Mandy drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. Now, we just need some solid proof. Something more than blasting a hole through her alibi.

  She arrived late to the funeral service, which had already started when she slipped into a pew next to Rob, sweat beading on her brow from her dash from the car to the church. He raised his eyebrows at her, but she just shook her head. She heard nothing of the eulogy as her mind raced over the clues they’d found at Howie’s campsite and how any of them might be tied to Brenda. After the last hymn, she could barely contain herself while she filed out with the rest of the mourners, searching the crowd for Quintana.

  “What’s with you?” Rob asked, when they got outside.

  “I can’t tell you yet, but I just found out something that I’ve got to tell Detective Quintana. Do you see him?”

  Rob pointed toward the edge of the crowd milling around the base of the steps. “There.”

  Mandy spotted Quintana scanning the crowd with a concentrated expression on his face, as if he was memorizing everyone in attendance. She pushed her way through knots of people as politely and quickly as she could until she reached him.

  Almost out of breath, she leaned in and whispered, “I found out something about Howie Abbott’s case. I’ve got to tell you—in private.”

  Quintana took one glance at her face and straightened. “We’ll talk in my cruiser. I can drive you to the Ellis house for the reception.” Then he looked at Rob, who had followed Mandy. “That okay with you, Rob?”

  With a curious expression on his face, Rob nodded. “Sure. Mandy and I came in separate cars anyway.”

  Mandy gave Rob a quick peck on his cheek. “See you there. Maybe you can bring me back here to get my car later.” She took off at a trot beside Quintana for his cruiser.

  Once the two of them were inside, Mandy excitedly filled him in on what she’d learned from the Safeway deli clerks.

  Quintana gave out a long, low whistle. “Well, what do you know? It was a woman in the family, but not Cynthia. And that makes me wonder …”

  “What?”

  “If Howie abused his own sister when they were younger. Maybe that’s when it all started.”

  “Oh my God!” Then Mandy thought for a moment. “But if that was the case, why would Brenda encourage Faith to hang out with her brother? Wouldn’t she try to keep her away from him?”

  Quintana nodded. “Either way, Faith must have told her mother sometime before she died about Howie’s abuse. That blows my theory about Faith’s death out of the water.”

  “What do you mean?” Mandy asked.

  “I was thinking the girl committed suicide after her uncle’s abuse because she couldn’t get the support she needed from her parents. Maybe even that Brenda knew about her brother’s behavior and chose to turn a blind eye.”

  “Craig said his dad even accused her of that.”

  “But it doesn’t ring true if she’s the one who killed him. And with an ax. Striking that kind of blow takes a lot of anger.”

  Mandy replayed her dream from the night before. It had been Brenda’s face she had seen, twisted with rage as she rained the fatal blow down on Howie’s neck. “Yeah, it’s like she’d just found out and couldn’t stomach the sick thought that her brother had forced himself on her daughter.”

  Quintana turned the ignition key to start the car. “I’ll definitely follow-up with the deli clerk, but in the meantime, we need to go to the reception at the Ellis home. It’s a way to get in without a warrant and maybe pick up some more information. We’ve blown Brenda’s alibi apart, but that’s not enough to make a strong case against her. I need physical evidence, something like Cynthia’s thumbprint on the ax handle.”

  “Brenda must have worn gloves of some sort, since you didn’t find any of her fingerprints.”

  “Right.” Quintana merged his cruiser into the line of cars leaving the church. “Though I’m going to ask the fingerprint technician to review those small partials on both the hatchet and spray can again, see if he can make a case for matching any of them against Brenda’s. He’d stopped working on them when we found Cynthia’s thumbprint and thought we had the killer.” He gave Mandy a rueful smile.

  She folded her arms across her chest. “And threw her in jail. If you’d matched one of the partials on the hatchet to Brenda, would you still have done that?”

  He thought for a moment, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. “Probably. Since Brenda’s alibi seemed solid, and since it was family gear, it made sense for her prints to be on it.”

  “The same could be said of Cynthia!”

