Next morning, when I arrived at 8:30, the Compound was empty except for Charlie. Like me, most of the other shopkeepers don't open until about ten. Charlie was busy unpacking the boxes he been filling the evening before, returning the assorted parts to their accustomed piles and places about the maintenance room. "Good morning ..." I began cheerfully as I entered, then faltered when I saw the expression on his face. It was even more solemn than when he'd been packing last night. After all, what do you say to a man who is not fired after all - because of a murder that he may also be suspected having committed. "... Ah, any news?"

Charlie straightened up and looked at me, his eyes very blue under his bushy white eyebrows. "Miz Carson," he said without preamble, "what happened here last night was a bad business - killing Mr. Jarvis just weren't right," he shook his head sadly. "It don't make no difference what a man's done bad - it still don't take two wrongs to make no right."

I nodded my agreement as I leaned against the workbench. "Ah, . . Charlie, who all was in and out of here last night?"

His gaze regarded me steadily. "Miz Carson, I'll tell you just what I told them police. I don't know and that's a fact. I wouldn't have thought nobody was."

"You told me you'd been in and out a little," I hinted.

He nodded. "Most of the time I was right here," he tapped the workbench with an enormous, gnarled forefinger. "Most of the time I was right here, some of the time I was in yonder," he pointed to the furnace room - a separate room housing the central heating system.

"Well, Jarvis came back in. At least, he did if he ever left the Compound in the first place."

Charlie nodded slowly. "He left all right. 'Bout half an hour after that ... meeting. Him and Mr. McCoy left."

"What - Steven?"

He nodded again. "They come through here together, arguing about something. Then they got out on the parking lot and argued some more. And then Mr. Jarvis, he walked off toward the apartment house with Mr. McCoy shouting at him that he's a turkey. Then McCoy gets in his van and drives off."

"Did you hear what they were arguing about?"

"I dunno, Miz Carson. Something about percentages is all." Charlie turned back to his box and gave careful attention to untangling a wheel from a bicycle frame. "Mr. McCoy, well, he was using a lot of the kind of words it ain't right for a man to listen to."

So Charlie, naturally, had not listened. I sighed and changed the subject. "Do you have any idea when Jarvis might have come back in?"

"I dunno when all I was in and out of the furnace room," Charlie answered. "But he would had to of been real quick for me not to see him. I just went back there to ... to get some stuff and then I'd be right back. Once I went across to the restroom, he might have come in then - that was about seven."

Which fitted with what David reported Lucy had said about Jarvis leaving the apartment about 7:00. "Let's see," I continued. "You said that after the meeting, you went around to the alley and got some boxes from the dumpster?"

It was obvious that Charlie had been over this several times with the police. "I must of got back here six-thirty," he told me with a trace of weariness. Then I went over to give Mr. Fulton all them master keys since I was fired. I couldn't find both rings but he had one of 'em - said you and he'd come and got them. He didn't want to take them but I give them to him. Then I must of got back here about, I dunno, musta been near seven. Mr. and Miz Harley, their van was just pulling out of the parking lot when I got back. And after that, I was here all the time, 'cept like I said, until you came in."

The master keys, of course, would unlock all the outside gates to the Compound ... I made a mental note to ask Oliver exactly where they had been during the critical period. "Charlie, when you went over to the restroom, how long were you away from here?"

Charlie rubbed his forehead and frowned, looking a little embarrassed. "Miz Carson, them police asked me that too an' I just couldn't say. I weren't looking at no clocks."

I felt a little embarrassed too but it did matter. "Well, . . the thing is, I was wondering if the murderer could have come in with Jarvis, murdered him, put him in the kiln and then gone back out, all before you got back here?"

Charlie shook his head. "Miz Carson, I just don't think so. I can't swear but it just don't seem likely ..."

Charlie was now showing signs of acute embarrassment. I hoped he wouldn't have to tell his story on the witness stand ... Wondering if there was anything else I needed to ask him before he turned tail and ran, I glanced idly around the big, cluttered room. My eye fell on the wooden crate labeled Rubbish where, last night, Steven had tossed his black plastic-wrapped parcel. I'd forgotten about it in the confusion. "Hey," I asked, "what about that package Steven found? Did you tell the police about it?"

