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the little table that held Ann’s abandoned book; Mercedes sat down in one and motioned toward the other.
    “Hey, would you like to go out and get a Coke or something? You could leave a note. I’ve got Mom’s Olds.”
    “How many legs on a horse?”
    Seth stared at her for a moment. “Four?”
    Suddenly decisive, Mercedes stood. “I’d love to. We just about—I’m a little shook, to tell the truth. I need to get out and do something.”
    “Too good. Me, too.” Seth sighed. “Rain’s quitting, so maybe we can chase the castle, after. You ever done that?”

4
    THE VIEW AT NIGHT
    ROBERTS UNLOCKED the door, stepped inside, and switched on the lights. The County Museum had been a private house once, and they stood in what had been its foyer; there was a desk for an attendant, a few cabinets against the walls.
    Roberts said, “What was it you wanted to see, Mr. Shields? I can take you right to it.”
    “The castle,” Shields told him.
    “We’ve got a whole exhibit on that. Over this way. You believe in it?”
    Shields nodded. “I saw it.”
    “Really? I guess that would make a man interested. Right through here, this was the music room when old Doc Dunstan built the place. About the castle’s in the next room, the studio.”
    Shields nodded. The music room held coins, mostly, and a few sad-looking violins. He stopped for a moment to peer at the faded pages of a diary.
    “My great-grandpa’s,” Roberts told him proudly. “He was a Wells Fargo agent for a while. Saw some interesting things, and had some interesting things to say about ’em.”
    Shields nodded. “I’ll bet.”
    “They were after me to donate it, but if I did, what would happen to it if they close this place? So it’s just loaned.”
    Shields said, “You should keep it in the family. Got any children, Bob?”
    “No more Robertses—I’m the last. Two daughters, though, and two grandchildren.”
    Shields straightened up. “They’ll value this, when they’re older.”
    “I hope so. He had a theory of his own about the castle—thought it was rocks out in Arizona. A mesa, he called it.”
    “He’d seen it, too, then.”
    “Oh, sure. He’d grown up right around here. Everyone that does sees it. It doesn’t really stand to reason that the kids should see it more than the grownups, but that seems to be the way of it. You’d think that kids wouldn’t see it so much ’cause they’re shorter, nearer to the ground.”
    Shields said, “Grownups don’t climb trees.”
    “That’s a fact. Could I ask where you were when you saw it, Mr. Shields?”
    “In the attic of a two-story house with high ceilings. The Howard house—we’re thinking of buying it.”
    Roberts nodded. “I know about that.”
    “I guess it’s true, what they say.” Shields bent over the diary again, trying to decipher its florid, faded handwriting. “News travels fast in a small town.”
    “Sure does,” Roberts confirmed. “Specially if you’re Mrs. Howard’s father.”
    Shields turned to look at him. “That’s right, she said her maiden name was Roberts. I never put two and two together.”
    “That’s my daughter Sally.”
    Shields hesitated. “Do you know that your son-in-law got hurt this afternoon, Bob?”
    “Tommy? Lord, no. Was it serious?”
    Shields nodded. “I think so.”
    “Sally should have called me. Maybe she called Sarah—no, Sarah would have called and told me.”
    “Maybe you ought to call her.”
    Roberts nodded. “If you’ll excuse me just a minute, Mr. Shields.”
    “Of course.”
    Roberts hurried back to the hall. Shields could hear the dial of the old-fashioned telephone spin, then Roberts’s muted voice. Somewhat embarrassed, he bent over the diary once more.
    The page to which it lay open began with the continuation of a sentence: “—a shock? Why, I would not have gone to the door to see a ghost after that, nor suffered anyone to speak to me of it. To find someone from home out here, homesteading on the Santa