Legacy of the Dead by Charles Todd Page A

letters—or was incensed by them. Rutledge thought, It was difficult to tell. He was a man who showed little in his face; he would not be easy to interrogate.
    “Does she have any family? Heirs?”
    “None.” Uncompromising. Cold. Then, grudgingly, “None that I know of.”
    No mention of the boy. But he would inherit nothing . . . would he?
    “Then I’ll be on my way.” Walking back toward the inn, Rutledge could sense the man’s stare boring into his back between his shoulder blades.
    If this was any example of how the townspeople felt about the woman who owned this property, it was evident that she had somehow made abiding enemies.
    Which didn’t fit into the picture of her that McKinstry had so glowingly painted.
    Who was the woman in the eye of a controversy that might well end with a hanging?
    Rutledge realized suddenly that he didn’t even know her full name. Not that it mattered, he thought, but it was an indication that whatever crime she had committed—from lying to murder—she had somehow lost her identity because of it. As if, by refusing to call her by name, Duncarrick could finish what they had begun back in June—shunning her until she was without reality and finally disappeared.
    What had this woman done to stir up such dark passions?
    It was odd, he thought, crossing the quiet street to his car. First the venomous letters and then the one to the minister—Elliot? The finding of one body that didn’t match the crime, and another that did. Persistence, patience—and what else? Luck? Or persecution?
    It smacked of the latter. Hamish, in the back of his mind, agreed.
    Rutledge stopped before turning the crank and looked back at The Reivers. The accused owned this inn. Did someone covet it? She had a small child to provide for, never mind whether it was rightfully hers or not. Did someone covet the child? Or want it taken away to punish the accused, a twisted revenge for a real or imagined grudge? And these were the more obvious reasons for wanting the woman in prison and out of the way. What others might there be? Was there something in the inn that no one knew about, which mattered to another person? Or was it something in the past of the accused that put another person in jeopardy? Hanging was a certain way of silencing her.
    He found himself thinking of the child again. Torn away from its mother, from the only home it had known, put to live with strangers. There was a cruelty in that.
    Then why hadn’t she lied to protect the boy? “I don’t have my marriage lines—my husband took them, to show the Army. . . .”
    Why hadn’t she left the town as soon as the shunning had begun? But he thought he had the answer to that—the shunning had reduced custom at the inn to the point that she might not have had the money to go away. Had that been the intent of it—?
    The woman’s voice behind him startled him. “Are you looking for someone?”
    Rutledge turned and removed his hat. Hamish, responding to his surprise, was suddenly alert, watchful. She was tall and plump, dressed in black but young, perhaps twenty-four or -five. A little girl of six or seven held her hand.
    “I was admiring the inn. I’d heard it might be for sale.”
    The woman shook her head. “Early days to know that!” She turned to the door of the house in front of which he’d left his car. A neighbor, then . . .
    “I understand the owner is to stand trial on some charges.”
    Her face hardened. “She is.”
    He found himself asking, “Do you know the name of her barrister? I might speak with him.”
    “Armstrong’s his name, but he doesn’t live in Duncarrick. Jedburgh, I think I was told.”
    Rutledge smiled down at the little girl. She smiled shyly back. He wondered if she’d played with the child living in the inn but couldn’t ask in front of the mother. And as if the thought had sprung from his mind to hers, the girl said in a soft, sweet voice, “I used to play with him. The little boy at The Reivers. But