where the bottom of an orange sun had just touched the top of the shadowed tree line. The undersides of cumulus clouds scudding in layers across the sky reflected the sun’s waning rays and promised a spectacular sunset show to come.
“I’ll admit that I didn’t even consider her until you told me she had been raised here and was part of your crowd when you mother was killed. I try to keep an open mind, but from the moment I found out that Pamela Smith’s was the second murder in that exact spot, I paid more attention to those who were here when your mother died than to those who weren’t. I don’t believe in coincidences all that much. I know they do happen, but I don’t run on the assumption that they have.”
“And for a while I was a key suspect, wasn’t I?”
“For a while, yes. I didn’t want you to be, of course. But my training wouldn’t permit me to discount the possibility. I—”
“That’s quite all right. I wouldn’t have wanted you to be any less professional and thorough than you were. It freed me . . . at last. My mother’s death has weighed on me all of these years. I never thought it was Rachel. I always was more inclined toward Jane or Joyce—or Grady, even, although I guess I always did think of him as too wimpy to carry through with anything that violent.”
“As was I for a while.”
“And in a way, I was responsible for my mother’s death. Rachel did it for me. She saw how miserable I was and she did it for me. And having gotten the taste of it, she just went on doing it.”
“You can’t blame yourself. You didn’t ask her to do it. Rachel was responsible for her own actions—even then, as a much younger woman.”
“Ah, those triangular affairs. We were so young, so willing and ready. Invincible and wanting to try it all. And so cliquish. I pursued Jane, while Jane pursued Rachel, and Rachel pursued me. And, at the same time Rachel and Jane pursued that divine young teacher, Grady. Not me, of course. Then . . . even then I was set on a different course. And Grady was willing to please them all, while . . . interestingly enough, pursuing me. I laugh now when I see Grady, see the doddering old man he has become. But it was cruel of Joyce . . . to deny him like that.”
“I wonder if all small villages are like this,” Charlotte mused.
“I rather think they are,” Brenda answered. “And it’s rather comforting in its own way. Hopewell has grown old with the rest of us. There probably are no seething undercurrents here anymore.”
“I wonder. I rather imagine there are—but just with a whole different cast of characters.”
“I suppose you may be right. But I asked you about when you knew it was Rachel, and then we went off on a tangent. A pleasant tangent, of course. I love tangenting with you. But the case, Rachel.”
“Ah, yes. It was Todd and Sam that jolted it in place for me—although until I went to the FBI lab in Annapolis, I wasn’t sure. And I do think it important to be sure. But I sometimes wonder about that. If I had operated on instinct—if we’d sped back to Hopewell as soon as David told me that Pamela Smith was working on a case for GML, I might have made it back to Hopewell before Todd was pushed off that ladder.”
“Pushed? And what does Todd have to do with it? He wasn’t one of our original teenage set here—or perhaps he was and I just haven’t recognized him. Kevin Clagett in disguise perhaps?”
“Todd was head of the fraud investigations at GML before he retired. That was a coincidence really—and one that I should have paid more attention to. He was completely apart from the issue, really, but Rachel had been on the lam so long for so many years and watching her back so carefully that it didn’t look like a coincidence to her.”
“But, what—?”
“Rachel thought that Todd was on to her—somehow recognized her from a case open from the time he was with GML. She had married that series of men under assumed names
“I’ll admit that I didn’t even consider her until you told me she had been raised here and was part of your crowd when you mother was killed. I try to keep an open mind, but from the moment I found out that Pamela Smith’s was the second murder in that exact spot, I paid more attention to those who were here when your mother died than to those who weren’t. I don’t believe in coincidences all that much. I know they do happen, but I don’t run on the assumption that they have.”
“And for a while I was a key suspect, wasn’t I?”
“For a while, yes. I didn’t want you to be, of course. But my training wouldn’t permit me to discount the possibility. I—”
“That’s quite all right. I wouldn’t have wanted you to be any less professional and thorough than you were. It freed me . . . at last. My mother’s death has weighed on me all of these years. I never thought it was Rachel. I always was more inclined toward Jane or Joyce—or Grady, even, although I guess I always did think of him as too wimpy to carry through with anything that violent.”
“As was I for a while.”
“And in a way, I was responsible for my mother’s death. Rachel did it for me. She saw how miserable I was and she did it for me. And having gotten the taste of it, she just went on doing it.”
“You can’t blame yourself. You didn’t ask her to do it. Rachel was responsible for her own actions—even then, as a much younger woman.”
“Ah, those triangular affairs. We were so young, so willing and ready. Invincible and wanting to try it all. And so cliquish. I pursued Jane, while Jane pursued Rachel, and Rachel pursued me. And, at the same time Rachel and Jane pursued that divine young teacher, Grady. Not me, of course. Then . . . even then I was set on a different course. And Grady was willing to please them all, while . . . interestingly enough, pursuing me. I laugh now when I see Grady, see the doddering old man he has become. But it was cruel of Joyce . . . to deny him like that.”
“I wonder if all small villages are like this,” Charlotte mused.
“I rather think they are,” Brenda answered. “And it’s rather comforting in its own way. Hopewell has grown old with the rest of us. There probably are no seething undercurrents here anymore.”
“I wonder. I rather imagine there are—but just with a whole different cast of characters.”
“I suppose you may be right. But I asked you about when you knew it was Rachel, and then we went off on a tangent. A pleasant tangent, of course. I love tangenting with you. But the case, Rachel.”
“Ah, yes. It was Todd and Sam that jolted it in place for me—although until I went to the FBI lab in Annapolis, I wasn’t sure. And I do think it important to be sure. But I sometimes wonder about that. If I had operated on instinct—if we’d sped back to Hopewell as soon as David told me that Pamela Smith was working on a case for GML, I might have made it back to Hopewell before Todd was pushed off that ladder.”
“Pushed? And what does Todd have to do with it? He wasn’t one of our original teenage set here—or perhaps he was and I just haven’t recognized him. Kevin Clagett in disguise perhaps?”
“Todd was head of the fraud investigations at GML before he retired. That was a coincidence really—and one that I should have paid more attention to. He was completely apart from the issue, really, but Rachel had been on the lam so long for so many years and watching her back so carefully that it didn’t look like a coincidence to her.”
“But, what—?”
“Rachel thought that Todd was on to her—somehow recognized her from a case open from the time he was with GML. She had married that series of men under assumed names
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