  “I know. But the spray can is a different story. If one of Brenda’s prints had been matched on that, I would have had to rethink everything.” He sighed. “I’m not perfect, Mandy.”

  She uncrossed her arms. “I’m not saying you have to be. I just wish Cynthia hadn’t had to go through all that.”

  “Me, too. Anyway, after I talk to that deli clerk, I should be able to get a search warrant to check out Brenda’s shoes and clothing for blood spatters, like I did with Cynthia’s.”

  Mandy turned in her seat to stare at Quintana. “I didn’t hear about that. Did you find anything?”

  Quintana shook his head. “And that made me worried that I didn’t have a strong enough case against Cynthia. Of course, a smart killer would have disposed of or washed all of their clothing, even cleaned their car upholstery.”

  “But maybe not an emotional one,” Mandy replied. “Or one who had to rush to the grocery store to set up a good alibi story. Of course, Brenda’s had two weeks to take care of that by now. Are you thinking we should look for a stain while we’re there?”

  “No,” Quintana said firmly. “I don’t want to tip our hand until I get a warrant and can thoroughly search without any of the Ellis family interfering. I’m more interested in observing Brenda’s behavior today. If I can’t find any physical evidence with a search warrant, I’ll need to figure out how to get a confession out of her.”

  He glanced at Mandy before turning into the neighborhood where the Ellises lived. “Do you think you can act normal at this reception? Not let on that you know anything and treat Brenda the same way you’ve been treating her?”

  Mandy knew this was a serious question that required a well- thought-out answer. She didn’t want to mess up Quintana’s investigation. Could she hide her conviction that Brenda had killed her own brother? Could she grasp a murderer’s hand and offer her condolences over the death of her daughter? Mandy mentally rehearsed doing just that in her mind. Maybe if Rob was with her, and she made the interaction quick.

  She took a deep breath to try to calm her nerves. “Yes, I think I can.”

  Quintana parked his cruiser behind some other cars about a block away from the Ellis home. He turned to peer at Mandy. “And you can keep all of this from everyone, including Rob?”

  “He already knows something’s up. But if I say I can’t tell him what, he won’t press me.”

  “Good.” Quintana opened his car door. “Let’s see what we can find out. Stay alert. You may find that navigating the wicked eddies swirling around this family will be a lot harder than any Class V rapid you’ve run on the river.”

  _____

  Rob was waiting for Mandy at the end of the Ellis driveway. When he took her hand, she realized it was damp with nervous sweat.

  “You okay?” he asked as they walked up to the open front door behind Quintana.

  Mandy knew Quintana was listening. “Just stay with me while I offer condolences,” she said to Rob. “I’m feeling nervous about that.”

  Then Mandy stopped dead in her tracks, jerking Rob to a halt. “Oh crap!”

  “What?”

  “I told Brenda that I’d bring a dessert and I forgot all about it.”

  Rob glanced at Brenda. Dressed in a dark navy skirted suit, she stood between Craig and Lee just inside the front door to greet the mourners. “I don’t think she’s going to notice.”

  Mandy looked at Brenda’s gray face, with its dark shadows under glassy eyes, and realized Rob was right. Too many other things were going through the woman’s head. She was shaking hands and accepting hugs like an automaton. Lee shot a worried glance at his wife and put a hand on the small of her back to give her a reassuring rub before accepting a man’s handshake.

  Mandy went through the motions with Lee, Brenda, and Craig as quickly as she could. Thankfully when she shook Brenda’s hand and murmured, “my sympathies,” Brenda didn’t respond with a hug. She just pursed her lips, nodded, and dabbed at her glistening eyes with a crumpled tissue she held in her left hand.

  After entering the crowded living room, Mandy exhaled deeply and realized she’d been holding her breath.

  Rob peered at her. “Can you tell me what’s going on, what you had to tell Quintana? It’s obviously got you spooked. And frankly, it’s got me worried about you.”

  Mandy shook her head. “I can’t say anything.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “And I’ll be okay, now that that ritual is over with.” Her stomach growled. “Let’s go get some lunch.”

