Maggie backed away a little. This was not good. This was not good at all. It wasn’t only Stephen’s voice that was too intense. His whole face looked flushed and feverish. His eyes looked twice their normal size. It made Maggie suddenly afraid to be alone in this shut-off room with him.
“Let me get you a cup of coffee,” she said hastily. “I have some on the hot plate in the back.”
“I was up at the camp this morning,” Stephen said. “Did you know that? I saw you there.”
“I saw you, too. You weren’t close enough for me to say hello to.”
“I was thinking the whole time I was up there that the Devil is very real,” Stephen said. “I used to think the Devil was all red and fiery and frightening. But he isn’t, you know. He isn’t frightening at all, not when you’re talking to him. He’s just a voice inside your head.”
“You’ve been hearing the Devil as a voice inside your head?”
“What? Oh. No. That wasn’t what I meant, exactly. I’m sorry, Maggie. I’m making you nervous.”
“A little,” Maggie said.
“It’s just been on my mind so much lately,” Stephen said. “Tiffany. The camp. Holborn. The things I was taught in seminary. It all comes together somehow. Do you see what I mean?”
“No.”
“No, no, of course not. I’m sorry, Maggie. It’s just that I’m very tired. And wrung out, of course, from everything that’s been happening. It’s going to be a real circus now, don’t you think? That poor woman dying like that, and the reporters all around, right there when it happened.”
“Do you want that coffee? You really don’t look very well, Stephen. I could put a lot of sugar and milk in the coffee. Maybe it would perk you up.”
Stephen was struggling out of his chair. “That’s all right, Maggie. I don’t need anything. I ought to go home, really. I was just feeling—”
“Yes,” Maggie said. “I think I know what you were feeling. I think we’re all feeling it.”
“Are we? Well, maybe we are. Maybe it was just me who didn’t know what it felt like, before now.”
Stephen opened the shop door and stepped halfway out onto the sidewalk on Main Street. Then he turned back and gave her a little smile and a wave. Maggie felt a sudden urge to grab him, shake him, twist him around—but in the next moment, he was gone and the door was shut and she was by herself.
I ought to close up early and go right home, Maggie told herself, sitting down in the chair Stephen had vacated. She felt weak in the knees. She had the distinct feeling of just having survived a close call, but she didn’t know a close call with what.
Something better break in this murder case soon, Maggie thought, because if it doesn’t, I think the whole town is going to end up certifiable.
3
DOWN AT THE OTHER end of Main Street, David Sandler came out of Louise’s Card and Candy Shop, carrying a small paper bag full of licorice bears. He started up the street in the direction of the library just as Stephen Harrow emerged from Maggie Kelleher’s store. David had made it to the first corner before he realized what was wrong with what he was seeing. Stephen Harrow was reeling, sailing side to side as he moved, as if he’d just downed an entire bottle of 151-proof rum. When he got to the lamppost between Maggie’s store and Charlie Hare’s, he grabbed it in both hands and sagged forward.
David Sandler sped up, instinctively. He thought Stephen Harrow was going to fall over. Instead, Stephen righted himself and seemed to come to his senses. By the time David caught up to him, Stephen Harrow was walking normally, but very slowly, in the direction of the Methodist Church.
“Stephen?” David said. “Are you all right? I just saw you nearly collapse.”
“I’m fine,” Stephen said. His voice was strong enough, but distant. Its cheerfulness sounded forced. “I was just a little dizzy there for a moment. I’ve gotten over it now.”
“You don’t know you’ve gotten over it,” David said. “It could be some kind of illness coming on. It could be anything. Let me walk you home.”
“No, no. You don’t have to do that. Thank you very much and everything, but I don’t need it. I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine. You’re white as a sheet.”
“I’m just a little depressed, that’s all. Because of that poor woman up at the camp. Because of everything. Aren’t you depressed?”
“Yes, I am. But I’m not nearly passing out on Main Street.”
“I’m not, either, David, not anymore. I really will be all right. You ought to go on with whatever it was you were doing.”