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know something that would help. They’ll be here tomorrow morning.”
    “Wasn’t there another brother? Crystalline mentioned three children …”
    “Yup, name of Paul. Maybe Arnold Otis can help locate him. Brent’s put that Sergeant Winston on it. You know, the one you didn’t like much. Seems like a good guy to me,” she said, knowing her assessment of that officious cop would enrage me. “Brent said for us to keep going and he’d fill in with whatever forensics came up with. They’re taking toxicology samples but he doesn’t think she was poisoned. Pretty obvious what happened. He said to tell you to talk to Officer Winston from here on in. He’ll have everything you need.”
    “Yeah, sure,” I muttered under my breath, then changed the subject. “How’s Crystalline doing?”
    “Not bad. Good thing her friends’ll be here in the morning. They all want to be with Marjory. Crystalline’s meeting us at Eugenia’s at five-thirty, then going with us to the revival at the campground.”
    “Are they all fortune tellers, these women?”
    “Ooh, don’t say that to Crystalline. They’re shamans and healers, not fortune tellers. From what Crystalline said, they take their work serious. Study for years, some of ’em, like Marjory. Crystalline says one of ’em, who’s coming up, can get in touch with the dead. They’re hoping to talk to Marjory. Wouldn’t that make our job a lot easier if they could?”
    “I’ll see you at EATS. If we can’t talk to that preacher, ’cause of his revival, we’ll go back in the morning. After that we’ll talk to Marjory’s two friends, see if she said anything different to them, or if they know why she came here. Maybe even who might want to kill her.”
    “And then the brother? The one we know of for sure. Lucky called a number he found for him and is waiting for a callback. Somebody’s got to break the news.”
    “What about that aunt and uncle? You ever heard of them?” I asked.
    “Nope. I asked Lucky but he said the names didn’t ring a bell.”
    “We’ll check phone books and I’ll go over and ask Harry. Harry’s lived here forever.”
    “Hmmph,” Dolly said. She wasn’t a fan of Harry. That car of his didn’t have a license and Harry was known (but never proven) to hunt in whichever season he found his freezer empty.
    Dolly’s call meant stopping the edit and writing a follow-up story for the newspaper. I emailed it to Bill, along with a note that I would be in town later to see him. Writing time was up.
    The incense had burned away. The CD stopped. I wasn’t going to get the manuscript together today. There would be no cover letter. Tomorrow would be soon enough, I told myself. Or maybe the next day. The longer I put off sending my work to the agent, the longer I put off rejection.
    The phone rang as I got ready to leave the studio. Feeling a little psychic myself—expecting Jackson to call—I let it ring. I took Sorrow back to the house, and left an unhappy dog behind me as I drove off to Traverse City and my new part-time job as a local columnist.

Still only 13 days to go
    The offices of the Northern Statesman newspaper were down Garfield Road, behind a row of other office buildings. The ivy crawling the red brick walls was dead, bronzed for the year. I went in—perky and pumped—ready to take on whatever Bill came up with, except sports, or recipes, or township meetings, or a lot of other things I didn’t know a thing about.
    I said “hi” to Belinda, the receptionist, who was busy talking into her headset. She smiled and waved me back to Bill’s office.
    The office looked like any editor’s office I’d ever visited. Newspapers everywhere—not only the Northern Statesman but the Detroit News, New York Times , and others from around the country. Then there were books and current copy—all in neat piles, or spread across his desk. Every corner of the room was the repository of something. There was one half-dead, potted ivy stuck up