July 9

BUT NOW he had it, or at least a possibility, if Henry Dees was telling him the truth.

“I’m the one,” Mr. Dees said. “I put that book in the bin.”

“Where did you get it?”

“From Katie.”

“So you were with her? You saw her after you left her house that evening?”

“Yes.”

“You lied about that, Mister Dees. You said you didn’t see her after her lesson. You said you were at home all night. That’s what you told Burt when he came to question you. I’ve got it here in the record.”

“Yes, I lied,” Mr. Dees said, and he knew he would have to explain why.

It was a hard thing to say to Tom, this man Mr. Dees still thought of as the boy from his class. Tom, who was decent and aboveboard and kind. It was all Mr. Dees could do to confess that he had harbored a love for Katie Mackey, that he was a lonely man who knew he would never have a family of his own, and that in his dreams he fantasized that Katie was his daughter. His voice got small, but he looked right at Tom, met his eyes, and told him all of this.

“So you were fond of her?” Tom said.

“I loved her, Tom, but not like you might be thinking. I loved her so much it scared me. I’d never known I had a right to love someone that much.”

“When did you get that book from her? Where were you at the time?”

“Around five-thirty that night. Wednesday. I was walking home from the Heights and I’d stopped to rest on the courthouse lawn. That’s when I saw her over in front of Penney’s. She was having trouble with her bicycle. The chain had slipped off. She said she had to get her books to the library. I said I’d walk them over there, and then I’d come back and I’d help her. I got to the library and I turned back to see how Katie was doing with that chain. Tom, her bicycle was still there, but she wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Well, I didn’t know what to do. I thought maybe she’d ducked into one of the stores. I walked around the square looking for her. Then I sat down on a bench to wait awhile. When she never came back, I didn’t know whether to take those books back to the library or not. Finally, I decided I’d take them home, and the next day when I went to her house for our lesson, I’d bring them to her. But later, I noticed that they were due that day. Tom, that’s when I took those books to the library. I’ve already told you I couldn’t bear to let The Long Winter go. But Henry and Beezus? That one, I put in the bin.”

“Mister Dees, there was another book that Katie had checked out, On the Banks of Plum Creek. We’ve found pages from it in Raymond Wright’s burn barrel. You told Junior Mackey you had The Long Winter because Raymond Wright came to your house around midnight and the book fell out of his truck. Now it sounds like you’re telling a different story. Mister Dees, something still doesn’t add up.”