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After a moment she said, “Did it hurt him?”

“Yes.” My knee hurt so much I couldn’t think. “Something’s burning.”

She jumped up, ran into the kitchen. “Shit.” She turned off the stove and came and sat down again. “That’s it for the soup.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Knee?”

“Yes.”

“There’s always the Vicodin.”

I was talking anyway. I nodded tiredly. The bed shifted as she leaned, handed me pills and glass.

The water was cold, and ached all the way down my gullet. “She loved me. She wouldn’t now, not like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like
this
.” I thumped the mattress. “If she were here she’d say he was a monster who would have just kept hurting people, and that he deserved what he got. She’d probably even try to believe it, but—” If I wanted, I could remember every creak and pop and spatter.

“So now you’re saying he wasn’t a monster?”

“No, he was. Is.”

“Okay. Then you think he wouldn’t have kept hurting people?”

“Of course he would have kept doing it!”

“Don’t yell. I told you you’d get mean if you didn’t take those pills. I’m just trying to figure this out. Geordie Karp was a sick son of a bitch and I’m glad you hurt him. He probably deserved everything he got.”

“Yes, but how do you stand it, every day, not being sure? Even you’re saying ‘probably.’ I never used to feel this way.”

“Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You used to kill people and not care about it much one way or another. But you’re upset about Geordie—even though he’s not dead, and even though you hurt him for a good reason. Yes? You’re upset that you
feel
when you practically kill someone?” She waited for my nod. “You don’t think that’s an improvement?”

“She said that I was like Karp.” That I used to be. That I pretended to be.

“She said—?” She cleared her throat. “So she died, when?”

“Five months and four days ago.” And a few hours: it had been midafternoon.

“And you saw Geordie for the first time in New York just this week.”

I nodded, shivered.

“But you said she told you— That she said you were like Geordie.” I shook my head. “Someone else said that?”

“No. She just asked me who he reminded me of.”

“And that was… when?”

“Three days ago.” Or two, or four, or whenever I’d been under the trees.

“That’s who was in the woods, wasn’t it? You see Julia.”

“Yes.”

Silence. Then she said, “What’s that like?” and my muscles locked up. Nothing worked, except my eyes. I wept soundlessly. I couldn’t even turn away.

She got up, sat down again, stared some more, and after a while hitched herself closer and pulled me awkwardly to her chest. She didn’t say anything, just stroked my head. The touch of her hand was like someone taking an axe to a dam; I wrapped my arms around her waist and keened. I hated her for not being Julia, but I couldn’t let go, and I couldn’t stop. Her hand went on stroking my head, and I wanted to shout, Stop! No! This is mine!, but that touch just kept widening the breach.

“She’ll never see this place,” I said. “You have, but she never will. I’ve never seen her grave. I should have stayed, in Atlanta. Should have helped her mother. Seen to her things.” Her clothes still lying on the floor in front of my washing machine.

It was getting dark out, and quiet. Tammy shifted, the couch creaked; her shoulders looked tight and tired. I wiped my face with the back of my hand, smearing the ointment. I didn’t want to talk anymore.

“I think I can make it to my own bed, if you help. The bathroom first.”

I used the toilet again, brushed my teeth, paused in the middle of wiping my mouth with the towel. It wasn’t my face anymore. It wasn’t just the smudges under my eyes, the smears of antibiotic, the scab. The muscles moved differently, as though someone else’s bones were trying to emerge.

M
orning. I hobbled out of bed,
made coffee, took it and the blood-stained folder to the table. Tammy was still asleep. I leafed through the documents. The pictures. The medical evaluation. The passport, the birth certificate and certificate of adoption. Karp was the legal adoptive father. No mention of permanent residency application, and the visitor’s visa had expired. I had no idea what the INS would make of that. No mention of the Arkansas couple on any official paperwork, though I found check stubs I had missed the first time around, records of bimonthly payments to J. Carpenter. There was no photo of either Jud or Adeline Carpenter, no hint of their age or anything but the fact that they were “good Christians who believed in old-fashioned family values,” and some details about the congregation they belonged to. What would they do now that Karp was permanently out of the picture and the money supply dried up? What would happen to the child?

I pushed it all to one side, took my coffee to the door, and opened it. It was a bright, cold morning. The season had shifted. The vibrant color of a week ago had faded and everywhere I looked bare branches poked through the threadbare tapestry.

