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"Are you saying you don't think she did it?"

"No. She probably did it, but not with careful, well-thought-out premeditation like the stories implied. When you're in a panic or under some threat or struggle, you would do whatever you can. Actually, I think Harry was on the floor already when she stabbed him in a panic."

"On the floor already?"

"Maybe in a struggle with her and she reached for the knife. That's why he had his arms out." He shrugged. "My theory."

"Why wouldn't the police consider that, think about her being left-handed and wonder about it like you did?"

"It wasn't important to them. They knew she had killed Harry. She was telling a story that was so off-the- wall that they discounted everything. There was no reason to believe any of what she said, no evidence, no one who said a bad thing about Harry Pearson. And besides, police like to close cases, make it easy. She had been diagnosed and sent to a mental clinic. What difference did anything else make? From what I can tell, it's as if her attorney fell asleep in the courtroom."

I looked at-the report again and at some of the headlines on the stories. Could he be right? If he was . . . It made me dizzy, and I put my hand on the desk to keep the room from spinning. Then I took a deep breath.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes," I said quickly. "Thank you," I said and stood.

"Hey, no problem. I'm happy to talk about it with someone, especially you. I haven't looked at that stuff for some time, but I've thought about it often."

"I've got to go."

"C'mon," he said. "I said I would drive you home." "You don't have to."

"I know I don't have to. I'm an American citizen," he said, laughing. "I have the freedom of choice, but I would like to, okay? So don't take away my fundamental rights."

I had to laugh, too. After all the heavy reading, it was a relief to laugh about something.

"Okay," I said. "I don't want to be accused of being a bad citizen." We started out.

I glanced back at the room and the hallway before I followed him down the stairs.

"This way," he said and took me through the kitchen to the door that opened to their garage, where he had his car.

"When we bought the house, there was an area behind the garage where construction had begun to turn it into what my mother thought was a maid's quarters. She didn't like the idea of having a maid live with us, so she let my father turn it into a small workshop for himself. He put a television set in there and uses it as a hideaway." Craig added, smiling. "Although he pretends to be working on his little projects."

We backed out of the garage.

"I've got to tell you," he said after turning onto the street, "that I've always been curious about you. Not," he added quickly, "like some of the others in our school. I know what Mindy and Peggy did, and I've always thought they were air heads."

"What are you curious about?"

"Why you keep to yourself so much, for one thing. Where do you go in the summer, for another."

"I haven't found anyone I'd like to pal around with," I said.

He smiled. "C'mon. You really don't even try, Alice. You don't belong to anything, any club, any team. You don't go out for plays, chorus, whatever."

"You sound like my grandparents. If you know so much about me, why ask?"

"I don't know so much about you. That's the point. The other point," he said, looking at me again, "especially after seeing you dolled up, is I'd liked to."

I didn't say anything. I could feel the heat come into my face, and I didn't want him to see me blush, so I turned to look out the window.

"I go to my aunt's cafe in New Paltz every summer and work."

"Oh. And you stay there all summer?"

"Yes."