Shakespeares Trollop Page 0,60

possessions, the care that had never extended to cover her own body.

As I closed the Emersons' door behind me, I realized that now I knew much more than I had this morning. What to do with it, how to make it work for me, was still mysterious. These pieces of knowledge were not evidence to which anyone else would give credence, but at least Clifton Emanuel had listened. I was relieved to know he had been wondering, as I had been, if the whole scene in the woods was a setup.

A setup to serve what purpose?

Okay, the purpose had to be, as the deputy and I had hinted to each other in our conversation, to misdirect. The scene had been staged to make it appear that Deedra had been killed for a sexual reason; therefore, if the scene was false, Deedra had not been killed because she was sexually active.

She had been killed because . .. she worked at the county clerk's office? She was Lacey Dean Knopp's daughter? She was the granddaughter of Joe C Prader? She was easily led and promiscuous, so she was an easy target? I'd hit a mental wall.

It was time to dismiss Deedra from my thoughts for a while. When I was sitting in my kitchen at noon, that was easy.

My house felt empty and bleak without Jack in it. I didn't like that at all. I ate lunch as quickly as I could, imagining him riding back to Little Rock, arriving at his own apartment. He'd return his phone messages, make notes on the case he'd just finished, answer his E-mail.

I missed him. I seemed to need him more than I ought to. Maybe it was because for so long I had done without? Maybe I valued him more deeply because of what I'd gone through all those years ago? I saw Jack's faults; I didn't think he was perfect. And that didn't make a bit of difference. What would I do if something happened to Jack?

This seemed to be a day for questions I couldn't answer.

Chapter Twelve

At karate class that night, I wasn't concentrating, which called down a scolding from Marshall. I was glad we didn't spar, because I would've lost, and I don't like to lose. Janet teased me as I tied my shoes, accusing me of being abstracted because I was pining for Jack. I managed to half-smile at her, though my impulse was to lash out. Allowing thoughts of a man to disrupt something so important to me was ... I subsided suddenly.

It would be quite natural. It would be normal.

But picturing Jack in the shower wasn't what had distracted me. I'd been thinking of Deedra - her face in death, her positioning at the wheel of her red car. I didn't know what I could do to help her. I had done all I could. I finished tying my shoes and sat up, staring across the empty room at Becca, who was laughingly instructing her brother in the correct position of his hands for the sanchin dachi posture. She motioned me to come over and help, but I shook my head and gathered the handles of my gym bag in my fist. I was ready to be by myself.

After I got home I resumed the task of scanning Deedra's tapes, since I had promised Marlon that if I found the one that featured him I would give it to him. I found myself feeling a little sick at the idea of him keeping a video of him having sex with a woman now dead, but it was none of my business what he did with it. I disliked Marlon Schuster, though that was maybe stating my feeling for him too strongly. It was more accurate to say I had no respect for him, which was quite usual for me. I had found nothing in him to like except his tenderness for Deedra. But that was something, and I had made him a promise.

I almost dozed off as I looked at the videos. I found myself looking at things I'd never seen before: talk shows, soap operas, and "reality" shows about ambulance drivers, policemen, wanted criminals, and missing children. After viewing a few tapes I could predict what was coming next, her pattern. It was like an up-ended time capsule for the past couple of weeks in television land. When I'd transferred the videotapes into a box, the most recent ones had ended up on the bottom.

Most of