Sorrow's Crown Read Free Page A

her hand to her mouth. We never got used to the way he spoke of the dead as if he'd had recent conversations with them, and I think Anna and I both hoped that, somehow, with his innocence he might actually be telling the truth.
    "Thank you, Crummler , that is wonderful to hear," Anna said. "Thank you for telling me."
    "Yes!" He shot up and hugged me, too, his hand rubbing my back in gentle and loving circles. "Thank you for the shoes. They fit well. They remain in good shape."
    "I'm glad you like them," I said. "Come on, let's go get in the van, okay? We'll put the heat way up for you."
    "Like them I do, though they are even more muddy. They suit me well when traveling through the swamps of ten thousand leagues of dwindled empires, fighting the dark orders of ocher nights."
    When he talked of ancient obsidian towers in the far reaches of lost dimensions on the borderlands of time, he put so much into it you could almost witness his travels. Crummler snapped his fingers and stomped his heels in a weird but genuine fandango. I didn't know what to do except watch him. Children clapped and got off their seats and danced around with him. A few people left in a big hurry, but most just continued their dinner and conversations without furor, more kids joining in like they were at recess.
    "This is why I prefer staying home with a bag of chips," I said.
    "Sounds good to me right about now," Katie whispered.
    The door crashed open again and Broghin bustled in. His perpetual scowl and flat, bloodless lips were so much a part of him that I couldn't tell anymore if he was truly incensed or if his bran wasn't quite cutting it. Even odds, I decided. The level-headed waitress lifted her extinguisher once more and kept it trained on him, for which I gave her even more credit.
    He didn't expect to find my grandmother, whom he'd loved for decades, to be out on a date. It took only a few seconds for all the rest of his usual rage to wash up into his face, veins in his neck and temples suddenly thick and crawling. He stalked forward to our table, kicked some of the dropped menus without noticing, and said, "And what the hell are you doing here?"
    Oscar drew his chin back. "That's the way you ask?”
    â€œI'll ask any damn way I please, Kinion ."
    "Then I'm a damn fool is who I am, because I voted for you."
    The sheriff turned to me and said, "Not a word out of you."
    I said, "If the forty-percent bran isn't working, you might want to skip directly to a high colonic." I knew he'd miss the joke; he thought a colonic was something you mixed with gin.
    Anna reached up and put a hand on Broghin's belly; she didn't have the arm length to get anywhere else besides his stomach. The sweater, recently unboxed and smelling of lost Christmas pine, reminded me of my parents' deaths, as well as Broghin's inept handling of the investigation, the ensuing embarrassment, and my time in jail. "Please, Francis, this is no place for histrionics."
    "I might be obliged to agree with you, Anna, except I never know what you're talking about."
    "She means you were called in to calm folks and escort a man back to his place, not act like a jackass," Oscar remarked pleasantly.
    "Is that so?"
    "I believe it is."
    Broghin liked poking people in their chests, and I could just imagine his plump fingers thumping the tight, coarse flesh over Oscar's heart. I'd thrown a chair at Broghin's head for doing that to me once and wound up in a cell. I wondered if Oscar had only two racks of rifles out in his truck, or three, or more, and just what caliber he might have tucked away in the glove compartment. He wasn't the kind of man who would take kindly to being poked in the chest. In such situations you needed to count the number of guns within close proximity. Anna and Katie both looked at me imploringly, and I kind of shuffled feet without knowing what the hell I should do. Crummler and the kids came dancing over in an impromptu rumba line. "I am here, Sheriff!"
    "You know you