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felt sick. I saw a little kid tottering across the grass in search of his fallen Frisbee. It really would be good to be a kid again and not give a damn about a girl betraying you.
    He said, "She tell you anything about him?"
    "Like what?"
    "Anything he might have done that was against the law."
    I'd forgotten his suspicions about David Myles.
    "She hinted at a couple of things, I guess."
    "Like what?"
    "Nothing specific."
    "She ever mention the Franson woman?"
    "The old lady who got murdered?"
    "Yeah, murdered and robbed. Her."
    "No, she never mentioned her. You don't think Myles had anything to do with the Franson woman, do you?"
    He shot his sleeve and looked at his wristwatch. It was silver and new and impressive. I guessed his folks gave it to him as a gift.
    "I'm not sure yet."
    He stood up and I saw it in him, too, the way I'd seen it in my younger brother Josh. Garrett the cop here was becoming an adult. We were the same age and I was still a boy and he was becoming an adult.
    Then I remembered the well and said, "She's got this weird thing about a well."
    "What kind of well?"
    I told him.
    "You know she was in the mental hospital, don't you?"
    "Yeah."
    "Now I can see why."
    I should have defended her, but I was too angry. I had no doubt that Garrett had told me the truth about Myles kissing her. I wanted somebody to dislike Myles as much as I did. Garrett seemed willing to take on the role.
    He checked his wristwatch again. "I'd better get going."
    His Sam Browne creaked; his Magnum was as imposing as ever.
    "You headed back to work?" he said.
    "Yeah. Different direction. If you're headed to the station, I mean."
    He smiled. "Yeah, I'm at the stage where I hang around there even when I'm not on duty. The older cops tell me I'll get over that fast."
    I nodded. "Thanks for telling me about Myles."
    "It's a hell of thing to have to tell somebody."
    "I'd rather know than not know."
    "He's got some kind of hold on her, that's for sure." Then: "You see that new SF movie that opened last weekend?"
    "I wanted to. But Cindy said it looked too scary. She hates scary stuff."
    Except for a well that has an alien in it, I thought unkindly.
    "I've got Sunday afternoon off. It you're free, give me a call."
    I put out my hand and we shook. I needed a friend very badly at the moment.
    "You'll get over it," he said. "I got dumped once."
    "Yeah?"
    "Yeah. This little car hop out at the A&W on old 49?"
    "Jeeze, I'd forgotten all about that place." Back in my high school days, that had been the sort of unofficial hangout of the dweebs and nerds. We were far enough out of town that nobody could hassle us. Plus they let us use the cigarette machine even though we were underage.
    "Took me a year to get over her, but I did."
    "How come she dumped you?"
    He tapped his nose. "She got in this fucking car wreck."
    "And that's why she dumped you?"
    "Nah. She got in this car wreck and had to have all this plastic surgery on her face."
    "Yeah?"
    "Yeah. And the surgery turned her into a real beauty. God, she was beautiful. You should've seen her." He shrugged. "Well, anybody who looks like she did sure doesn't want to hang around somebody like me. So she dumped me. Started going out with this really handsome rich kid." He smiled. It was not without bitterness. "But she got paid back."
    "How?"
    "The handsome rich kid?"
    "Uh-huh."
    "He turned out to be a peeper."
    "A peeper?"
    "Yeah, you know, a guy who's always peeping into ladies' johns and places like that."
    I laughed. "Man, I guess she got paid back."
    He smiled and cuffed me on the arm. "Just hang in there. Maybe Myles'll turn out to be a transvestite or something."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

    That night I followed her. That's not a nice thing to admit about yourself, that you're the kind of guy who'd sneak around after your girlfriend, like the kind of guy who would call people on the phone anonymously and hassle them.
    But I did.
    Dark came right after dinner, and when she left the house for the evening