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Pine Creek, he'd grinned and said, "How's it going? I'm Bill Ralston. I'm from New York."
As if the nasal tone in his voice hadn't told her already.
And "how's it going?" Well, that was hardly the sort of greeting you heard from the locals
(the "Pine Creakers," Sandra May called them—though only to herself).
"Come on in," she said to him now. She walked over to the couch, gestured with an upturned palm for him to sit across from her. As she walked, Sandra May kept her eyes in the mirror, focused on his, and she observed that he never once glanced at her body. That was good, she thought. He passed the first test. He sat down and examined the office and the pictures on the wall, most of them of Jim on hunting and fishing trips.
She thought again of that day just before Halloween, the state troopers voice on the other end of
the phone, echoing with a sorrowful hollowness.
"Mrs. DuMont. . . I'm very sorry to tell you this. It's about your husband. ..."
No, don't think about that now. Concentrate. You're in bad trouble, girl, and this might be the only
person in the world who can help you.
Sandra May's first impulse was to get Ralston coffee or tea. But then she stopped herself. She was
now president of the company and she had employees for that sort of thing. Old traditions die hard—more words from Sandra May's mother, who was proof incarnate of the adage.
"Would you like something? Sweet tea?"
He laughed. "You folks sure drink a lot of iced tea down here."
"That's the South for you."
"Sure. Love some."
She called Loretta, Jim's longtime secretary and the office manager.
The pretty woman—who must have spent two hours putting on her makeup every morning—stuck
her head in the door. "Yes, Mrs. DuMont?"
"Could you bring us some iced tea, please?"
"Be happy to." The woman disappeared, leaving a cloud of flowery perfume behind. Ralston nodded after her. "Everybody's sure polite in Pine Creek. Takes a while for a New Yorker to get used to it."
"I'll tell you, Mr. Ralston—"
"Bill, please."
"Bill . . . It's second nature down here. Being polite. My mother said a person should put on their manners every morning the way they put on their clothes."
He smiled at the homily.
And speaking of clothes . . . Sandra May didn't know what to think of his. Bill Ralston was dressed . . . well, Northern. That was the only way to describe it. Black suit and a dark shirt. No tie. Just the opposite of Jim—who wore brown slacks, a powder-blue shirt and a tan sports coat as if the outfit were a mandatory uniform.