Charlie nodded and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes began turning up a little. "I told them all right. A couple of them shavetail little fellows came over here with me to get it. One of them went to pick it up and that plastic unfolded itself and spilt stuff all over the floor." Charlie chuckled at the memory. "Them young fellows, they was really in a stew."

"Why? What was in it?"

"Oh, just a bunch of costume jewelry. Gaudy stuff. That and some pieces of a busted blue teapot."

"So? What was funny?" I asked at Charlie's widening grin.

"Oh, just the way them fellers carried on. They was talking about some bigwig lady had reported some stuff like that stolen and, if that was her teapot got broken, they didn't want to be the ones to tell her," his grin became a laugh. "Weren't really that funny, just how they was kind of acting like they wished they hadn't of found it." Remembering himself, Charlie sobered. "Of course, stealing now, that ain't right neither."

A tentative knock on the outer door saved me from replying. Charlie lumbered across and opened it wide to reveal Mrs. Arriola. Seeing me inside, the old woman stood fast, refusing to even cross the threshold. "Hello, Mrs. Carson," she called. "You are ready? We go now?"

I crossed to the door. Mrs. Arriola was dressed in the same blue and white cotton dress and shapeless knit jacket she'd worn the evening before. Now, in addition, she had a bright blue and purple nylon scarf tied peasant-fashion under her chin. Despite it's psychedelic pattern and a small exposed tag reading 'Made in Taiwan', with her dignified wrinkled face and her arms folded against the early morning's autumn chill, she looked very much the inscrutable-Amerindian. "We go now?" she requested.

Obedient to her urgency, I took leave of Charlie and Mrs. Arriola and I made all deliberate speed to my Volkswagen. As we threaded through the Brazos City nine o'clock traffic, she sat silent and immobile. "Well," I said finally when we'd gained the lake road, "I guess you saw the papers?"

"Si," Mrs. Arriola shook her head and tsked, reminiscent of Charlie. "Is bad, muy mal." Suddenly, she peered at me so sharply that, meeting her gaze, I very nearly rear-ended a cattle truck. After a moment, she asked with an air of great resolution, "Mrs. Carson, I ask you something? Confidencial?"

Her tone was at once both worried and direct. I found myself answering in kind: "Yes? What is it?"

She sighed and I suddenly found myself remembering my own grandmother - it was a sigh that is the same in all languages. "The girl," she asked. "Lucy, is she all right? What will the police do with her?"

I removed one hand from the steering wheel and clasped Mrs. Arriola's rather arthritic one. "Lucy's all right. They sent a policewoman to stay with her last night and she'll probably be busy with them today. That and making arrangements for ... the funeral.

"And then? They will let her go?"

"I'm sure of it," I said - not quite truthfully. "I'm sure they don't suspect her of anything."

The old woman sighed again and I recognized that sigh too. Yearning concern and ... relief. I asked gently: "What is Lucy to you? You're related, aren't you?"

Mrs. Arriola stiffened and snatched her hand away. "No! I see her picture, that is all. Such a sweet face ..."

But those off-guard, grandmotherly moments had already confirmed my suspicions. "Please tell me about it," I said and ventured a guess: "I saw you talking to her at the fountain last night."

Her eyes widened, then her face quickly sprang back to Indian-wrinkles. "Si ... I ask her about a job. At the new apartments Mr. Fulton fix up so nice. They are hiring maids."

I didn't believe a word of it. "Why were you asking her? Did you know Jarvis was going to get the property?"

With a gesture as though she were pulling a heavy shawl around her shoulders instead of the perfectly ordinary gray wool jacket, she folded her arms and stared straight ahead. "I not know. Somebody tell me, I think."

"You know," I asked ominously, "that the police found two good fingerprints on the wrench that was used to turn off the kiln?"

She looked at me then but it was a look of honest incomprehension. "Que eso? Fin-ger . . ?"

"Like this." I pressed my index finger against the windshield and lifted it, leaving a print.

