“We were friends,” Jane said, turning the photo so she could look at it. “Best friends. Of course, everything seems more powerful at that age, but we really were close. It’s hard to describe; have you ever had something like that? A group of people that you knew you belonged to, in a way that went beyond blood and bone?” A smile turned the corner of her mouth. “I believe young people today call it ‘found family.’”

  I nodded, and I was surprised to find myself explaining, “Here. In Hastings Rock, I mean. We call ourselves the Last Picks, like—”

  “The last picks in gym,” Jane said, and she laughed. It was a rich sound, deep like her voice, and full of unexpected delight. “Oh God, Vivienne must have loved that. She hated gym.”

  I grinned, but it was as much because of how surreal this moment felt as because of the statement itself. Here I was, with a woman double my age, listening to her talk about the Vivienne Carver as though she were just another hapless teenager. Which, I suppose, at one point she’d been, but it still felt unreal.

  “After Neil and Vivienne divorced, we all wanted to stay friends. Neil’s estranged from his family; he barely made it through high school without getting kicked out of the house, and once he left, he never went back. And he and Arlen hit it off right away. He was the son Arlen always wanted. After the divorce, Neil stayed part of the family.” She stopped and cleared her throat. “I understand it must seem strange that Neil and I ended up together, but it really wasn’t. Richard was gone. Vivienne had moved away. We had always been close.” That unexpected smile turned the corner of her mouth again. There was something…self-aware about the smile. Not quite mocking, but close. “And, of course, I’d had a crush on Neil myself at one point in high school, although at the time, I couldn’t see that he wasn’t interested in me.”

  There were so many things I wanted to ask. I picked the first one that came to mind. “What did you mean that Neil was the son Arlen always wanted?”

  Jane frowned. Her hands curled protectively around the picture frame, and she seemed to think. “Richard and Arlen’s relationship was…difficult. They fought a great deal. Richard was temperamental. Arlen was stubborn. By the time I knew them, they’d settled into a pattern that was, let’s say, antagonistic. Arlen commanded. Richard defied. Neil, on the other hand, has always been a charmer. As I said, he and Arlen hit it off right away.”

  “But you and Richard bought a house next to Arlen and—what was the mom’s name?”

  “Betty. She was already dying when Richard and I got married. Lung cancer. Richard wouldn’t talk about living anywhere else, and then, once she was gone, we were settled. Richard had a job at the plant with Arlen, and I was at the teacher’s college. It didn’t make sense to move.”

  “They were close, then?”

  “Oh yes. Richard was the apple of Betty’s eye. He could do no wrong. Of course, that only made things worse with Arlen.”

  “Because he was temperamental.”

  “Yes.” I thought maybe she’d stop there, but she sighed and looked past me, or through me, her eyes softening as they lost focus. “Richard was such a beautiful person. Everyone was drawn to him; it’s hard to explain, hard to help someone understand. He was magnetic, to borrow a tired word. He was smart and funny. He made you feel like you were the only person who existed. And he was handsome too; he could have cut a swath through the ladies if he’d wanted to, but that wasn’t his style.”

  “Maybe I was projecting,” I said, “but I got the impression that the four of you were your own little group.”

  Jane laughed. “That we were unpopular, you mean? No, not at all. Vivienne might have been, if not for the rest of us. No. But we were…self-contained. Even back then, it irked some of our classmates. People tend not to like people who work their way free of the herd, so to speak. But it was impossible not to like Richard.”

  “But you fought frequently.”

  “Candy’s information again?” she said. “Yes. In the last year or two before Richard went missing, we fought often. I hate to think about it now.” Her voice caught, and she touched the tissue to her eye again. “I hate thinking about all of it. How unhappy we both were. How we took it out on each other.”

  “If you weren’t fighting about an affair, what were you fighting about?”

  “I’m afraid I was being glib when I said Richard’s stubbornness. We fought about the usual things, of course. There was never enough money; even back then, the plant was cutting hours, and I still hadn’t started teaching. And Richard—” She stopped. “How well did you know Vivienne? Before, I mean.”

  “Not well.”

  Jane nodded slowly. “She and Richard might as well have been twins. They were what we call Irish twins, as a matter of fact, although I suppose that’s not the polite thing to say anymore. When Vivienne wanted to, she could be just as charming as Richard—she had that same magnetism, for lack of a better word.”

  I nodded; I remembered my first day at Hemlock House, and how easily Vivienne had won me over. It had been her hallmark during her years in the public eye—she was always kind, always polite, always witty, always easy to talk to.

  “But Vivienne and Richard were never satisfied. They always wanted more. It was hard to see it at the time. When you’re young, you think opportunities are endless, and that the world will give you what you deserve if you work hard enough. As they got older, though, and those opportunities didn’t come to fruition, they changed. They were more jaded about things. They were more insistent. It was like a constant demand for more.” She stopped again, and her eyes seemed to refocus on me. “That was one of the reasons for the divorce. Vivienne wanted Neil to uproot their lives and move to Portland. She was determined to be famous, whatever it took.”