  She pulled Rob toward the buffet set up in the dining room. They loaded up paper plates with small sandwiches and munchies from the assortment of potluck donations on the table. Mandy noted thankfully that there seemed to be plenty of desserts, with platters piled high with cookies and brownies, so she didn’t feel too bad about forgetting her contribution.

  After they grabbed some cans of soda from a cooler, she led Rob outside to the backyard, where the younger crowd was hanging out. She figured she would be less likely to run into any of the Ellises there, other than Craig. Yes, Quintana had asked her to stay alert, but she figured it was more important to hide what she knew and she didn’t trust herself around Brenda yet.

  The yard was filled mostly with long-legged, gawky high schoolers uncomfortable in their formal clothes. A couple of young men wore brand-new dress shirts with fresh-from-the-package creases. Likely friends of Faith’s, the teens perched on an assortment of lawn chairs and decorative boulders, or sat on the grass. They squinted in the bright sunlight, and the girls held their long hair to keep the breeze from blowing it in their faces. They picked at their plates and talked quietly among themselves.

  Mandy found a couple of empty lawn chairs next to two young men engaged in a heated, low-voiced argument and took the seat farthest from them. Rob plopped in the other chair and plowed into his food. He soon joined the debate two teens next to him were having over whether the Denver Broncos had it in them to make it to the playoffs that football season. Mandy was content to eat quietly and observe the others in the yard.

  Craig came out and made the rounds of the knots of teens, asking if they needed anything and giving them a chance to relay remembrances of Faith to him. He listened quietly and somberly and thanked everyone for their stories. When he neared Mandy, she said, “We’re fine. Thanks, Craig,” he continued on to a couple of rafting guides Mandy recognized who were standing near the back fence. She figured they must have worked for Lee that summer and had come to pay their respects.

  After finishing her lunch, she realized she needed to use the restroom and went inside. She dumped her trash in a large trashcan and looked with dismay at the line of fidgeting women outside the powder room.

  An older woman passed by her and said, “Brenda told me to tell folks to use the upstairs bathroom if this one’s full. Follow me.” She turned and waved her arm over her shoulder.

  Mandy gladly followed, along with two other deserters from the line. Since she was last in line after they reached the hall bathroom, Mandy decided to slip into Lee and Brenda’s bedroom to comb her wind-tousled hair in front of the dresser mirror. Her gaze passed over a ring tray with a few of Brenda’s rings looped over the central spike. That reminded her that the sheriff’s office had never found Howie Abbott’s pinkie ring. She peered at the rings on the spike, but no luck, no ring resembled the description of it.

  Then she saw the open door to the master bathroom in the mirror, and decided she might as well use that one. While washing her hands, she noticed that the toilet kept flushing and tsked. Just like her own toilet. The chain probably had a kink in it. She flipped down the seat lid, removed the tank lid, and placed it on top of the seat lid. Then she peered inside to see what the problem was.

  A plastic bag that had been taped to the back of the tank had come loose on one side. The loose corner was tangled in the chain. Inside the clear bag was another one, and inside that lay a folded piece of baby blue writing paper and a man’s ring, gold with a brown stone.

  Mandy carefully untangled the bag from the chain, then loosened the tape holding it to the tank and held it up. She shook the bag gently to roll the ring from one side to another and read, “Salida High School,” and a year, 1979.

  This must be Howie’s pinkie ring!

  While staring at the bag, Mandy debated what she should do next. Open it and see what was written on the paper? No, bad idea. That would be crossing the line from stumbling onto something to illegal search.

  Return the bag to the now full tank, find Quintana and tell him about it? No, the bag was torn from her efforts and the paper inside would get wet from the now-full tank.

  Take the bag to him? No, she’d be removing evidence from where she found it. She decided to hide the bag in the medicine cabinet, then go get him.

  She put the now-quiet toilet back together and opened the medicine cabinet door.

  At the same time, the bathroom door creaked open, startling Mandy. She dropped the bag and it fell into the sink with a clink.

  Brenda stood in the doorway, gripping the doorknob. The sun streaming through the bedroom window backlit her, creating a halo of light around her. Looking like an avenging angel with wide, white eyes in a shadowed, glowering face, she pointed a quivering finger at Mandy.

