Goldilocks

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There was a white patrol car parked at the curb outside the house. Its dome lights and headlights were out. The street at one A.M. was silent, the neighbors asleep. I pulled in behind the car, cut the engine, and started walking to where Jamie stood in the moonlight, talking to a uniformed policeman. The jacaranda tree behind him was leafless, blossomless. Out on the bayou behind the house, I could hear the chugging of the fishing boat I’d seen while crossing the bridge from Lucy’s Circle. There were only saltwater mullet in the shallow waters on this side of the bridge, and they would not strike a hook; the commercial fishermen were spreading their nets, circling, circling.

Jamie looked drawn and pale. He was forty-six years old — ten years older than I — but in the pale moonlight he seemed much younger, or perhaps only more vulnerable. He was wearing a faded blue T-shirt, white trousers, and blue sneakers. The patrolman was visibly perspiring. Sweat stained the armholes of his blue shirt, stood out in beads on his forehead. I did not know whether he had yet been inside the house. He watched me as I approached.

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