulla Jake drank beer while Harry Rex ate the catfish dinners

"When you gonna tell Carla?" he asked, slurping beer

The tin roof roared above "About what?"

"The house"

"I&039;onna tell her I think I can have it rebuilt before she gets back"

"You mean by the end of the week?"

"Yeah"

"You&039;re cracking up, Jake You&039;re drinking tooyour mind"

"I deserve it I&039;ve earned it I&039;m teeks away froest case of my career, for which I have been paid nine hundred dollars My beautiful home that everyone took pictures of and the old ladies fro has been reduced to rubble My wife has left me, and when she hears about the house, she&039;ll divorce me No question about that So I&039;ll losedied in the fire, she&039;ll hate ot Klan goons looking forup in the hospital with etable, and I&039;ll think about him every hour of every day for the rest of my life My secretary&039;s husband was killed because of me My last employee is in the hospital with a punk haircut and a concussion because she worked forcrook because of my expert witness My client wants to fire me When he&039;s convicted, every-

body will blame me He&039;ll hire another lawyer for the appeal, one of those ACLU types, and they&039;ll sue ht So I&039;ll get hter, no house, no practice, no clients, no "

"You need psychiatric help, Jake I think you should make an appointuess I&039;ll move in with Lucien and sit on the porch all day"

"Can I have your office?"

"Do you think she&039;ll divorce me?"

"Probably so I&039;ve had four divorces, and they&039;ll file for daround she walks on, and she knows it"

"She&039;ll be sleeping on the ground when she gets back to Clanton"

"Nae&039;ll get a nice, cozy little double-wide trailer It&039;ll do us fine until the bankruptcy is over Then we&039;ll find another old house and start over"

"You&039;ll probably find you another wife and start over Why would she leave a swanky cottage on the beach and return to a house trailer in Clanton?"

"Because I&039;ll be in the house trailer"

"That&039;s not good enough, Jake You&039;ll be a drunk, bankrupt, disbarred lawyer, living in a house trailer You will be publicly disgraced All of your friends, except et about you She&039;ll never come back It&039;s over, Jake As your friend and divorce lawyer, I advise you to file first Do it now, tomorrow, so she&039;ll never knohat hit her"