The Wingthorn Rose. Melvyn Chase

saw him approaching her desk and tried to look friendly.

      “Good morning. Do you have a minute?” Lucas asked.

      “Sure.”

      “Thanks for your help. I got that job at the nursery. I start next Monday.”

      “For some reason, Henry seemed very interested in hiring you.”

      Lucas smiled.

      “He’s looking forward to sticking it to me.”

      “Why? He doesn’t even know you.”

      “We met once, remember? He thinks I don’t care enough about good and evil.”

      “But he hired you anyway.”

      “Actually, Leo Sage did. Henry wasn’t there.”

      “I guess you’re Henry’s latest project.”

      “He wants to save my soul?”

      “No doubt about it.”

      “Maybe I’ll go to one of his Bible classes.”

      Fay just shook her head.

      “I haven’t seen you on your morning walk lately,” Lucas said.

      “I guess I’ve been a little lazy.”

      “I miss the company. Will I see you tomorrow?”

      “Probably.”

      She looked around the library, as if she was hoping for an interruption, but all she saw was the clerk on duty, and an elderly woman reading the Hartford Courant at a corner table.

      “Joey told me about Saturday night,” she said. “I can’t believe you let him fix you up.”

      “His friend had cancelled and he needed a replacement. I just went along for the ride.”

      She responded too quickly. “Joey said you and your date skipped out on him,” and then she tried to look unconcerned.

      “The place was too noisy. So we left. Went to a coffee house for a while.”

      “It doesn’t sound like a total disaster.”

      “It wasn’t.”

      She began to ask another question, but stopped herself.

      Lucas waited for a moment.

      Then he asked, “Are you busy a week from Sunday?”

      She reacted slowly, as if she couldn’t make the transition to a new subject.

      “Sunday?”

      “Yes. A week from this coming Sunday.”

      “Why?”

      “They’re showing Alexander Nevsky at Exeter Community College. At two in the afternoon. Would you like to go?”

      “Well . . .”

      “I can pick up the tickets. We could have dinner afterward.”

      “I don’t know.”

      “Why not?”

      “All right. Yes.”

      “Good.”

      “The last time I saw that movie, I was in college.”

      “Me, too.”

      He smiled at her, said, “I’ll see you tomorrow,” and walked to the shelves.

      After a few minutes, he found what he was looking for: The New Bible Companion: a Guide to Understanding the Scriptures.

      An hour later, Lucas was sitting at the table on the patio, reading and drinking beer straight from the bottle. His eyes scanned the pages of the book he’d checked out, picking a paragraph here, a phrase there.

      After a few minutes, he realized he couldn’t concentrate. He put the open book face down on the table, shut his eyes and pressed the cold bottle against his forehead.

      Then, reaching for his cell phone, he pushed a quick-dial button and raised the phone to his ear.

      After two rings, a woman’s voice said, “Spector’s. Can I help you?”

      “This is Murdoch.”

      “Just a minute, please, Mr. Murdoch.”

      Music on hold for a few seconds, then: “Hello, Mr. Murdoch.”

      “Bernie. How’s she doing?”

      “Very well. She just got a promotion and a raise. And now they’re mentioning her name on the program, as the news writer.”

      “What else?”

      “She’s still going out with the same guy.”

      “Vincent.”

      “Vincent. They usually end up at her apartment, and he stays late. But he never sleeps over. And she never stays at his place over night, either.”

      Lucas didn’t comment.

      Bernie said, with obvious reluctance, “And she goes to Grassmere every Friday. Never misses.”

      “Is the Grassmere story the same?”

      “Nothing has changed.”

      “Anything else I should know about?”

      “No, sir.”

      Lucas pushed the End button.

      He lowered the phone and rested his hand on the table, cradling the receiver in his fingers.

      Grassmere every Friday. Never misses.

      He put the phone back into his pocket. He picked up the book and began to skim again, then stopped at a passage from Genesis:

      “Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven;

      “And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

      “But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.”

      Fay walked with Lucas on Thursday morning, silently at first. She took the longer route through the Cascades and kept increasing the pace, as if she was trying to tire him out.

      He matched her silence and her pace.

      When they were circling back, he said, “Yesterday morning, I ran most of the way. Did you ever do that?”

      ”No.”

      “You’re in good shape. You should try it. Running really clears your head.”

      “My head is clear enough.”

      She turned to look at him and he smiled at her. “We can build up to it, a little at a time.”

      She nodded once, acknowledging that he had just reversed their roles: now he was challenging her.

      “I assume you’ve run the Boston Marathon several times,” she said.

      “I never even tried.”

      “Why not?”

      “Because I can’t win.”

      “That’s not the answer I expected.”

      He ignored her comment and asked, “How about it? We don’t have to run full out: just trot. From here to the big oak tree” (he pointed) “up on that hill.”

      “All right. Let’s go.”

      She began tentatively, at a slow trot, staying alongside him. She started to pick up speed running downhill and he followed suit. He could hear the quickened rhythm of her breath. They hit the lowest point at the base of the first hill and started up the slope