Careful of my strapped and swollen knee, I propped myself more securely against the doorframe. My coffee and breath steamed. During the night, fog had frozen on the fallen leaves and spiky turf, riming the world in sparkling hoarfrost. Something small had left tracks across the gray carpet, and while I watched the tracks expanded as the sun warmed the ground. Where a bird had hopped about on the hood of the rented Neon, bright green showed through.

“How’s your knee?”

I turned awkwardly. Tammy looked tired and frowsy in her pile of blankets.

“It’ll take my weight. But I’ll have to keep it strapped for a while. Coffee’s hot.”

“What I really liked about you being away was being able to sleep past dawn.”

We silently contemplated everything that had happened since I left: Tammy writhing on tape; my hands red and dripping; telling her what I’d told no one about Julia; asking for help—and getting it from a most unlikely and mostly unliked person.

“Stay in bed,” I said. “I’ll bring you a cup.” I closed the door, stumped into the galley, poured and stirred, and stumped more slowly back.

She nodded her thanks. I took my coffee back to the table and sat. Neither of us said anything for a while.

“So,” she said. “What do we do now?”

“I don’t know.” It would take some time to understand the shape of the change between us, so I ignored it for now. “I have to make some phone calls. You may as well stay in bed and enjoy your coffee.”

The first person I called was my lawyer. Her personal assistant picked up.

“Ms. Torvingen! Ms. Fleishman’s been trying to get in touch with you for a couple of weeks now. Hold just one moment and I’ll get her on the line.” A click, followed by Bette Fleishman’s velvety, young-sounding voice. A great voice, especially if you were really sixty-two and as brittle as a praying mantis. “Aud Torvingen, the original mysterious disappearing woman. How are you, girl? I’ve been calling your machine and leaving messages for a month it feels like. There’s some few year-end matters that need to be taken care of before—”

“Are they urgent?”

“If you mean urgent as in life-or-death, hell no, but they might save you a dime or two if you could get them tidied up before the end of the tax year.”

“Just use your best judgment, Bette. I’ll be in before the end of the year to sign anything you think I should. But for now I need some information about adoption and immigration law.”

“Outside my area of competence.”

“Yes, but—”

“But if you let me finish my thought, I know just the person you should talk to. Great guy, cracker jack, a real immigration hotshot.” I imagined Bette nipping through her Rolodex, which she swore was faster and more reliable than a computer. “Name of Solomon C. Poorway. Believe he goes by Chuck.” She gave me the number. “Make sure he knows I sent you. And Aud, I know you’re in a hellfire rush, but don’t forget about coming in before year-end.”

I dialed the number she’d given me and was soon speaking to a contained, careful-sounding man. I outlined Luz’s situation: her age, visa status, the fact that she was in private, unofficial foster care and her adoptive parent was dead—or as good as. Poorway asked me a few questions about nationality, date of entry, and so forth. “Not an ideal situation,” he said, with lawyerly understatement. “With the visitor’s visa expired, adoptive father dead, and no permanent residency applied for, she is technically an illegal alien. If her existence is called to the attention of the INS, they’ll deport her.”

“Any suggestions?”

“She needs to be adopted by someone else. Then have the adoptive parents and child live together for two years, after which you can apply for permanent residency—the green card—and social security number.”

“How do I do that if she’s an illegal alien?”

“That will take some thinking about.”

Tammy got up and headed for the shower.

“What about citizenship?” I asked him.

“Once the child has permanent residency, the adoptive adult can apply for naturalization.”

“So what you’re saying is we really have to find a way to get her adopted.”

“Essentially, yes.”

I had the original adoption certificate. A template. I knew some creative people. “And how carefully is such documentation scrutinized?”

A pause. A long pause. “It’s not so much the physical documentation as the electronic trail.” A diplomatic way of saying that forging the certificate won’t do you much good unless you can hack State Department computers.

Perhaps the problem could be tackled from the other end.

“Suppose the adoptive parent had applied for the green card for the child before he died. What would happen to the application then?”

“There’s no reason for it not to go through if all other conditions have been met. Especially if the adoptive parent had also left a will specifying legal guardianship for the child in the interim.”

“Mr. Poorway, will you take me as a client?” Another of those long pauses. “I’m assuming we’re now speaking to the issue of client-attorney privilege?”

“Yes.”