  There was a lot packed into those words. In Vivienne’s case, whatever it took had included framing an innocent woman for murder and, later in her life, killing two men to protect her secret.

  “What did Richard want?” I asked.

  “The same thing,” Jane said with that same smile bent out of true. “Only different. Everyone who wants to be famous really just wants to be someone else.”

  The sound of the lawnmower cut off, and in its absence, the quiet pressed in on me. I tried to come up with a good way of asking my question, and finally I settled for simple: “What do you think happened the night Richard disappeared?”

  But Jane shook her head. “You mean, do I think Vivienne killed him and stole our money and ran off to Portland?”

  “I understand Vivienne and Richard were fighting as well.”

  “Richard was fighting with everyone. He was…not himself that last year. He was deeply unhappy.” Jane blew out a breath. “I’m not sure what Candy told you, but I think I should say that, like the rest of that family, she’s a deeply unhappy person. Some of that has to do with the fact that Candy has had a hard life, and it hasn’t made things easier for her to watch Vivienne’s success. That must have been very difficult for her. But it doesn’t excuse this kind of behavior.”

  “What kind of behavior?”

  “Making up stories. This whole mess she’s created.”

  “What did she make up? I mean, I understand that not all her conclusions were correct, but it seems like what she told me was more or less true.”

  “You don’t understand. You’re not part of this family, so you don’t understand. Nobody believes Vivienne killed Richard. I told you: they were like twins. She never would have hurt him, no matter how much they argued. Vivienne loved him more than she ever loved anyone else—”

  The door handle rattled, and then the door swung open, and a man stepped into the living room. Today, Neil Carver wore a blue T-shirt with the words ASTORIA FIRE DEPARTMENT on the breast and black utility pants. His hair looked thinner up close, and in that first instant, he carried himself the way Bobby sometimes did at the end of a long shift—like the fatigue went deeper than the bone. Then he saw me.

  “What’s he doing here?”

  Which was interesting, albeit rude—apparently, everyone in the extended family knew who I was.

  “He wanted to talk,” Jane said quietly.

  Neil spared her a disbelieving look. Then, to me, he said, “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you need to leave.”

  “I understand this is a difficult time for all of you,” I said, “and I also understand this might be hard to believe, but I’m trying to help—”

  “You’re snooping around,” Neil said, “playing detective. That’s a job for the police.”

  Okay, again, fair, but definitely rude.

  I looked at Jane, but her expression was closed off, and I realized she wasn’t going to help. “I was hoping you could tell me about Richard, maybe about the night he disappeared—”

  “He didn’t disappear,” Neil said. “He was killed. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Don’t you have the tiniest bit of decency? He was her husband. Their brother and son.” He swallowed, and his voice wavered. “My best friend.”

  “I know, but—”

  “If you know, then what are you doing? You’re like a hog, rooting around in our suffering for your own entertainment. What kind of person does that?”

  “Vivienne asked me to help—”

  “Vivienne.” He scoffed. “Vivienne doesn’t need anyone’s help. She made that perfectly clear when she left.”

  “Mr. Carver, do you honestly think she killed Richard?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “The police do. And maybe it doesn’t bother you to have Vivienne convicted of a crime she didn’t commit—”

  “Does it bother you?” He peered at me, and I realized, after a moment, he wanted an answer, but he continued, “What are you doing helping her anyway?”

  “Yes, it does bother me. Because if she didn’t kill Richard, then someone else did, and that person is still out there.” I took a breath. “Candy seems to believe—”

  “Candy.” Neil pushed a hand through his thinning hair. “Candy is nuts.”

  In a soft voice, Jane said, “Neil.”

  “She is. He ought to hear that before he makes a fool of himself on her behalf.” Squaring up with me, Neil continued in a more even tone, “All Candy wants is approval, just like Viv, just like Richard. Just like their old man—that’s where they get it from. Can you understand that? Candy’s spent her whole life making a fool out of herself to get people to notice her, running after any guy who would give her the time of day, and half the ones who wouldn’t, myself included. She hates Viv because Viv went and made herself famous. She hated Richard because everyone loved Richard, never mind all the times Richard pulled her bacon out of the fire.”

  “Neil,” Jane said again more firmly.

  “He did. Not that she ever thanked him for it. You ought to hear her carrying on sometimes, how Richard ruined her life, chasing off that deadbeat. Everything that ever went wrong for Candy happened because Richard wouldn’t let her shack up with Zane Potthof. He’d have had her turning tricks by the end of the week.”

  Jane straightened in her chair. “That’s enough.”

  “She was thrilled when Richard disappeared. Ask her where she was the night Richard died.”

  “Neil!”

  Jane’s voice rang out in the small house. A hint of color dusted Neil’s cheekbones, and he rubbed his forehead.

  “I think it’s time for you to leave,” Jane said to me.

  Neil gave ground grudgingly as Jane walked me to the door. He stood behind her, watching me as I moved out onto the porch, his expression somewhere between wary and chagrined. Jane’s expression, though, was downright icy; the intelligent, pleasant woman I’d been talking to before Neil arrived was gone.

