Chapter 4

The deed lay flat on the lace cloth.

Clay's finger stayed on the date.

Nobody had moved.

"It's a mistake," Della said.

"The notary filled in the date wrong. It happens."

"She signed it in November. Before she got sick."

"You can ask her yourself."

She already had the phone in her hand.

She called her sister in Ord.

Renee Lane was at the farmhouse in fifty minutes.

She came in with snow in her hair and her coat still on.

She was a small woman with quick eyes and a leather bag.

She looked at the deed on the table and did not pick it up.

"I notarized it," she said.

"Sarah signed it at my kitchen table. November."

"Then why does it say March?" Clay asked.

Renee shrugged with one shoulder.

"Recorder's offices are sloppy. Somebody typed the wrong month."

"And the name?" Opal said.

"Grantee. Della Rutledge."

"There was no Della Rutledge in March."

"She had it retyped when she filed it," Renee said.

"After the wedding. That's allowed."

It was not allowed.

Nobody at the table was sure enough to say so.

The two women who had come back for the dish stayed.

The sandy-haired one turned her coat right side out again.

"Well," she said. "Renee wouldn't lie about her own sister."

The other one nodded at Della.

"Opal. You should have gone to a lawyer, not a card table."

Mrs. Ferris stood in the mudroom with her keys in her hand.

She looked at Cooper, still pressed into Opal's skirt.

Then she looked at Della and said she had to get home.

She went out without choosing a side.

The screen door banged twice.

Clay sat down at the end of the table.

He put both hands on his face and stayed like that.

Then he said it.

"Opal. I need you to go home. Just for tonight."

Opal did not move.

"I'll be here at six," she said.

"To make his breakfast."

"Opal."

"I'll be here at six."

Clay did not argue with her.

He was forty-eight years old and he had believed a letter.

Della began to clear the table.

She stacked the saucers one on another, very neat.

She had won the room.

She was almost smiling again.

Then Opal spoke to Renee.

"Notaries in this state keep a journal."

"Every entry. Every date. Every signature."

"Bring me the page from the ninth of March."

Renee's hands stopped on the saucer she was holding.

"It's at the office. In Ord."

"Then bring it tomorrow."

"It's forty miles."

"Then drive forty miles."

Renee put the saucer down wrong, on its edge.

It slid off the table and broke on the floor.

Nobody picked it up.

Della walked to the wall phone and took it off the hook.

She kept her eyes on Opal the whole time.

"Sheriff's office," she said. "I'd like to report an assault."

The clock over the stove hummed.

The wind pushed at the kitchen window.

Twenty minutes later the yard filled with light.

Blue light rolled across the wall and over the lace cloth.

A young deputy came to the mudroom door with snow on his hat.

He looked at the boy.

Then at the two women standing apart.

Then at Opal.

"Ma'am," he said. "I need you to come outside with me."