"Oh," she nodded comprehension. Spreading out her hand, she rotated all five fingers from side to side on the dashboard. "Si. Si, the police, they come and did this. Dirty!"

I didn't see any hope of trying, at this point, to explain the significance of fingerprints but another of my suspicions came to the surface. It was worth a try so I asked, "Did you know that Ronnie and Ginger Hartley - you know, the little hippie couple - saw you leaving the courtyard?" After all, the police would hardly have sought her out to take her fingerprints without some such reason.

Mrs. Arriola looked wildly around the car. Then her eyes, too, became dull and unrevealing and she hunched even further into wrinkled inscrutability.

"Damnit! Please!" I pounded the steering wheel for emphasis. "I'm on your side. I promise - confidential!"

She looked at me again - direct and guard down - then sighed, "Hokay - I tell you. When you come out, I go and sit on a bench in the lilacs. I think I wait and then ... talk more about the job. But Lucy not come back."

"Did anyone else come in?"

She nodded. "I not know who. Men. Several times, I hear footsteps. But I not supposed to be there after stores close so I keep quiet. After a while, when Lucy not come back and I get cold," she pantomimed warming her ears with her hands, "I think I go home. Then I remember my scarf, where do I leave it? I think maybe I drop it by shop when I deliver molas. I look. I find it in flower bed outside door."

That would be the Needle and Haystack at the north end of the courtyard, near Steven's shop. I turned north on Elm through the old business district and negotiated careful passage around the usual cars waiting to make left turns. This was no time to be stopped for a traffic violation. The morning rush-hour traffic demanded my attentions for several blocks. "Did you see anyone around there?" I asked. "Hear anyone?"

"No. No people there. But, in the 'pasillo'," - she meant the corridor leading to the kiln yard - "you know, that goes back to the big oven, I see funny lights - from the flames - and I hear 'Whoosh!'" Throwing up her hands and wriggling her fingers, she pantomimed the roaring sound of the burners. "But the big lights, they are not on, so I go back to see what is happen."

"And?"

Her voice speeded up a little. "The oven, it is on very big. Nobody there, the pots they are on the table. I help sometimes with the pots, so I think things not look right. I turn on the lights. I look in the oven ... kiln, as you say. Senior McCoy, he show me how one time. I ... I see ..." She shook her head violently at the memory.

"And what did you do then?" I asked gently.

"I turn off the fire, like he show me. Then I look around some more and I see ... No, I mean then I go away." But her hand had gone to her purse.

"El malvado ..?" I said softly. "Please! Tell me the truth."

She took a deep breath. "Si, I am afraid, I start to run. Then I trip over a bundle."

I was trying to fit all of this into place. "Was it wrapped in black plastic?"

"Si, I think so. I pick it up and start to go. Then I think no, better no. I leave it in the 'pasillo'." She grimaced - but this time with a spark of amusement. "I was ... how do you call it . . ? Uptight."

"And then?"

"I think to go home," Mrs. Arriola said simply. "But back where I leave, the white-haired man is there, Senior Ruggles. I do not want to see anyone so I go back and wait in the lilacs some more. Then, not very long, Senior McCoy comes and I think - now something happen pretty soon. Then he come back and then you all go with him and I go home."

"And that was when you saw the Hartleys?"

She nodded, "I see them, si. I not say anything because I think they not see me. Then, very soon, I hear sirens. Later, the police come to my room, ask many questions. Then they do this." Again, she mimed the fingerprints on the dashboard.

"Did you tell them anything?" I asked. "About the kiln?" I added.

She nodded wisely. "Nada. I tell them nothing. I tell them I deliver my molas, then I come home. I not want any trouble. I show them mola I am working on," she added with a grin.

We were crossing over the Interstate on the north of Brazos City. I sighed, wondering if I should just forget all about Roland Smith and the test and try to make the Mexico border instead. Sooner or later, the police would compare Mrs. Arriola's prints to those on the wrench. When they did ...

I tried another tack. "What did you find?" I demanded.

"Find . . ?" she asked.

"In your purse," I was guessing but kept my voice confident. "I think you should tell me about it."

"Es nada," Mrs. Arriola replied. "Es por espiritu malvado!"