  “What the hell are you doing in here?”

  Nineteen

  Many men go fishing all of their lives

  without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

  —HENRY DAVID THOREAU

  Heart pounding, Mandy stammered, “The t-toilet, it kept flushing—”

  Brenda advanced and slapped her. Hard.

  The slap threw Mandy off balance. She fell back onto the toilet seat lid, putting a hand to her burning cheek.

  Brenda slapped Mandy’s other cheek, then stood over her, slapping Mandy with the furious speed of a madwoman. She hollered, “Bitch, you evil bitch!”

  “Stop, Brenda,” Mandy yelled. She tried to stand while blocking Brenda’s arms, but the effort put her off balance. She fell, landing on her butt in a corner between the tub and wall.

  Brenda started kicking her.

  Mandy curled up to protect herself. “Stop it!”

  A kick to her stomach released all her air with an “oof” and left her gasping. That was followed by stabbing pain, and more pains from more blows.

  Mandy realized rage had full control of Brenda. Mandy had to act and act now or this woman was going to kill her, just as rage had driven her to kill her own brother.

  She uncurled and reached out, exposing her vulnerable midsection. When a well-aimed kick came in, she grabbed Brenda’s ankle with both hands and yanked. Hard.

  Brenda fell back through the door to the bedroom, landing on the floor with a thump, but she continued to flail with her legs against Mandy.

  Mandy blocked and parried, trying to grab a leg so she could wrench Brenda away.

  Suddenly space opened between them. Hands were on Brenda, pulling her away and to her feet. Men’s voices yelled, “Stop, stop!”

  Mandy looked up to see Lee Ellis and Detective Quintana in the bedroom on either side of Brenda, clutching her arms. Her legs were still windmilling toward Mandy, thankfully out of reach.

  Panting, Mandy rolled to her hands and knees. Rob squeezed past Brenda and her captors and lifted Mandy to the toilet seat lid. She moaned and shut her eyes against a sharp pain in her left side.

  “Where are you hurt?” Rob asked, his hands running gently down her legs and arms.

  “My ribs,” Mandy gasped, opening her eyes. “I think she broke one.”

  “What’s going on here?” Craig asked over his father’s shoulder.

  That seemed to trigger something in Brenda, and she finally stopped kicking. She collapsed against Lee’s side and started sobbing into his shoulder.

  Quintana let her go, and Lee took her into his arms. He lowered her to the bed and sat next to her there. He patted her back while staring at Mandy. Quintana and Craig stared at her, too, as did Rob. Obviously, they all expected her to answer Craig’s question, because Brenda sure wasn’t going to.

  Mandy took a deep breath, which sent another stabbing pain through her left side. “Ow, ow.” She clutched her side, but waved away Rob’s hand. She took another experimental breath, shallower this time, and found the pain was bearable.

  “She, she found me with that.” Mandy pointed at the crumpled bag lying in the sink. She stopped to rest, catch her breath, slow her racing heartbeat from the adrenaline still coursing through her bloodstream. “The bag was caught in the toilet chain. It has Howie’s pinkie ring inside. And a note.”

  “What?” Lee’s eyes went wide with surprise.

  When someone gasped, Mandy realized more people were standing in the bedroom and out in the hallway. A teenage face peeked over Quintana’s shoulder.

  Craig turned toward the others and shouted, “Give us some privacy here!”

  Quintana turned, too. “I’m with the sheriff’s office, and I’ll handle this.” He advanced toward the onlookers with arms wide. “Go on. Get out of here. Move downstairs.”

  People mumbled and stirred, then footsteps thumped down the stairs. Quintana and Craig herded the last few out of the bedroom and watched them go down the stairs.

  Quintana shut the bedroom door and frowned at Mandy. He pursed his lips, obviously peeved at her. “Were you searching in here?”

  Mandy’s cheeks flushed. She straightened, which sent another bolt of pain through her and made her wince. “No, I wasn’t. I swear. I used the toilet, and it kept flushing. So I looked in the tank, thinking I’d unkink the chain.”