Free Blindfold by Diane Hoh Page B

flushed guiltily.
    "I didn't tell her," Lane continued, 'that you were there delivering the plans. I didn't dare. I was afraid she'd feel too guilty. Either that or she'd have been really mad that you didn't deliver them when she told you to. So I kept my mouth zipped."
    "Thanks, Lane. I'll explain it all later."
    Whit said, "You'd better have that explanation ready any second now, because I'm not that sure we convinced her you were okay. I'm surprised she hasn't called here already."
    The phone rang.
    When Maggie had persuaded her mother that not only was she okay, but she had every intention of working at the bazaar as promised, she returned to the porch. "I think I need to sack out for a little while before I go over there," she said reluctantly, not that eager to be in the house alone. Her brother was working and wouldn't be home until late, her mother was staying at the courthouse to put the finishing touches on the bazaar, and her father was going straight there after work to help. But if she didn't lie down, just for a little while, she wasn't going to be in any shape to help in the courthouse kitchen later. God, she was going to have to go back inside that building again!
    "Did she say anything about canceling the bazaar?" Helen asked, standing up and dusting off her khaki shorts.
    "No. She said it's too late. All the stuff is already on display tables and tagged with prices. And the kitchen, where we'll be working, is in a separate
    wing from the collapse. Besides, like she said, the bazaar itself is being held outside, and the grounds should be perfectly safe." Maggie laughed abruptly. "No beams out there, holding things up. Or not"
    Whit stood up, too, and moved toward Maggie to say quietly, "So, Til see you over there, right?"
    She nodded, aware of both Scout and Lane, who must have heard. Then she led everyone down the back steps to the driveway and waved as they all climbed into the Jeep.
    A feeling of desolation swept over her as the car disappeared from sight. Twilight had arrived, bathing the backyard in a rosy, purplish glow, but darkness would follow soon after. She'd be left alone in the dark with only questions about the disaster at the courthouse to keep her company.
    Maggie was about to. climb the steps when the toe of her boot struck something solid. Something that shouldn't have been there. There was just supposed to be the thick, green lawn, and then the wide, wooden steps. Nothing else.
    Dog-face had probably dropped something on his way in or out and been too lazy to pick it up.
    Maggie looked down. The object lying just below the bottom step didn't belong to her brother, Darren.
    The object belonged to her. And before that, it had belonged to Scout's grandfather, and possibly his father before him. Now it belonged to her, because Scout had generously given it to her. Lying at her feet, half-hidden beneath the open bottom step, was the gavel Scout had given her when she was appointed foreperson of the peer jury.
    Except. . . except, Maggie realized as she bent to pick it up, thinking it must have dropped out of her backpack, there was something very wrong with it.
    The gavel Scout had gifted her with had been one solid piece of smooth, shiny wood. But the gavel she was looking at now in dismay was in pieces. The gavel itself had been neatly sliced-- sawed?--into three fat chunks, the handle into two narrower slices.
    Picking up the larger chunks and holding them in the palm of one hand, Maggie stood at the foot of the steps, staring down at what was left of the antique gavel Scout had given her.
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    property. The tire iron belonged to him, and had his fingerprints on it. And there was the phone call, that same evening, from his house to hers.
    But no one ever investigated to see if there was evidence against anyone else.
    They put him in jail. I couldn't believe it. They actually took him, in handcuffs, and put him in a cell, which was really just an extra room in Sheriff Donovan's house, with bars