“No, she’s still alive, isn’t she?”

Margaret said, “Günter was a madman when all was said and done. She was not responsible!”

Callie looked at each of them in turn. She’d known them all her life, loved and respected them. They were always there for each other. Even though one of them had kept quiet about her stepfather’s murder, her mother had no intention of exposing her. None of them did. To tell the police would mean exposing her mother as well as the others.

“I don’t know,” Callie said. “I’ve got to think about this, Mother.”

“While you’re thinking, remind yourself what your own newspaper would do with this story. I want Stewart’s name protected.”

“I understand that.”

He mother stepped back into the circle of women. “Think hard, Callie.”

Four of them had hair long enough to fan out. Any of the four could have been in the car with Günter. Any could fit Mr. Avery’s description.

Except for her mother. Thank God.

Callie looked at them one last time, wondering which one had slept with Günter, which one had been threatened by him, which one had lived with his madness, with the knowledge of what he was doing. And had done nothing to stop him in the end.

CHAPTER 38

BLESSED CREEK,
PENNSYLVANIA
THE FOLLOWING TUESDAY AFTERNOON

MARTIN THORNTON WALKED into Sheriff Doozer Harms’s office. No one was inside except Doozer, sitting behind his big wooden desk, working the New York Times crossword. He looked up when the door opened. “How can I help you?” He laid down his pencil, but didn’t rise.

Martin said, “I guess you don’t remember me, do you Sheriff Harms? Actually, I remember you even though the last time I saw you I was only six years old.”

Sheriff Doozer Harms grew very still. He looked behind the man standing in front of him out the glass windows that gave onto Main Street. He saw no one. He smiled and kicked back, put his booted feet up on his desk. “Well, well, if it isn’t Austin Barrister. Imagine you of all people turning up on my doorstep this beautiful, snowy day. It is you, isn’t it? It’s hard to tell, you haven’t aged well. Fancy you showing up here, after so many years.”

“I came to see you because I remember now, Sheriff. I’ve been out to the house. It all came back to me when I stepped into the bathroom.”

“So,” Sheriff Harms said slowly, his fingers caressing the pistol butt on his belt, “you finally remember stabbing your mama, do you, boy?”

Martin smiled. “Nice try, Sheriff. But that isn’t what happened. As I said, I remember, all of it. Clear as a bell.”

Sheriff Harms rose, spread his palms on the desktop. “You were six years old when your mama died, Austin, a hysterical little boy who couldn’t even say who he was or where he was. What you think you remember, Austin, it’s all from your child’s imagination.”

“That’s another good try, Sheriff.”

“Nope, there’s nothing for you to remember, but here you are, standing here in front of me in my office, all straight and defiant. Sometimes there’s just no rhyme nor reason to life, is there? Hey, sometimes there is no big, bad wolf.”

“And sometimes there is. That’s what you are, Sheriff. You murdered my mother.”

Sheriff Harms pulled the gun out of its holster. “You’re not threatening an officer of the law, are you, Austin? Now, it isn’t that I’m not glad to see you, but it’s time for you to go away now. Don’t come back.”

“I saw you plunge the knife into her chest. It’s as clear as anything now.”

“What do you want, Austin?”

“The truth. That’s all.”

“You want the truth, do you? I wonder, are you devious enough to be wearing a wire, you little pissant?”

He laid his gun on the desktop, walked to Martin, jerked open his coat, and patted him down. No wire. And no gun. “Why are you really here, boy?”

“I want the truth, just like I said. I want to know why you did it.”

Sheriff Harms stepped back, picked up his gun, and held it loosely in his hand.

Martin said, “I know you won’t kill me, at least not here. In case you’re tempted, though, my wife is down at the Blue Bird Café, expecting me in an hour. Nope, you can’t kill me here, right in your office.”

“Me kill you? Nah, I like to have my gun handy when I’m with people I don’t trust, keeps them honest. No matter what you think you remember, I didn’t do anything wrong. Now, why don’t you get out of here.”