"I think you should show me," I demanded. "What is it?"

In lieu of reply, Mrs. Arriola brought out a knotted handkerchief and opened it to reveal a small piece of polished turquoise. "I not steal," she explained. "I find."

"In the kiln yard?" I asked. The stone looked familiar.

"Si, es un encanto ... a charm," she explained. "It is ... protection! I think maybe it stop the voices! Si, comprendo, it is supersticio!" She shrugged.

"Mrs. Arriola," I asked, "who else knows about the voices you heard?"

"No se?" she responded. "I ask a few people, I guess."

Worser and worser ... "Just who all did you talk to? What did you tell them?"

"I not tell anyone," she amplified. "I ask about gypsies. Sabe? About fortunetellers, yes?"

"But you didn't mention the voices to anyone?"

"No, I talk to Senior McCoy." She regarded me owlishly. "You know, these colored people, they talk to ghost all time. They call it" - she hissed confidentially - "voodoo. But he say he not know any 'voodoo'."

Serious as all this was, I couldn't help smiling at the thought of Steven's reaction.

"And I ask Mr. Fulton but he not know any gypsy, he say. He tell me go to you and buy crystal ball ... Why?" she added after a pause. "You think I should tell policeman? You think it help catch murderer?"

I most certainly didn't but that wasn't the point. "But ... did you tell anyone about the voices you heard."

"Si, I tell you and I tell your Senior Bell," the old woman informed me.

"But nobody else?" I checked.

"No. Tell you, tell Senior Bell, that all."

It could have been worse - not much but it could have been. Between the Hartleys seeing her leave the Compound and the Spanish graffiti ... If anyone else had heard about her voices ... that would be the capper. Except for the lack of motive. I couldn't see any reason that anyone would suspect her of taking up the cudgels - that is, the Coke-bottle-statue - in defense of Oliver Fulton's investment in the Craft Compound or to smooth the way for Lucy to carry on a flirtation with Ronnie Hartley. "I think you should give me the stone you found," I requested.

"Si," she agreed and handed me the turquoise. "It is clue? You give to police?"

"Maybe," I replied. "I'm not sure."

"You not say I take?"

"I'll ... try," I promised. "But I can't swear to it."

We drove in silence for the next couple of miles, skirting the bays of the lake through a scattered settlement of trailer houses, half-built vacation homes, bait shops and the miscellaneous shabby businesses that preferred locations here in the boondocks as an escape from the rigors of city zoning and building codes.

Jonathan's directions, as always, were excellent. "Out the west lake road," he'd instructed me, "the same as if you were en route to the Hartleys' lake cabin. When you pass the Acme Auto Salvage yard, look for a gravel road to the east going down to the lake. Take that turnoff and, about a quarter-mile down, you'll see the trailer - it's the same one that the Hartleys' were staying in weekends while they were building their cabin. Smith bought it from them and moved it down by the wrecking yard."

I passed the Acme Auto Salvage yard, then took the first right. This was a narrow gravel road, bounded on the right by the chain link fence enclosing the wrecking yard. On the other side, a brushy strand of sea cane, salt cedar and young chinaberry trees covered broken ground that fell sharply toward the lake.

Roland Smith's home was freeway-Victorian, one of those modern trailer homes that attempt to disguise their rectangular outlines with aluminum gingerbread. This one no longer made any pretense of mobility - resting on a cinder-block foundation, it nestled against the back fence of the wrecking yard on a narrow wedge of level ground. There was barely space in front of it to hold his Datsun pickup and his soaring antenna tower - the latter resembling a metallic cactus as designed by a modern artist.

I pulled my VW as far off the road as possible and hoped that anyone passing would be able to miss it. As we got out, Mrs. Arriola seemed to be having second thoughts. Staring dubiously about at the shiny hedgehog of antennas sprouting from the roof and the twin whip antennas on the bumper of his pickup, she plucked at my sleeve and started to say something. What, I couldn't hear - in the wrecking yard, a huge electromagnet went into operation and the clatter of metal scraps jumping to meet the disk drowned out her words.

She grimaced, shrugged and plodded on towards the door of the trailer with an air of wanting to get this nonsense over as soon as possible.