  “Mr. Dane,” Jane said as she shut the door. “Don’t come back.”

  Chapter 8

  I sat in the Jeep and watched the two houses.

  Nobody came out and told me to leave. Nobody chased me off with a shotgun. With the window down and the sun on me, it was warm enough for me to shed my hoodie. The occasional breeze brought the smells of fresh-cut grass and gasoline and the darker undernote of the slough. Sunlight glittered on the windows of the houses I was watching. In Arlen’s house, the curtains were closed.

  The conversation certainly hadn’t gone as I’d planned. In the first place, I’d been surprised by Jane—I’d been expecting another Candy, but instead, I’d found someone much more like the Vivienne I knew: composed, classy, and scarily smart. I’d also been surprised by what Jane had shared about the close-knit group of friends. It was hard to imagine Vivienne as an awkward teenager—although she hadn’t looked particularly awkward in the photo Jane had shown me—but it wasn’t hard to imagine that in a working-class town like Astoria, a bright, bookish girl might have struggled to find her place. And, once she’d found it, clung tightly to it. Jane was certainly a kindred spirit, and in spite of Neil’s bad temper, it wasn’t hard to imagine him and Richard as the kind of boys who were athletic and popular while still being, well, likable and intelligent human beings. All of it was a far cry from the picture Candy had painted of divorce, infidelity, rage, and greed, culminating in a sordid murder for a few thousand dollars.

  But, at the same time, Jane’s initial response to my appearance had been strange. Her questions about justice, about why I was bothering, weren’t the questions I expected from someone who had been grieving her missing husband for decades. And Neil had been downright hostile when he arrived. It was hard not to wonder about the man who had stepped into Richard’s life: Richard’s home, Richard’s wife, even wearing Richard’s bracelet—or one that looked a lot like it. It might not be a glamorous life, but people killed for all sorts of reasons, and it was hard for me not to consider Neil, especially in light of his reaction, as a very real suspect.

  What had I learned? Well, not much. Everything Jane had told me about the group of friends growing up had been good background information, sure, but I couldn’t tell how much bearing it might have on the actual investigation. Jane had confirmed part of Candy’s version of events—the change in Richard’s behavior, the frequent arguments, and of course, the fight that had happened the night Richard disappeared. She’d provided an alibi for the night in question—Neil—that I was sure Neil would be happy to confirm. But perhaps most interesting of all was her insistence (and Neil’s) that Vivienne hadn’t killed Richard.

  So, that was one point of interest: Jane (and Neil) painted a very different picture of Vivienne than Candy did.

  And the second had been Neil’s explosive comments about Candy. About her hatred of Richard. Blaming him for ruining her life. And that parting shot—Ask her where she was the night Richard died. I would have liked to ask a few more questions about Candy, but that seemed not to be an option; Jane’s reaction to Neil’s comments was as interesting as Neil’s comments themselves. Why had Jane gotten so worked up about Candy? Or about what Neil was saying about Candy? Whatever it was, it had affected the polite, receptive woman so strongly that she’d told me never to come back.

  Well, there was someone I could ask.

  I got out of the Jeep and jogged across the street again, but this time, I approached Arlen’s house. I knocked. No answer. I knocked again. Nothing. From the next block came the sound of a car engine and a rattling muffler.

  If no one was home, I could—theoretically—take a look at the garage and the workshop. It would be remarkable if I suddenly discovered evidence that not only had the police overlooked but nobody had bothered to clean up in the last thirty-odd years, but I also couldn’t shake the memory of Arlen popping out with his shotgun when Bobby and I had inspected the slough. Of course, searching the garage also sounded like a great way to get my head blown off. I’d be trespassing. I’d be committing a crime. Even if Arlen didn’t shoot me himself, he could call the police. Indira would love to get a phone call asking to bail me out. No, searching the garage in the middle of the day, when I wasn’t sure if anyone was home, seemed like a terrible idea. If Bobby had been there, he would have told me so. At length. And if I did it anyway, he would have been furious.

  That made something poke its head up at the back of my brain.

  On the other hand, I thought carefully, I was pretty sure Arlen’s house was empty, and the street was dead. I hadn’t seen a car or a pedestrian on either visit. So, this might be my golden opportunity. And if I missed it, I might never have another chance.

  There it was: decision made. It was a carefully thought out, rational, pragmatic decision.

  It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it would make Bobby insane when I told him.

  I took the stairs down from the stoop two at a time and hustled around the side of the house. The gravel drive crunched underfoot, and from farther off came the slow stirring of the slough—just the occasional ripple-eddy-splash. The garage had the same sagging aluminum siding as the bungalow (with even more algae), and it looked like the roof hadn’t been replaced since Sputnik. The overhead door was down, and a quick walk around the structure told me there wasn’t a regular door—what I’d recently learned, while writing with Hugo, was called the pedestrian door. I gave up on the garage for the time being and continued to the workshop. This one did have a pedestrian door (I mean, a regular door), but it was locked. Someone had drilled one hole through the door and another through the plank wall and then run a chain through, and the chain was held shut with a padlock.