7:00 PM

22
7:00 PM

     The buzzer rung, and Ginger looked quizzically at Ben, as the service had been over for half an hour and nothing was scheduled the rest of the night.
     "Who is it?" Ginger said as sweetly as possible.
     "Oh, Ginger, it's you. I did some baking today. Horace said I should drop by and deliver one of my cherry pies."
     "Are you serious?" Ginger said. "That is the about the sweetest thing...well, what am I saying this over the intercom to you for?"
     And she rang the buzzer, and Myra drove into the parking lot.
     Myra went over to the doorway, which was open just a crack to allow her admittance, and they all went inside.
     "Doesn't that look beautiful," Ben said when Ginger showed him the pie.
     "To be quite honest," Ginger said. "We have been expecting an unannounced visitor, but it's your husband we were expecting. He mention anything to you?"
     "He said he came by and that you asked after my cherry pie, so here I am."
     "So here you are," Ginger said.
     "We wanted to tell the Sheriff that we have quite a bit more to tell him than we did that day, only we're kind of afraid."
     "We don't want, or well we don't want to ministry to be pulled into the whole thing and dragged in the mud, do you know what I mean?"
     "I'm sure that I don't," Myra said. "It's what I said, I came by to drop off a pie."
     "Well, sure, but I know you're going home to him now, aren't you? Unless you have another delivery."
     "No I don't."
     "Well, we want to surrender. I mean, we want to surrender what we got. We want to be helpful, is what I mean."
     "You want me to tell him to come by the Department, or have him come and meet you here."
     "Either," they both said.
     "Maybe there is best," Ben said. "But I want you to tell him, too, that we're really sorry. We didn't mean not to say everything, but we started thinking about ourselves--"
     "And the ministry," Ginger said.
     "And everything we've worked so hard for and, well, sin of pride, we forgot what is important which is finding that man's killer and that boy paying for what he did."
     "You knew the killer?" Myra said offhand.
     Ben looked at Ginger.
     "We believe we did. We spent a great deal of time with him right here. We thought he just wanted to picket that practice of Sam's but, as it turned out, he had other things on his mind. Well, we could have guessed--"
     "But we didn't know--"
     "No, we didn't know he was going to do what he did, but sometimes he talked about doing things like that. Shooting or blowing up the place."
     "But you two never--"
     "No!" Ben said.
     "Of course not, Myra," Ginger said. "You think either one of us is capable of anything approaching what that boy did?"
     "Well, I certainly hope not! Well, anyway, this really isn't my business. But I'll tell Horace what you told me and I'll tell him you sounded really sorry and not to be hard on you two, just in case he's mad about it."
     "Would you?" Ben said. "That would be amazing."
     "Of course I don't want you blaming me on how he reacts. He's not a robot of mine."
     "Yes, of course," he said.
     Myra looked at Ginger. "Remember when the worst bit of trouble you got into was, you drank at little bit more than you should have?"
     Ginger smiled uncomfortably.
     Myra cackled despite them. She did like a good laugh, and that one tickled her nicely.
     "Well, anyway, be seeing you two."
     "You should come Sunday," Ben said.
     "We got our own church, Reverend," Myra said.
     "Yes, of course."
     "I'll be sure to bake some of those butterscotch squares you used to like if I get the chance," Ginger said.
     "Sounds delicious," Myra said, but gave it about a three percent chance of happening.