Roland must have been watching for us thru his window. He swung the door open before we reached the top of the unfinished wooden steps.

I don't know what I was expecting when we entered but the only remaining vestige of the Hartleys' living room was the maroon shag carpet. The rest of the room looked for all the world like a mad scientist's laboratory or a spaceship ... from a grade B movie. I couldn't even begin to list the electronic equipment neatly built into every inch of space - rectangular green screens showing waving lines were surrounded by a profusion of meters, dials, knobs, switches, cables, connectors and heaven only knew what else. Blessedly, the trailer was sound-insulated and only the faintest rumble penetrated from the wrecking yard.

Roland Smith himself was a neat, nondescript little man, half-bald, with something brisk and monkey-like in his movements and colorless eyes that missed nothing. Giving us each a quick wiry handshake, he motioned us to a pair of canvas director's chairs - the only normal furniture in the room. He got right to the point. "Well, Daisy, I haven't seen you in quite a while. Now, what's all this about?"

Mrs. Arriola was regarding him with a quizzical expression.

I remembered, suddenly, that she had agreed last night to accompany me on the supposition that Roland Smith was dead - believing that I wanted to get a message from his ghost ... "Well, yes, it has been quite a while," I temporized, wondering if I should try to get her alone and attempt another explanation. "I guess it was - what? - six months ago that you retired?"

He nodded. "Yep, lease ran out and Fulton wouldn't renew. Guitars and CB's weren't really handicrafts and he claimed the antennas bothered people." Roland laughed shortly. "He was glad enough to have me back when he was starting out, though."

Personally, I had rather agreed with Oliver about the antennas. "You seem to be pretty well set up here," I said noncommittally, looking around. "Are you still selling retail or what?"

Roland shrugged. "I'm doing all right. Doc had been after me to slow down for a while so, when Fulton didn't renew the lease, I decided it was time to slack off. Had a heart flurry a while back and they put in this pacemaker." He tapped his chest, looking rather pleased, as though having a pacemaker were something to be proud of.

I supposed that it felt right at home with all Smith's other gadgets. I was tempted to ask if he was doing his own repairs on it - if not, it would be the first gadget that had ever come within his reach that he hadn't promptly dismantled. On second thought, I wondered if condolences were in order - there was no way he could get it out to tinker with.

But Roland was clearly impatient with chit-chat. "Well, so much for that," he continued briskly. "Now, what's your problem?"

Mrs. Arriola - looking like an incarnation of the Wisdom of the Ages - now seemed to have readjusted her ideas and to be taking things as they came. "It's like this, Roland," I explained. "We think that Mrs. Arriola may be picking up some kind of radio transmission on her false teeth. I mean, radio, TV, whatever. I was hoping you might be able to help us find out."

Roland seemed interested - his head was cocked, regarding me as if I were some new kind of gadget he'd just found. "Just exactly what kind of transmissions?" he asked.

Since he hadn't asked me about it, I assumed that he hadn't heard about Jarvis' murder. But, doubtless, he would hear sooner or later and I didn't want to give him anything sensational to help put two and two together. "Ah, it's hard to say. Her English isn't that good. Some of it's kind of like television - commercials - and some of it might be a part of a private conversation - like CB maybe. And I wondered ... you've done consultation work for industrial espionage, haven't you?"

He nodded.

I took a deep breath and ventured my pet theory, "Well, I wondered ... They talk about places being bugged. I wondered if she might be picking up something like that? I mean, they do use some kind of radio, don't they?" Smith's eyes were getting narrower and narrower with curiosity. I ended on a note of territorial self-righteousness. "You know, if somebody is intruding on the privacy of the Craft Compound's tenants, I need to find out about it."

Smith was missing nothing. "This happens in the Compound?"

I figured I'd given away as much as I ought to - if not more. I pointedly glanced at my watch. "Look, I've got kind of a busy schedule today. Could we just go ahead and run some tests?"

Smith was the picture of frustrated curiosity but he agreed. First, he fitted Mrs. Arriola with a set of ordinary headphones. "Now," he instructed, "you're going to hear either a click or a hum. Whenever you hear it, I want you to wave your hand. Okay?"

