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Sarah Howell, Becca Blair, and her daughter Margaret sat on a pew by themselves towards the back of the church. The eulogy was short and avoided all reference to the manner of the deaths of the couple; the minister concentrated on the good that James Shirley had done within the community by his valiant efforts on the Pine Cone police force (here the wives of the other officers began to weep), and praised Thelma for her work with the poor and undernourished in the county.

There were but six pallbearers altogether, so that two trips had to be made to and from the hearse before any of the mourners departed. The Simses and little Mary went out first, and climbed into a large black car directly behind that which contained the coffins. Slowly the other mourners filed out of the church, and got into their automobiles, sitting quietly and lighting cigarettes, in preparation for the slow drive to the cemetery, and the brief graveside service there.

When all the white congregation had exited, the black people climbed down from the choir loft. As was correct, Gussie was the first to emerge from the door. As soon as she saw the black woman, little Mary Shirley leaned out the car window and shouted, 'You coming to the graveyard, Gussie? Get in! Go with us!'

Gussie approached the car quickly, and said, 'Shhhhh, child. I'm gone walk there.'

'Well', said Mary, disappointed, then excitedly, 'We'regone beat you there, Gussie!'

Dorothy pulled the child back into the automobile, and all up and down the street, at the signal from the undertaker, the car lights went on and the funeral procession took off, in almost complete silence. Irritatingly, a dog set up a hoarse barking, but someone threw a stone at him, and he scampered off. The last three vehicles in the procession were police cars, with their blue lamps revolving at lowest speed.

A much larger crowd was present at the cemetery than had been at the church. You didn't have to dress to attend the graveside ceremony in Pine Cone, but if what you chose to wear was not entirely respectful to the memory of the dead, then you were careful to stand on the fringes of the circle surrounding the holes in the earth and you ducked behind a tree if any of the bereaved family came by. Children could also be brought here, without fear of disturbing the proceedings.

Sarah and Becca stood a little apart, behind a large cedar tree that had rooted itself in an old grave, eventually knocking down the tombstone with its increasing girth. They talked quietly over the distant drone of the minister's voice by the graveside.

'Jo don't get out much*, said Becca quietly. 'She ought to have come to the service. Do her good.'

'She said she wanted to come, but that someone had to be there with Dean. But if she had really wanted to go, Becca, you know she would have had me stay there with him while she went off.'

'I guess', agreed Becca. 'Jo Howell wouldn't have nothing to do with the police or their families. Don'tkr.ow why that was.'

'It's impossible to tell anything about Jo Howell', said Sarah. 'I live with her, and I've lived with her for some time, and I still don't know how she's gone react to things, what's gone make her mad at me, for instance. Can't never tell when she's gone be displeased with something you do.'

'Odds on though', said Becca, 'she's
not
gone like it, no matter what it is.'

Sarah's short laugh had little humour in it, but Becca took exception anyway.

'I don't know why you're laughing', said Becca sternly, ' 'cause in your place, I wouldn't crack a smile the live-long day. In your place, I wouldn't put up with it at all. You take care of that old biddie, and you take care of Dean, and you practically support the whole house as it is—'

'Things ought to be easier when Dean's benefits come through.'

'Well', said Becca, 'you just make sure you get those cheques. You go down to the bank and you tell them that you are Dean's wife and that you and nobody else has the right to cash or deposit them cheques. You tell them not to give a penny to Jo Howell or to Dean's dead bird dog, whichever of 'em comes in with the thing trying to cash it. Don't let Jo Howell get hold of them cheques, you hear me?'

Sarah nodded obediently.

' 'Cause', said Becca, 'I don't know what she'd do with that money - heaven knows she don't spend it on clothes and the beauty parlour - but I know you'd never see a penny of it and she'd expect you to support her same as usual.'

Sarah said nothing. She couldn't in all conscience disagree with Becca because Sarah knew that her friend was right, but she felt that she owed some loyalty and respect to Jo. And besides, Becca always said enough for two.

