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By Root 459 0

of it with a woman he barely knew. Not wanting to hurt her feelings, he kept composing more letters, none of which he mailed. The few he ever did send were brief responses to questions asked in her letters. Silly rhetorical questions, like “What did you think of the bombing in Iraq last night?” As if his opinion mattered or made the slightest difference to anyone. And then one day, there she was in the visitors’ room, in a ruffled powder-blue dress with a bright floral scarf on her broad shoulders. He asked if she’d come from church. Oh, no, she said in her effusive honesty that always made him cringe with embarrassment for both of them. People didn’t get all dressed up for church anymore, she told him. It was a brand-new outfit she’d bought just for the visit. She’d wanted to look especially nice for him.

Not knowing how to respond, he had said nothing. Just as he was doing now in his living room, bright with every lamp on. These lapses were easy with Delores, who could leave no silence unfilled.

“So that way I figured I’d get the work done, then stop by here on my way home. I hope you don’t mind, Gordon. I know you’re trying to get reacclimated. Dennis said how he took you out to Corcopax. And like I told him—any time you need a ride there, or anywhere, for that matter, you should just call me. I’d love to bring you around and show you all the old places.”

He looked away, embarrassed, as she readjusted her bra strap.

“Even though most of the changes are all for the worst. I think, anyway. Which reminds me—I ran into Susan Karp the other day. Remember her?”

He didn’t.

“See!” Delores grinned, unpeeling a stick of gum. “Told you I’d quit.” Her last letter had announced that once he got out she would not smoke another cigarette. He didn’t say anything. She balled up the paper and put it on the coffee table. “Anyway, Susan and her sister were in our class. Annette, she started out a year ahead, but then she had some kind of, as they say, trouble”—she winked—“if you get my drift. Anyway, she stayed back. She was a really good basketball player.”

“Oh.” He had no idea who she meant. He put the wrapper into his pocket. At least her voice was pleasant, warm, with a kind of smile in it as if always on the verge of laughter.

“Well, anyway, Susan starts telling me about Annette’s second husband, Eric. She said he works for some kind of food wholesaler. Cheeses, fancy jams, caviar, stuff like that. For, you know, delicatessens and all these trendy kinds of food shops that’re all over the place now.” She took another stick of gum from her purse. “And I’m thinking, Eric. Eric. I used to know an Eric. ‘Eric Reese?’ I said. ‘Yah,’ she said. And then we get talking about the past and everything, and she starts telling me how now that you’re out of jail, the family’s afraid you’re going to try and contact them or something. So I said, ‘Forget that! That’s the last thing Gordon wants to do.’”

He had been staring at her. Eric Reese had been Jerry Cox’s best friend, but there had been an argument. Jerry had stalked off, then run into Gordon on his way home from work that night, that horrible night when Jerry kept telling him not to let Janine Walters see him. Because Jerry Cox had been sixteen at the time, two years younger than Gordon, he had been tried as a juvenile. His sentence for the murder had been five years in juvenile detention. A few months after his release, he hiked into the snowy woods behind his family’s house, put a gun in his mouth, and pulled the trigger. Someone told Gordon’s father that Jerry had left a suicide note. Convinced the note would exonerate Gordon, he begged the family to let him see it. Alone at home all day, with little more to do than brood, the shy man became obsessed. He called them, wrote letters, even went to their house and begged Mrs. Cox to help him help his son. The Cox family took out a restraining order against Mr. Loomis. A reporter contacted them. Their long, front-page interview not only denied the existence of a suicide note, but reiterated Jerry’s sworn testimony that the break-in had