Bennett leaned up against our fence and stretched his back. “I’m getting too old for policing. At this rate I won’t live long enough to collect my pension. Mrs. Pearlie, how do you know King came back to Mrs. Roberts’s house?”
I told him the pitiful story of my supper with Mrs. Roberts last night.
“I think she had just received the Bible, so that would have been before half past six, when I saw her at the restaurant.”
“I’ll go talk to her,” Bennett said, looking back at Mrs. Roberts’s front window, where the gold star pressed against a pane of glass.
“Does she have to know her son didn’t order the Bible for her?” I asked.
Bennett shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid so. I don’t know how I can avoid telling her. Poor woman.”
I watched as Bennett walked up Mrs. Roberts’s walkway, and then
