Cold Flat Junction — Martha Grimes

A dented cup

I'm sitting here where you left me hardly more than a week ago. Every day and nearly every night I've been here on the low stone wall by the spring. I sit near the little alcove where spring water runs from a pipe jutting out of the stone. There's a metal cup dented from years of use that sits beneath the pipe and catches water so that people can drink it. The cup has been around as long as I have. It's as if the alcove were its room, and people can take it out and drink from it and return it. It's amazing that in all of this time, in all of these years, it's never been stolen.

Why would anyone bother stealing a dented tin cup? Because there are some things that go beyond reason-like the Girl, appearing and disappearing; like knowing that Ben Queen didn't kill anyone; like Dox- machines; like vengeance. Probably, you've forgotten most of what happened, but you might remember Fern Queen being shot and killed over by Mirror Pond. That's on White's Bridge Road. You might remember because people think murder is more important than anything (except maybe sex).