Shakespeares Trollop Page 0,40

two. Well, Carlton could recommend one. But I didn't want to do that, didn't want to spend the time and money to defend myself from a charge so unfounded. The sheriff's own brother was a more likely suspect than I. I figured that was why she was attaching more weight to the "karate strike" theory than it maybe deserved. How could you characterize a blow? It was what it was. If you could call a stopped heart the result of a "karate" blow, you might as well go on and say, "This strike was delivered by a right-handed student who's taken goju-ryo karate for approximately three years from an Asian-born sensei."

If an autopsy could show Deedra had been punched while she was standing, that would surely be important. There probably weren't that many men, and even fewer women, in Shakespeare who could deliver such a blow, or who would even realize such a blow could be fatal. But if Deedra had been punched while sitting or lying down - in either case resting against a hard surface - well, that feat could be performed by a much larger pool of people.

Just at the moment I couldn't quite visualize how such a sequence of events could have occurred, but it was possible. Among the many things the sheriff had neglected to mention was Deedra's artificial violation. Was that postmortem or antemortem?

When I thought about it, a lot depended on the answer to that question.

And why had she been left out in the woods? It was really bad for the case for my innocence that the place she'd been dumped was off a road I frequented. There were other homes and businesses out on Farm Hill Road, sure. There was a car repair shop not a quarter of a mile beyond Mrs. Rossiter's house, and an antique/craft/flea market barn not a mile beyond that. That made me relax a little; the finger wasn't pointing so obviously at me.

Where had I been the night Deedra was killed? That would've been a Sunday. Last Sunday, though it seemed at least a month ago. Jack hadn't come that weekend; I'd done my usual chores on Saturday, the same list I was trying to complete this Saturday: two quick cleaning jobs, straightening my own house, shopping for groceries. I often followed that up by cooking for the coming week and freezing my meals. Yes, I recalled, I'd cooked Saturday night so I'd have a whole day on Sunday to do nothing much besides go work out, do some laundry, and finish a biography I'd checked out of the library.

And that had been exactly the program I'd followed on Sunday. No unexpected callers, no public appearances except the gym for an hour on Sunday afternoon. Janet and Becca had been there; I recalled speaking to both of them. I'd watched a rental movie on Sunday evening, and I'd finished the biography. No one had called. Typical Sunday evening for me.

What did all this boil down to?

I knew Deedra, and I took karate. I was somewhat familiar with the location where the body was found.

That was all.

And those same conditions applied to lots of other people.

No, I wouldn't let Sheriff Schuster get me panicked.

Not yet.

I'd automatically finished putting away my groceries, but I felt too unsettled to begin preparing my meals for the next week. It was almost suppertime, and the shadows of the tall trees in the arboretum across the street were making fringed patterns on the pavement. I tried to think of a reason to go out so I wouldn't be walking aimlessly. I decided to go see Joe C in the hospital. He didn't hear well over the telephone, anyway.

It was cool enough for a jacket. Track Street was quiet when I went out the front door. Carlton had mowed his grass for the first time, and the fresh smell released a puff of peace inside me - natural aromatherapy. That smell, when I was little, had meant home and Father and the proximity of summer. My troubles shifted, a bit; the burden was lighter.

A Bible verse flashed across my mind: "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light." The Book of Matthew, seemed like. I thought about that as I strode past Shakespeare Combined Church. After I'd been raped and scarred so horribly on my abdomen and chest, while the resulting terrible infection laid waste to my reproductive organs, my parents' minister had come to see me in the hospital. I'd sent