Mrs. Arriola was paying no attention to us. She had collapsed on the carpet in a sobbing heap - looking like a discarded rag-doll. Lucy drew me out of the living room and down the hall to her bedroom. "Mrs. Carson," she pleaded, "what can I do?" Lucy was trying hard to hold her own tears back. "I ought to call a doctor but I just can't turn her back over to them. I can't!"

My mind was reeling too. "Take her back to California?" I ventured. "To your own doctor?"

Lucy pounded her fist into the mattress. "How? I don't have the cash for plane fare ... The police ..."

I looked around the big, luxurious room as if something would give me a hint. Again, all shades of off-white - terrible taste but sunshine was pouring thru the windows. Two of Mrs. Arriola's bright molas decorated the walls giving a point of relief from the white-on-white decor. Everything looked very, very clean and normal. "I just can't believe it," I said. "Is she ... How long has she been like this?"

Lucy pulled two pink Kleenexes from a white plastic box on the bedside table. "I don't know. During the night, I guess. Yesterday she was fine but, this morning, she said she'd had bad dreams. And all morning, every once in a while she'd get this funny expression - kind of a listening look ..." Lucy broke off to sob into the Kleenex, then took a deep breath and went on. "I asked her what was the matter and, at first, she just kind of shrugged it off and wouldn't tell me but ... she's just been getting more and more upset."

I felt very much at sea. "Did she tell you ... do you know what they say?"

Lucy shook her head: "She won't repeat it. She says it's too ... nasty. She says it's the Devil talking to her - obscenity, blasphemy and calling her name over and over and telling her to do ... things." The girl's voice rose into moan and she turned and buried her head on the pillow.

I rubbed her shoulders until she'd finished sobbing but I could think of nothing to say.

Finally, she sat up and reached for more Kleenex, then faced me: "Mrs. Carson, I ... I owe you an apology. What I said the other day about witchcraft and ... insanity ... I guess they do go together ..."

"Listen, Lucy," I counseled gently. "Surely the police would let you take her to your own doctor, make your own arrangements ..."

"Are you sure?" Lucy said. "When she's wanted for murder? And I'd have to tell them she was my grandmother, then they'd find out about her and Granddaddy ..."

I had to admit I wasn't sure.

"You see?" Lucy spread her hands in frustration. "I can't even ask anybody. If anybody finds out that she's related to me ... Do you think you could find out . . ?"

From the living room, we heard the telephone ringing. Lucy grabbed another Kleenex and led the way back, taking deep breaths to compose herself before picking up the receiver. "It's for you, again," she told me.

Mrs. Arriola was hunched on the couch, rocking back and forth - her hands clamped over her ears.

"Hello?" I said into the phone.

It was David. "I though you'd better know," he said crisply. "Mrs. Balrymple and a couple of security guards from her husband's bank are headed over to Lucy's place right now. Apparently, Mrs. Balrymple wangled permission out of Oliver to make a search. She seems to think that her furs ..."

"I know what she thinks! Anything else?"

"Isn't that enough?" David offered and hung up.

I scrabbled in my purse. "Here are the keys to my car," I told a bewildered Lucy. "Take your grandmother over to my house, lock the doors and stay put. I'll take care of things here." I wrote my address on a scrap of paper. "Can you find it?" I asked.

Automatically, Lucy took the keys and nodded. "But - what do you mean?" she demanded. "What things?"

"Just do it - I'll explain later! Go down the back stairs - my car's parked by the back gate of the Compound. If some security guards sees you, just keep on going. They don't have any authority here. If you have any trouble - don't call here ... or me! Call Jonathan."

She was trying to take it all in. "Jonathan who?"

"Bell's Books and Candles. It's in the phone book. Now, come on!"

Lucy found a hooded raincoat as camouflage for Mrs. Arriola. The old woman was too busy listening and muttering to argue with us. I saw the two of them down the back stairs and took a quick glance around the parking lot - no vigilantes in sight yet. I hurried back to the apartment.

The molas came off the wall in Lucy's bedroom. The bedroom at the end of the hall yielded Mrs. Arriola's scarf, some changes of clothes and some cheap toiletries as well as a plaster crucifix and a half-burned candle before a picture of the Virgin Mary ... I heaped everything into two brown paper bags, added a couple of cans, a box of waxed paper and a head of lettuce from the icebox on top to make them look like groceries. Mrs. Arriola's plastic totebag already held her purse.

What other traces? I checked drawers, closet and bathroom. A gray hairnet. What else. In the kitchen, I emptied homemade arrizo con pollo and enchiladas from the refrigerator into the garbage disposal, put the dishes in the dish-washer and started it going.

