Chapter 4: Stand Up

Church was held inside the burned shell on Friday morning.

They carried the long oak table out of the garage and set it on the scorched concrete under open sky.

Forty chairs stood around it.

The smell of wet char hung in everything.

I sat alone at the foot, because that was where the accused sat.

Boone took the head.

Dario sat at his right hand in a fresh shirt, with a bandage on his forearm he had not had on Wednesday.

Elena stood behind his chair.

Behind the chairs, against the cinderblock, were the wives.

Pearl had gone door to door the night before and told them the table was open to witnesses and she'd have the hide of anyone who stayed home.

Thirty women stood with their arms crossed.

Boone struck the table with his palm.

"Fire on club property," he said. "Rebecca Pellam set it. Nobody's arguing that."

"I'm not," I said.

A murmur went around.

"Dario says she came at Elena with a can of gas," Boone went on, and his voice was careful, the way you carry a full glass. "Becky?"

"I told them to leave," I said. "Elena walked out on her own feet. Ask her."

Every head turned.

Elena's mouth opened and shut.

"She said get out," Elena said. "I got out."

Dario's hand closed on the arm of his chair.

"That's not the point," he said. "The point is she burned the house where forty families drink and eat."

"Then I'll make my point," I said.

I stood.

"Anyone who sat at this table," I said, "and knew my husband was sleeping with Elena Barraza in my bed on any day before Wednesday, stand up."

Nobody moved.

A man in the middle chair looked at his hands.

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