“Give me your number, please, and I’ll call you back in a few minutes.” I agreed, gave him the number, and folded the phone. It wasn’t hard to guess who he’d be calling now.

Tammy wandered through wrapped in a towel, drying her hair. “Done already?”

“Waiting for him to call back.”

“How about waiting somewhere else?” She gestured at her near-nakedness.

I hauled myself up the two steps to my bed. I’d lost count of the times I’d seen Tammy naked, both live and on tape. I wasn’t the only one pretending the last few days had never happened.

The phone rang. “Yes, I’ll take you as a client,” Solomon Poorway said. Bette Fleishman must have persuaded him I wasn’t a mass murderer. I smiled bleakly. “Ms. Torvingen?”

“Aud,” I said.

“Very well, Aud.” No offer to be called Chuck. “Our conversation is now privileged. However, I would prefer that you not test my ethics too severely.”

“Thank you for your candor. Here’s another hypothetical question. If the INS should receive a packet dated before the adoptive father died, a signed and dated application for permanent residence, and if there was an addendum to his will giving, say, me guardianship, then I would be her legal guardian until she became a legal resident, yes? Then once she got her green card, I could get her a social security number, and apply for citizenship on her behalf?”

“Yes.” He didn’t sound happy about it.

“And it wouldn’t be necessary for the child to live with the legal guardian.” I would send checks. I didn’t particularly want to meet her, but I could at least make sure she had warm clothes, enough to eat, and someone to look after the basics.

“No.”

I wanted to ask what kind of wording would be necessary on the addendum about guardianship, but no doubt that would be pushing his ethics too far, so I thanked him and hung up. Tammy was now dressed. I limped back down to the table and reopened the folder.

“You want breakfast?” Tammy asked.

“Um.”

“Well, don’t jump up and down with gratitude or anything.”

I looked up. Not pretending quite everything away, then. “Jumping up and down would be a bit tricky at the moment.”

“Is that a joke, Aud Torvingen?”

The old Tammy had not been pleasant, but this new one was unfathomable. I turned back to the folder and riffled through its contents, thinking. I spread out the information on the Carpenters, including the black-and-white photograph of a house, surrounded by farmland; it looked fairly isolated. I picked up the fact sheet again, read it more carefully. Church of Christ. New Testament literalists. Not technophobic, exactly, but disapproving of frivolity; a phone would be fine, and a car, but definitely no music—apart from the human voice in praise to His glory; modern medicine would be acceptable, as long as it was absolutely necessary—no antidepressants, no Valium, no sleeping pills. Nothing about dancing, one way or the other. Jud Carpenter was a deacon of the Plaume City Church of Christ congregation. I found an atlas, and paper and pencil, and took notes.

Tammy made toast and eggs and tea. I ate the eggs, crunched my way through the half-burnt bread, sipped at the overbrewed tea, still thinking. It might work, but I’d have to check a few details. No carelessness this time. I touched my neck.

“Hurt?”

“Um? No.”

“Good. So, you decided how to handle it?”

I had never talked to anyone about my methods before. Julia had never had the chance to see me work.

“They live in an isolated house in the middle of Nowhere, Arkansas,” I said. “Which is good, in the sense that I should be able to snoop about unseen because there’ll be hardly anyone around. But it’s bad because if there is anyone about, I’ll stick out like a sore thumb. But the best thing is, they’re big-time churchgoers.”

“Sunday,” she said, nodding. “The whole family.” Smarter than she looked. “All day. All that preaching and singing. Hours and hours to get into their house and take a look around.” She grinned at me, then remembered and turned away.

I turned on my laptop and while it warmed up Tammy pulled on a sweatshirt and went outside. I hooked up my cell phone, got online and started searching the web. After a few minutes, I heard the chunk-and-scatter of wood being chopped into kindling. For the next hour, I clicked my way through web pages, and Tammy got a real rhythm going with the hatchet; she had peeled down to her T-shirt and the wood was piling up. We didn’t need it. I watched for a while, then picked up the phone book and turned to electronics suppliers.

Tammy came back in just as I finished organizing my notes. The exercise had done her good; she looked bigger, stronger, more relaxed.

“Tea?”

“Thank you,” she said, and smiled tentatively. “It’s great out there, real fresh and clean-smelling.” I smiled back, then got up to fill the kettle. Tammy looked at my neat pile of notes. “You look all set.”