Air freshener? Fingerprints? Surely the security guards wouldn't be authorized to ... And then I realized what I should have done in the first place.

Hell, I'd never had any experience in this kind of thing!

I went to the phone and called Oliver. Mr. Fulton, his part-time clerk informed me, was out. She thought he'd just stepped over to the maintenance room and would I care to leave a message?

"If he comes back, tell him to stay put. It's extremely important! I'll try to catch him at the maintenance room."

I hurried down the back stairs and across the alley and parking lot, loaded with the two shopping bags and the plastic tote bag. As I reached the back entrance to the maintenance room, I saw Mrs. Balrymple's Continental pulling onto the lot. I slipped through the door: better to come back with reinforcements than to let her buttonhole me now.

Reinforcements? Oliver? Any straw in a storm ...

"Where's Oliver?" I demanded of Charlie who was bending over his workbench doing something or other with great precision.

He looked up at me, blinking at my obvious agitation. "Well, I don't know, Mrs. Carson. He said he was going over to your place ..."

I detoured by way of Oliver's place. No, he hadn't come back yet, she was sorry ...

Oliver wasn't at my shop either but four customers were. Three were tapping their heels at the unattended counter and one was trying to climb on a step-ladder to reach a shelf full of glasswear. "I'm sorry, one moment please," I said breezing through with an official smile. "I'm afraid we've got kind of a situation here ..." I dumped the grocery sack and totebags in the storage room and passed through to Jonathan's side.

Jonathan was tied up with customers also: one with a neatly-trimmed black beard and another carrying a neatly-furled black umbrella, both expensively dressed, obviously rich out-of-state collectors. "Where's Oliver?" I whispered, interrupting them unceremoniously.

Jonathan replied with a glare, "Gone to Dallas."

Dallas?

I went back to my shop to wait on my customers.

What the hell else could I do? Without Oliver, I'd have no clout whatever with Mrs. Balrymple's guards. That and my - now thoroughly agitated - presence would only serve to make her more suspicious than ever. I could only hope that I hadn't overlooked any traces of Mrs. Arriola's visit there.

It was nearly an hour later before opportunity presented itself. I called my house. I let it ring about fifteen times and, finally, Lucy's voice answered with a cautious "Yes?"

"It's me, Daisy. You got there all right?"

"Yes, but why. What's going on?"

"Is your grandmother all right?"

"She's asleep - she seems to be feeling better. But what's going on there? Why did you want us to leave?"

I gave her the gist of it - what was happening and what the searching guards would not be finding. "So," I concluded, "I think you'd better keep your grandmother there for a while. There's plenty of room and nobody will be looking for you there."

"But Mrs. Carson ..." Lucy wasn't convinced.

"Look," I insisted, "you'll be fine there and I'll be home soon. We can plan things then. Okay? Oh, if I call again, I'll let the phone ring twice, hang up and then call again. Otherwise, don't answer. I've got to go now - I've got to check up on our Mrs. Balrymple."

It was nearly five - I commandeered Jonathan to cover for me again and went back across the alley. She'd had better than an hour - if there was anything to find, they should have it by now.

I found them on the third - and top - floor. Mrs. Balrymple was not pleased to see me. Neither was she pleased with the results of the search. When I appeared, her discoveries consisted of two abandoned - and used - paint rollers found in a closet, one drop cloth - also used - found in a kitchen cabinet and an empty bottle of Old Forrester.

A very dusty security guard was emerging from the attic. Between sneezes, he also reported negative. The only positive result was the look I received from Mrs. Balrymple as she departed with her minions - the look was positively malign.

I watched them leave. Then I decided to go home ... and then remembered - no car, Lucy had taken mine.

Jonathan, bless his heart, was still on the premises. I apologized to him for the inconvenience and offered to explain if he would give me a ride home.

Although his legs are paralyzed, Jonathan is not confined solely to his wheelchair. For transportation, he has a specially equipped Chevrolet which allows him to drive without the use of his lower limbs. An extra wide door allows the folding wheelchair to be placed behind the front seat and, using a grab bar mounted inside, Jonathan hoists himself from chair to driver's seat with only minimal difficulty.

Once we left the Compound, I explained about Mrs. Arriola ... and Mrs. Balrymple's investigation. I also told him about the crane.

Jonathan insisted on stopping for an evening paper, forgetting for the moment that there is none on Saturday. "Sorry," I informed him, "you'll have to wait for the Sunday edition to see what kind of a fool I've made of myself." Thank God It's Saturday, I added to myself. I needed a day of rest ... "What about Oliver?"

