'Are you safe?'
Barbie considered it. Two days ago he would have said yes, of course he was, but on this afternoon he felt more like the soldier of Fallujah than the cook of Chester's Mill. He settled for saying he was housebroken, which made her smile.
'Well, I'll have to make my own judgment on that,' she said. 'Even though right now my judgment isn't the best. I've suffered a loss.'
'I know, ma'am. I'm very sorry.'
'Thank you. He's being buried tomorrow. Out of that cheesy little Bowie Funeral Home that continues to stagger along somehow, even though almost everyone in town uses Crosman's in Castle Rock. Folks call Stewart Bowie's establishment Bowie's Buryin Barn. Stewart's an idiot and his brother Fernald's worse, but now they're all - we have. All J have.' She sighed like a woman confronting some vast chore. And why not? Barbie thought. The death of a loved one may be many things, but work is certainly one of them.
She surprised him by stepping out onto the stoop with him. 'Walk around back with me, Mr Barbara. I may invite you in later on, but not until I'm sure of you. Ordinarily I'd take a character reference from Julia like a shot, but these are not ordinary times.' She was leading him along the side of the house, over nicely clipped grass raked clear of autumn leaves. On the right was a board fence separating the Perkins home from its next-door neighbor; on the left were nicely kept flowerbeds.
'The flowers were my husband's bailiwick. I suppose you think that's a strange hobby for a law enforcement officer.'
'Actually, I don't.'
'I never did, either. Which makes us in the minority. Small towns harbor small imaginations. Grace Metalious and Sherwood Anderson were right about that.
'Also,' she said as they rounded the rear corner of the house and entered a commodious backyard, 'it will stay light out here longer. I have a generator, but it died this morning. Out of fuel, I believe. There's a spare tank, but I don't know how to change it. I used to nag Howie about the generator. He wanted to teach me how to maintain it. I refused to learn. Mostly out of spite.' A tear overspilled one eye and trickled down her cheek. She wiped it away absently. 'I'd apologize to him now if I could. Admit he was right. But I can't do that, can I?'
Barbie knew a rhetorical question when he heard one. 'If it's just the canister,' he said, 'I can change it out.'
'Thank you,' she said, leading him to a patio table with an Igloo cooler sitting beside it. 'I was going to ask Henry Morrison to do it, and I was going to get more canisters at Burpee's, too, but by the time I got down to the high street this afternoon, Burpee's was closed and Henry was out at Dinsmore's field, along with everyone else. Do you think I'll be able to get extra canisters tomorrow?'
'Maybe,' Barbie said. In truth, he doubted it.
'I heard about the little boy,' she said. 'Gina Buftalino from next door came over and told me. I'm terribly sorry. Will he live?'
'I don't know.' And, because intuition told him honesty would be the most direct route to this woman's trust (provisional though that might be), he added, 'I don't think so.'
'No.' She sighed and wiped at her eyes again. 'No, it sounded very bad.' She opened the Igloo. 'I have water and Diet Coke. That was the only soft drink I allowed Howie to have. Which do you prefer?'
'Water, ma'am.'
She opened two bottles of Poland Spring and they drank. She looked at him with her sadly curious eyes, 'Julia told me you want a key to the Town Hall. I understand why you want it. I also understand why you don't want Jim Rennie to know - '
'He may have to. The situation's changed. You see - '
She held up her hand and shook her head. Barbie ceased.
'Before you tell me that, I want you to tell me about the trouble you had with Junior and his friends.'
'Ma'am, didn't your husband-?'
'Howie rarely talked about his cases, but this one he did talk about. It troubled him, I think. I want to see if your story matches his. If it does, we can talk about other matters. If it doesn't, I'll invite you to leave, although you may take your bottle of water with you.'
Barbie pointed to the little red shed by the left corner of the house. 'That your gennie?'
'Yes.'
'If I change out the canister while we talk, will you be able to hear me?'
'Yes.'
'And you want the whole deal, right?'
'Yes indeed. And if you call me ma'am again, I may have to brain you.'
The door of the little generator shed was held shut with a hook-and-eye of shiny brass. The man who had lived here until yesterday had taken care of his things... although it was a shame about that lone canister. Barbie decided that, no matter how this conversation went, he would take it upon himself to try and get her a few more tomorrow.