“I’ve worked out a beginning. But there’s nothing I can do for a while.” In New York both knees had been whole, and I’d still had my throat slit by a scarecrow with a razor.

A house is more likely to be inhabitable in the long term if you approach it as a spaceship. Think of the walls and roof and windows as hull integrity; electrical, heating, and sewage systems as life support; floors and interior walls as decorated bulkheads. I had walls and a roof but would need to get the windows glazed before there was perfect hull integrity. I’d dug and installed the septic system months ago, but still needed to install toilet, bath, sinks, and shower. The electrical system could wait. Heating couldn’t. I needed glass, I needed a wood-burning stove, and I needed to check and repoint the chimney and flue. We would have to go to town for the glass and the stove, which for now left the chimney and flue.

The cabin smelled of cold stone and raw wood, and my breath steamed. I stood in the middle of the unfinished floor and studied the massive fieldstone fireplace.

“How are you with heights?” I asked Tammy.

“Depends,” she said warily. “What did you have in mind?”

It seemed that Tammy could climb a ladder up to the roof and the chimney, but not let go of it once she was there, which made the whole exercise rather pointless. I would have to wait a few days before I could get up a ladder and do the chimney repairs myself. Meanwhile, I took a look at the flue and inside stonework. Apart from a few minor repairs, the flue looked solid and well designed, and we didn’t need ladders for the first stage of interior pointwork.

Under my direction, Tammy carried the bags of cement and buckets of water and mixed the two in the right proportions until I was satisfied. Then I showed her how to slap the mortar between the stone with an upward stroke, slice the excess off with the downstroke, and shape what was left with a fast right-to-left horiaontal swipe.

“The trick is to not get mortar all over the face of the stone because then you have to chip it off bit by bit when it’s dry, which is tedious and time-consuming.”

Slap, chop, scrape. Slap, chop, scrape. Stretch, bend, sigh.

Mindless rhythm of stone and mortar and steel, dusty scent of mortar and wet mixing board. It was probably not much over fifty degrees outside, and a breeze blew through the open door, but Tammy’s face grew lightly sheened with sweat, and my knee ached.

I woke in the early hours. I took the phone outside and called Eddie’s number at the
Journal-Constitution
. I had to leave a message.

“It’s me. I need follow-up on that George Karp story, whatever comes over the wires: new leads, witness statements, police activity, Karp’s condition. I’m particularly interested in what evidence the police think they have. You’ve got my number.”

The first two days, we worked only until lunch because I was still too tired to do a full day. When my knee got strong enough to lighten the strapping, and limber enough to climb cautiously up the ladder to repoint the chimney, I spent an hour every afternoon in the woods. There wouldn’t be many of these days left, and it gave me time to think about Karp and what might happen if he woke up and gave the police a good description; what might happen if the police took that description to the local café, talked to the waitress in the second café where I’d left the book. I tried to think about moving money to a Swiss account and how I could build a new identity, but each time found myself wondering instead how I could make sure nothing went wrong in Arkansas, or contemplating what still had to be done at the cabin.

Tammy and I didn’t speak much during the day, but at night, over food and coffee, we talked of this and that. I told her about Dree, the hairdresser, about Asheville, what I could remember of the history of the place. She told me of her undergraduate years at the University of Georgia, the friends she had lost touch with. We didn’t drink. We didn’t read. We would climb into our respective beds and sleep like stones, or at least Tammy did. I woke up suddenly, at all hours, thinking of Karp—I should have killed him, should have made sure; I shouldn’t have hurt him in the first place—wondering what was wrong with me, why I wasn’t already running, and where a nine-year-old girl might go to hide, if she could.

One morning I woke before dawn. The air was still and cool and humid, the way it gets in an airtight metal box, no matter how nicely you disguise the interior with leather upholstery and good carpets, and I wanted to walk. I dressed quietly and crept out into the clearing. My breath bloomed before me like the thought balloon of an empty-headed cartoon character. There were no tracks in the hoarfrost. The predawn sky was like lead, with barely enough light to see. I was glad of my thick jacket.

Amid the trees, leaves fell, gray and silent, like something filmed in the early days of cinema. The air was crisp enough to slice at the warm mucus membranes of my nose and throat, and smelled of iron. Autumn. This is where new life begins, with the seed falling on hard ground, being buried by dead leaves. The old life had to die first.