Mrs. Arriola nodded comprehension. Smith went to one of his instrument consoles and pressed a few buttons. Mrs. Arriola waved her hand: once ... again ... then three times in quick succession.

Smith made a thumbs-up sign. "Okay. Now," he replaced the earphones with what looked like a set of enormous Mickey Mouse ears - I won't describe how she looked wearing them. "These are sound suppressors," he explained to me. "So we know she's not picking up noise from my fingernails against the board ... or anything like that."

He retired to his controls and began pushing buttons in different combinations. After a long session without the faintest flicker of a response from the old woman, he sighed, got up and tried the regular earphone test again. "And you're sure," he said after she had once more performed satisfactorily, "that you didn't hear a single thing those other times?"

The corner's of her mouth beginning to turn down, Mrs. Arriola shook her head. "No, nada!"

Smith shrugged. "Well, try again. Daisy, you want some coffee?"

While he plugged things in and out, I opened the indicated door and squeezed into his tiny, gleaming kitchen. It took me five minutes just to recognize his elegant miniature percolator and another five to figure out how to work it.

By the time we'd finished two cups apiece, Smith was trying combinations of equipment that looked pretty far-fetched even to my amateur eye. It was fifteen after ten and I was supposed to have opened at 10:00. "Roland," I asked, "can I use your phone? I need to call Jonathan." I knew Jonathan wouldn't mind opening and minding the counter for me - we often traded out that way.

"Help yourself," he didn't look up from his gadgets. "In the kitchen."

The phone was almost as hard to recognize as the percolator. I spotted what was unmistakably a telephone handset but the attached apparatus had far more buttons than I thought it should. A few of them were numbered like an ordinary touch-tone. Happily, they also worked the same and I managed to dial Jonathan's number. Immediately, a very loud busy-signal beeped from a loudspeaker behind me.

I jumped, the kitchen door flew open and I saw Mrs. Arriola waving gleefully in time with the busy signal. I hung up quickly and the sound stopped. Smith took off Mrs. Arriola's sound suppressors, explained to her that it was a false alarm and resumed testing.

I decided not to bother calling Jonathan. He could jolly well open up for me without being asked pretty please.

Watching Roland twist dials wasn't getting me any place. By reflex, I looked for something constructive to do and decided to wash Roland's breakfast dishes. At least his water faucets looked conventional - and worked normally. I'd just finished stacking the last frying pan in the dish drainer when Roland joined me, carrying the sound suppressors, and closed the kitchen door carefully behind himself.

"Sorry, Daisy," he said crisply. "But she isn't picking up any transmissions on any frequency that I can test for."

"You're sure?" I asked needlessly.

He nodded and rattled off the figures of everything he'd tried. "Daisy, I'm broadcasting within ten feet of her and, if she doesn't pick that up, there's no way she could hear a source at any distance. If she's really hearing voices, what you've got is a case of senile dementia!"

I took a deep breath. So much for my whole bright idea. "Look, Roland, I want you to promise me not to tell ..."

Then the phone rang, deafeningly.

In the cramped kitchen, I was the closest to it. At Roland's wave of a hand, I picked up the receiver. "--Hello."

Jonathan's voice came booming out of the loudspeaker behind us. "Daisy! Is Mrs. Arriola with you?"

"Yes ..." I replied, frantically motioning for Roland to please turn off the loudspeaker and trying to step around so that he could reach past me to do it.

"Well," Jonathan's voice boomed, "the police have issued a warrant for her arrest ..."

Roland Smith froze, listening. Behind us, Jonathan's voice boomed on: "The fingerprints on the wrench? The police have matched them with Mrs. Arriola's. And there's more - thirty years ago, she was committed to a mental hospital under a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia ... on a complaint brought by Mr. J. D. Jarvis ..."

Roland was drinking it all in and nodding profoundly. "Damnit, Jonathan!" I shouted, "I'll call you back!" and hung up.

Just then, we heard the metallic sound of the front door of the trailer closing. I pushed past Roland to open the kitchen door.

The living room was empty. Mrs. Arriola was gone.