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"What's going on?"

Joe now began to act nervous. "We're going to stop and talk. You hungry?"

"Ate on the plane."

"We'll stop anyway. Don't want to drive and go over this."

Howell was certain that something was wrong. Joe was not the kind to rattle easily, but he was extremely agitated now.

Over coffee at a not-too crowded McDonald's on the way out of OKC, Joe slowly began to speak. His hands fidgeted and he was very pale. Howell wondered what in the hell could have his normally steel nerved friend so upset. He was about to find out.

"The funeral was yesterday," Joe offered.

"I know," Howell wryly replied, "kind of annoys me off that they couldn't wait," referring to his parents.

"They did you a favor."

"How so?"

"The funeral was closed casket."

"Get to the point," Howell snapped. Immediately, he apologized. "Sorry Joe."

"Don't worry about it." He looked at his friend for a moment, saw he had delayed too long, and began to speak. Slowly and quietly, he began, "Your brother didn't die of cancer. He died of an unknown ailment." He was a little too deliberate with that statement.

"What the hell does that mean, Joe?" "For gosh sakes man, spit it out." Howell was tired, confused, and certain something was hidden from him. He was out of patience.

"It means Hadley died a horrible death. He literally fell apart." Joe's hands were now trembling terribly and his face was ashen. Howell was bewildered to the point of disorientation.

"It started about five weeks ago. One day, Hadley noticed his right index finger was numb and it had an odd inner itch, the kind you can't scratch to get rid of. It was numb and cold, he told Doc Roberts later, with this itch he couldn't scratch. This bothered him for a couple of days." Taking a deep breath, Joe continued, "It was on the third day, in the morning when he got up. He started to rub the sleep out of his eyes and saw his finger was missing. It had fallen off in his sleep." With this statement, Joe thought he was going to throw up. And he had barely started with his story.

This had not sunk in on Howell as yet. "His finger just fell off?" "Why?"

"No one knows." Joe had to steel himself to continue. "When he discovered this, he freaked out. Ran out of the house screaming. When Jan caught up with him outside and saw what happened, she fainted. Ed Beers next door called 911 and the paramedics came. They found Howell's finger underneath his pillow."

"This killed him?" Howell weakly asked.

"No. What killed him was this kept happening. Doc Roberts didn't

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