"He said," Jonathan informed me precisely, "that he was driving over to Dallas. Something about some antiques in an estate sale ..."

"And you don't believe it," I guessed.

"No more than you do, Daisy," Jonathan credited my perceptions.

"Mrs. Balrymple!"

"That seems likely," Jonathan replied. "I'm not exactly astonished - Mrs. Balrymple would make me feel like running too. Oliver is not your everyday superhero type ..."

Jonathan was right. It wasn't really that odd. I wondered when he'd be back? On second thought, I wasn't all that sure that he had really gone - knowing Oliver, he'd probably gone to earth at his apartment. Let him rest, I decided. If he hadn't reappeared by Monday, it would be time enough to dig him out.

My home, gratefully, provided no surprises. Lucy let us in - she had all my keys. "Your grandmother," I asked. "Is she sleeping all right?"

"She's sleeping. She's better ..." Lucy assured me and she was looking much better herself. "What happened? What were they looking for? Did they find anything? What ..." The questions poured out like the stream from a fire hose.

"Whoa," I interrupted. "Slow down and give me a chance." I dropped my bag - then remembered, I'd left Mrs. Arriola's bags and everything in the storeroom at my shop. "Let's have some tea," I suggested.

As I led the way to the kitchen, Jonathan excused himself with a brief: "I'll be right back" and wheeled himself out the door.

While the teapot was heating, I gave Lucy a brief outline of everything that had happened and then went back to fill in the details. I'd finished my recap and Lucy and I were sipping our second cups of tea when Jonathan reappeared bearing a large red and white bucket of fried chicken.

Bless Jonathan! He thinks of everything! We gathered around the kitchen table to devour the chicken with a garnish of TV reportage.

Roland Smith's murder was the feature item on the six o'clock news - primarily because of its visual features. The reporters were treating Roland's death as an accident, describing the event as a prank which had gone wrong. Sixty seconds of visual coverage, a brief synopsis by a honey-tongued anchorwoman, break for a commercial and then resume with canned footage of the current political scandal. It wasn't much of an obituary - even if he was ... "A blackmailer?" I asked myself aloud. I didn't know anything for certain.

"Succinctly put, Daisy," Jonathan replied. I hadn't realized that I'd spoken aloud. "We don't know anything! Our photogenic newsperson may be entirely correct. Roland was not the world's best loved person. It's entirely possible that someone, for reasons of their own, intended this simply as a prank which got out of control. By your own account, the controls of the crane are not difficult to decipher but do require practice to operate smoothly."

I remembered the words of the eyewitness, "... picked it up again and dropped it again, just like it was for some kind of practice ... like a dog shaking a rag ..." I shook my head. "I don't think so," I explained. "It all seemed so deliberate!

"It is a prime mistake," Jonathan misquoted, "to theorize in the absence of data. If you will pardon," he asked but didn't wait, "we have the following items which we may regard as facts: item one, Roland Smith is dead; item two, testimony of your 'eyewitness' and item three, Roland's pacemaker. You are implying malign intent and preknowledge on two points: one - that the person or persons responsible had preknowledge of Roland's pacemaker and - two - that the aforementioned persons had culpable knowledge of the effects, which are also speculation, of the magnetic crane on the aforementioned pacemaker.

"Of course," Jonathan continued without pause, "we must remain cognizant of the consideration that our facts are largely hearsay. We have only hearsay evidence of the events surrounding the mortality of Mr. Smith. Your 'eye-witness' is not merely hearsay but opinionated and exaggerated hearsay. And - short of performing our own autopsy - we must also accept hearsay evidence - originating with Roland and seconded by the coroner's office - for the existence of the pacemaker."

Lucy had stopped, a drumstick held like a conductor's baton about to begin a symphony. She was regarding Jonathan with an expression of fascination - as if he were some strange specimen ... or something. "It's all right," I assured her. "He often gets this way."

"Oh," she shook herself, "I was just thinking what a marvelous solipsist he would make. Have you ever tried it?" she turned to Jonathan.

"I have, my dear," Jonathan regarded her with a smile. "However, I find such a proposition untenable. I am quite certain that, if this universe were merely a product of my imagination, I should be capable of improving it vastly. My remarks on the nature of evidence were intended merely to point up the fact that it is well to be certain exactly what the source is and, therefore, what validity the evidence possesses."

Jonathan was being difficult. "Exactly which bits of evidence," I asked, "do you intend to challenge? Are you proposing that you'd like to perform your own autopsy ... or what?"

"I had no specific proposal," Jonathan answered, his voice slightly miffed. "I merely wished to indicate that a healthy skepticism is far more likely to provide answers than blind acceptance of hearsay evidence - such as accepting the motives suggested by your 'eyewitness'.

