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The auditorium was filled to capacity. Dix would bet every student and professor at Stanislaus was there. Those who couldn’t find seating were huddled against the walls and sitting on the steps in the aisles. He saw a lot of townies, too, sprinkled throughout the auditorium.

He and Ruth got lots of looks, some of them frowns, some tentative greetings. Erin’s parents were a conservative-looking couple, pale and silent, unable, he imagined, to come to grips with their daughter’s violent death. He’d met them, expressed his sympathy, when they first arrived. He had lost his wife, but he couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose a child. He thought of Rafe and Rob, and losing them would be the biggest hit life could dish out.

They would never find out exactly what was done to their daughter, if he could help it. Drugged and stabbed, that was horrible enough without adding the rest. Dix could only hope the half dozen people who knew the truth would never have to let it out.

He spent the memorial studying the faces around him, and knew Ruth was doing the same thing. There were half a dozen eulogies, including a very moving one by Gloria Stanford, and another by Gordon, who looked barely able to control his tears. The Presbyterian minister from Maestro focused on God’s providence and his belief in God’s own justice for Erin, an idea that seemed to resonate with the six-hundred-plus people in the auditorium.

Dix saw Tony and Gloria Stanford sitting on either side of Gordon, Gloria holding his hand. He saw Milton Bean from the Maestro Daily Telegraph.

No one acted unexpectedly. The fact was, Dix felt brain-dead. He was tired of seeing everyone as potential suspects, and though he mourned Erin Bushnell’s passing, he grew tired of hearing her praised beyond what most human beings would justly deserve at the age of twenty-two.

He thought of Helen, her body released by the coroner to her brother, who finally agreed to a memorial at Stanislaus the following week, and of old Walt, seemingly not important enough for a formal memorial, buried now in the two-hundred-year-old town cemetery on Coyote Hill. Dix had been surprised to see a small crowd of townspeople, his real friends, at the graveside service. Walt would have been pleased by that.

After the memorial Dix drove to Leigh Ann’s Blooms for All Occasions and bought a bouquet of carnations. He and Ruth drove to Coyote Hill, and together they walked to Walt McGuffey’s grave, a raw gash in the earth. Dix went down on one knee and placed the carnations at the head of the grave. “I ordered a stone to be carved for him. It should be here next week.”

Ruth said, “I would have come to his funeral with you yesterday if you’d only asked me.”

“You were on the phone to Washington. I didn’t want to disturb you. And you’re tired, Ruth, we both are. You’ve been through an awful lot. Now, it’s cold out here. I don’t want you to get sick. Let’s go home.”

She nodded, and it struck her that he’d called it home— for both of them. That was odd, and a little scary, yet it made her feel very good. She’d lived with him and his boys for a week now, and it felt more natural every day. Dix was an honorable man, and he cared—about his boys foremost, about his town, about doing the right thing. As for how that long, fit body of his looked in low-slung jeans, she didn’t want to think about that.

She wanted to talk to him more about Christie, but knew now wasn’t the time. Not yet. She might not have known him for all that long, but she knew in her soul that if Christie was at all like her, she would never have left him or the boys. Not willingly. Something very bad had happened to Christie Noble, and everybody knew it.

As they walked back to the Range Rover, Dix felt her looking at him, but he couldn’t see her eyes through the opaque black lenses of her sunglasses. She huddled in her bulky black leather jacket next to him on the front seat, her purple wool scarf around her neck, and pulled her matching purple wool