'Now', said Becca, 'Jo Howell lived next door to me for two and a half years 'fore you came to live there, and I tell you something - it wasn't what I'd call paradise. We didn't exactly get along - ever. But she was always calling me up, asking me to do this and that and I'd do it - because she was fat, and my daddy was fat and I know how hard it is for fat people to get around. But soon I found out that Jo wasn't just fat. It wasn't the fat! She was just lazy. She could have taken her stuff to the washateria herself. She could have got Dean—'

Sarah drew Becca's attention to the graveside.

The funeral was over. Mary had stood between her aunt and uncle all the while the preacher had read scripture, craning her neck to catch sight of Gussie, standing a little apart. The black woman and the white girl exchanged several winlcs, though Gussie did this only to keep the child quiet. Mary seemed not to know what had happened to her or that it was her mother and father that filled the two boxes supported on canvas straps across the open graves. The minister tossed handfuls of earth on to the two coffins, then turned away; the crowd turned with him and began the slow procession back to the parked cars on the edge of the cemetery.

'You know James's sister?' Becca whispered to Sarah.

Sarah shook her head.

'She was down three from me on the 'ssembly line, on your side, like I told you. I didn't like her then and I don't like her now. I wouldn't like to be little Mary Shirley, having to go off with a woman like that.'

'They're going to take care of her then?' Sarah asked.

'She's going back with 'em this afternoon, to Montgomery. I spoke to Gussie this morning and she was there at the house, packing the clothes and trying to keep Mary £>ut of the room where
it
happened.'

Sarah shuddered, and turned her attention to the bereaved family, which was passing near them just then: Malcolm and Dorothy Sims, and a little behind them Mary walking along beside Gussie. The child was quiet, at Gussie's behest.

Just as Dorothy Sims passed, Sarah's attention was drawn to the woman's dress, a simple black shift, ornamented only by the necklace which Jo Howell had given to Larry Coppage three days before. Sarah was astounded. How on earth had Dorothy Sims got hold of it? The thing had been destroyed in the burning house. Was it possible that somehow Lariy Coppage had got the thing to Dorothy Sims? It was not: Larry was dead two hours after Jo had given it to him and Dorothy Sims had been in Montgomery at the time, and anyway why would he have given it away as soon as he had received it? Sarah thought Larry hasdly knew Dorothy Sims. But how else could she have got hold of it? Maybe there were two of them, rnaybe Dorothy Sims had bought it from the same place that Jo had. Maybe she had had it for years. By the time that these thoughts had passed through Sarah's mind, Dorothy Sims was being helped into the black car by her husband, and Mary Shirley was getting in behind her.

Sarah hurried forward to the car, "but Becca grabbed her, and held her back. 'What are you doing, Sarah?' she cried. 'Ever'body's looking"! You can't run at a funeral!'

'Got to talk to Dorothy Sims', Sarah explained breathlessly.

'No, you don't!' said Becca. 'You don't even know her, and it's been a bad day for them. What you got to say to her?'

'She's got on the thing that Jo gave Larry Coppage. I know that's what it is! She's got it round her neck!'

'Can't be the same one. Must be one just like it.'

i never saw another one like it', argued Sarah. 'Can't be two of 'em if I never even saw one before.'

'Must be. The one Jo had would have burned up at the Coppage house.'

'Well', said Sarah, 'it didn't, 'cause now Dorothy Sims has got it.'

The car had driven off, and Becca relaxed her grip on Sarah.

'Well', said Becca for the sake of argument, 'what if she has got it? Jo gave it away, it's not hers any more. You wouldn't want it any more anyway, would you?'

'I don't like it', Sarah admitted.

"Then why do you care whether Dorothy Sims has the thing or not?'

'Because I want to know how she got hold of it, that's why. There's something real strange about all of this. That jewellery, all these people buried - seven of 'em yesterday, and two more today.'

