Chapter 16: Sunday Dinner

The farmhouse was standing when I turned into the drive, and Biscuit was on the porch, barking at nothing.

I left the car door open and ran up the steps.

She jumped on my shins and wagged her whole back end, perfectly fine.

The back door was locked. The kitchen was undisturbed.

Under the study window, in the flower bed, were two deep boot prints and a flattened chrysanthemum.

Bruce's truck came up the road three minutes later.

I had called him from the club lot, and he had left a meeting in the middle.

He looked at the prints for a long time.

"He didn't break in," he said.

"He wanted to see what's inside."

"Then he saw a bed, a bookshelf, and a very short beagle."

Bruce pulled out his phone. "I'm calling the sheriff."

"And your lawyer."

"Both."

A deputy took a report that afternoon and photographed the prints.

It was not much. But it was dated and written down.

On Sunday the house smelled like pot roast.

I was more frightened of the dinner than I had been of the tea.

The principal came at five with a pie.

The school secretary came right after with a second pie, because she had heard about the first.

They stood in Bruce's kitchen and looked at him.

He stood very straight, holding a dish towel.

"So this is the husband," the principal said.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Tall."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Is he always this polite?" the secretary asked me.

"Only when he's being inspected."

Biscuit chose that moment to walk into the room, take a dinner roll off the counter, and leave with it.

"Oh, I like her," the principal said.

"She's nine," Bruce said. "She's earned it."

By the second helping, they had stopped inspecting him and started telling stories about me.

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