The Last Call

The first phone rang in the Hepler house, which had not had power since the roof caved in above the kitchen. Owen Vale heard it from the road while he was measuring the ditch with a county wheel. He had been sent to confirm whether the culvert under Old Quarry Lane had collapsed or merely offended Mr. Pease, who reported public hazards with the regularity of a man who owned three clipboards and no indoor hobbies. It was ten in the morning, already hot enough for the tar to give off its black smell. Grasshoppers clicked in the weeds. A red-tailed hawk sat on a fence post and watched the county truck like paperwork might come out of it. The sound came from inside the house. Four rings, a pause, four more. Owen stood with one boot in the ditch and one on the shoulder. The Hepler place sat back from the road behind a line of mulberry trees. The house had been white once. Now the paint had gone gray and thin, and the porch leaned toward the yard like it had started down the steps and…