"Actually," Jonathan continued, "if we accept the suggestions of the eyewitness, two very interesting considerations arise."

"Go on," I sighed when it became evident that Jonathan would not proceed without prompting.

"Contrary to popular conceptions," he resumed, "most trailers have very little metal in their structures - the commonest form of construction being quite similar to normal houses."

"You're suggesting," I queried, "that the trailer could not have been overturned by the magnetic crane? How then?"

"That, my dear Daisy, is precisely what I am not suggesting! I have no doubts that the trailer was, indeed, overturned by the crane. What I am questioning is, how did the murderer know that this particular trailer had a metal skeleton instead of the more common wood frame structure?"

I saw where Jonathan was heading and anticipated him. "Or," I interrupted, "did the murderer know or merely act from the common assumption that a mobile home is metal?"

"Precisely, my dear, precisely," Jonathan nodded with pleasure. "We may ascribe either knowledge or ignorance without affecting the results. The application of rational considerations suggests the latter condition to be more probable than the former ..."

"Mr. Bell," Lucy interrupted, "you lied to me."

Jonathan raised an eyebrow in question.

"You are a solipsist!" she accused. "It's only that you like a complicated universe. If the object was to murder this Mr. Smith, a gun would be the simple method."

"I agree completely," Jonathan responded. "Hence, I agree with the view proposed by our 'videogenic' news commentator - the death of the late Roland Smith was an accident resulting from a prank ignorantly attempted by someone trying to settle a grudge."

What Jonathan said made sense - which didn't convince me that he was correct. I didn't have anything to offer as a counter-argument but I wasn't ready to close the question.

Accepting silence for agreement, Jonathan changed subjects, asking Lucy about her work with batik and her plans for the future. On this more socially normal topic, supper concluded with a variety of ice creams from my freezer.

Dinner finished, Lucy and I went to check on Mrs. Arriola. She was in my spare room asleep on the bed. The familiar lines and wrinkles were still on her face but now they were natural - not convoluted into an inhuman mask of fear and shame.

Seeing her resting, I didn't want to suggest disturbing her. Lucy and I returned to the kitchen to clear the table while deciding what to do ... and found Jonathan attempting to act as house boy in a setting which was not designed for wheelchairs.

Lucy and I relieved him of his self-imposed tasks ... tasks which he yielded willingly. "In your house," I informed him, "you can wash the dishes. Here you'd better let me." In his house, he'd have to wash the dishes ... the sink was constructed so low that I'd have to stoop double to reach it.

"Mrs. Arriola can stay here," I suggested while filling the sink. "As long as she's asleep, there's no point in waking her to take her back to your apartment."

Lucy was about to say something about "imposing on me" which I squelched by pointing out that her revision of Oliver's mortgage had already saved me far more trouble and bother than having a guest in the spare bedroom could possibly be. "Besides," I added, "what if Mrs. Balrymple decides to come back to your place?" I didn't think it was likely but ... a lot of unlikely things had been happening lately.

Unexpectedly, Jonathan agreed with me. "Your grandmother should be perfectly safe here, Miss Jarvis," he informed Lucy. "Daisy is quite competent to care for her if she needs anything. You'd better let me take you back to your apartment."

Lucy was inclined to argue, "Maybe I should stay here tonight ... in case Abuela wakes up. I could sleep on the couch."

"And then we'd have the police putting out an all-points-bulletin looking for you," Jonathan countered. He was right - it was better that Lucy reappear where she was expected - just in case.

Our final agreement was that Lucy would go back to her apartment to spend the night. In the morning, she could come back over and, depending on the circumstances, we could decide what to do next.

Jonathan again served as chauffeur. My car was - if not well known - at least known. It didn't seem like a very good idea to have it reappearing at the Compound - with Lucy driving. Just to cover all the bases, I suggested that Jonathan should drop Lucy at the supermarket about a block from the apartments - that way, Lucy could reappear with groceries in hand, an ideal explanation for her absence if anyone saw her.

I checked again on Mrs. Arriola, then took a long hot bath and went to bed - with the phone off the hook.

Most nights, I don't dream ... or else don't remember them the next morning. This night was different: I was searching the Craft Compound - in the dark. I knew exactly what I was looking for, at least I'd know when I found it. It was a strange furry insect. It breathed fire and it was magnetic - I kept feeling myself drawn toward it - but I couldn't find it ...

It kept taunting me in a still quiet voice ... but I couldn't understand what the voice was saying because it was in Spanish - and it shouldn't be! I didn't know why ... but it shouldn't be ...