'People die', said Becca. 'They die in fires, and they kill each other. It's just because it happened two days apart, and it happened in a little place like Pine Cone that it seems strange.'

'That's not all', said Sarah, 'that's not all though. There's something else, and I don't know what it is yet.'

Sarah and Becca were silent on the drive home after the funeral. You are likely to be thoughtful after such a ceremony, even if the man buried had been your enemy, even if you hadn't known the dead woman at all.

It was a crazy thing: Sarah was actually having to decide whether she thought that the amulet had anything to do with the deaths that had occurred in Pine Cone. That
was
crazy. But supposing it was true. Then she had an obligation to warn Dorothy Sims against it. Or even beyond that, since it was Jo Howell that had put it into circulation, it was her responsibility (since Jo wasn't going to do it) to get it back altogether, and hide it or destroy it.

But what could a necklace possibly have to do with so many deaths? Five were obvious accidents, and the other two. .. who would ever know why Thelma Shirley had killed her husband? It couldn't have been a fight over a piece of jewellery. Sarah wasn't even really sure that Thelma had had it in her possession - but then how else could it have got from Larry Coppage's pocket on to Dorothy Sims' neck? The questions were endless, and they circled back on themselves, and not one of them could be answered.

Probably there were two necklaces, and she was imagining everything. One had burned up with the Coppages, and the other one had probably been given to Dorothy Sims at a wedding shower or something. Maybe, Sarah thought, if she had looked more carefully at the amulet that Jo had given to Larry, she would realise that they were nothing at all alike.

But Sarah knew she was only fooling herself; she knew in her heart of hearts that there was only one amulet. Larry Coppage had had it, and now Dorothy Sims had it. Sarah realised in a few moments that she had only been trying to talk herself out of her fears, because the thing she wanted the least in the world right now was to go up to Dorothy Sims and tell her some damn-fool story about a necklace with a curse on it. The woman would stare, and say she didn't know what Sarah was talking about and ask why she was bothering her at a time like this. That was what Sarah didn't want, but that was precisely what she was going to endure. She would have to make a spectacle of herself, and on top of everything she knew that she wouldn't be believed, that the warning, even if it were legitimate, would do no good.

She wished desperately that she had been able just to speak to Dorothy Sims at the funeral. She could have admired the amulet and then asked Dorothy where on earth she had found it - but that wouldn't have worked either, really. It was hard to make small talk at a funeral with the sister of the dead man. Sarah realised, though, that sometime that afternoon she would have to call up Dorothy Sims.

Becca was pulling the car into the driveway, and Sarah said, almost to herself, 'I shouldn't have let 'em go.'

Becca had been lost in her own thoughts, and didn't hear her friend. 'What?' she said. Sarah shook her head, and did not try to repeat herself, but she determined that she would speak to Jo, just as soon as she got into the house. If she could get something out of Jo then maybe it wouldn't be necessary to make that dreaded call to Dorothy Sims.

Sarah nodded goodbye to Becca and Margaret and went inside. Jo was in the living room watching television. The house was dark and airless, for the curtains had not been opened all day. Dean was lying on the sofa, motionless. Sarah didn't like to see him there, on the place that she now considered her bed. His body, and the medicines that were rubbed into his injured skin, left an odour in the upholstery that lasted the night through and were the cause, Sarah was sure, of a series of nightmares that she had been suffering lately.

'Well', said Jo, 'how was it? How many people come?'

Sarah replied briefly, it was all right. Nothing happened. Seventy-five in the church, about fifty more than that in the cemetery.'

' Never could abide that woman, or her husband either', said

Jo.

'Which ones, the Shirleys or the Simses?'

'Neither one. Sorry lot, all of 'em.'

T.A.-E

'I didn't know you knew the Simses', said Sarah. She was trying to manoeuvre the conversation slowly to the amulet.