“I want a straight answer, Anna. What happened?”
“I ran into some kids who don’t like me.”
Marcy tilted her head to one side, her light eyes studying me. “You’re not a girl inclined to get into that sort of trouble.
You’re too smart.”
“You would think so.”
“What are you afraid to tell me?” she asked. “Were you molested?”
“No,” I replied quickly. “Just knocked down.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know. They pushed me down face-first. I saw their backs when they were running away, but it was raining hard.
It was during yesterday’s storm.”
“Where?”
“Tilby’s Dream.”
She frowned. “You went back there again — to the place of the fire? Why?”
“I just wanted to.”
She studied my face, then shook her head, as if I didn’t get it. “Anna, this may seem like a small, innocent- looking town, but we have some kids here who are spoiled rotten and bored. They’re out of control. They consider burning someone else’s property a party game.”
“I know.”
“You should have come over last night. You should have come to my house.”
“When I got home, Zack was waiting on the porch for me.
I told him what happened, and he helped me get cleaned up.”
“Then he should have told me,” she said, sounding frustrated. “He should have brought you to our house. You called the sheriff, I assume.”
“Not yet.”
“All right,” she said brusquely, “I will.” She reached under the counter and pulled out her cell phone.
“No, don’t! Please don’t.”
“Why not?”
“For one thing, I was told that if I did, there are others who’ll come after me.”
“That line is older than Hollywood,” Marcy responded, and flicked open her phone.
“For another, it could mess up my effort to figure out what happened to Uncle Will.”
Her blue eyes held mine for a moment, her gaze long and thoughtful.
“The guys are friends of the person who set the fire. The arsonist communicates by texting. It’s important for me to find out who is on the contacts list. I think that one of the kids, or someone else who has access to their messages, used the arson as a cover-up for my uncle’s murder. I don’t want to stir up these guys, not yet. I don’t want them putting pressure on other kids to keep quiet. I need to research a few more things before I go to the police.”
“Anna, you’re in over your head.”
“Give me till Monday morning. I’ll go to the sheriff then.
Promise!”
She sighed, then closed the phone. “If you don’t make the call on Monday, I will.”
“Deal,” I said, hoping to argue her out of it on Monday, and if that didn’t work, to convince the sheriff I’d be more help to him if he didn’t take immediate action.
Five minutes later our first customer came in. Last night’s storm had cooled down the weather, and business remained steady through lunchtime. After lunch a tour bus passed through. The jingling of the door’s sleigh bells didn’t stop till Marcy flipped over the CLOSED sign. “I could use a few more days like this,” she said.
“Me too. I like it busy.”
She collected our purses from the locked cabinet. “Did Zack give you the number for our house?”
“Just his cell.”
She printed neatly on a piece of paper. “Here’s the landline. You already have my cell number. Try that first. If you have any concerns about your own safety — or about Iris — call me.”
“Thanks.”
She set the store alarm and turned out the lights.
“How is Iris doing?” she asked as we walked to our cars.
“Not so good. She gets the present and past mixed up, and I think I’m making it worse.”
“I’m sure your presence has stirred up a lot of memories.”
“She argues with Uncle Will as if she sees him, and some of those arguments are about whether or not to keep a child.”
Marcy squinted at me in the slanting sun. “Meaning you.
She must be reliving arguments that occurred after your mother died.”
“Sometimes she talks to me as if I ’m Joanna, which may not be so crazy — I look a lot like my birth mother. I wish I knew how to help her.”
“I know you are concerned about her, Anna, but right now you must look out for yourself. This research you are doing before talking to the sheriff, what does it involve?”
“Just reading old newspapers,” I replied.
Marcy opened her car door. “All right, then. See you soon.” She turned to look at me. “Promise to call me if a problem arises, day or night, no matter the time.”
“Sure,” I said.
“Sure,” she repeated with a wry smile, as if she guessed I wouldn’t.
I planned to ask Marcy about Audrey and Mick Sanchez, but not until I knew a little more. Loyalty was important to Marcy, and she might sugarcoat her answers to cover for the person who had always taken care of her. I hoped the newspaper that reported Joanna’s death had also reported Mick’s accident.
Both the public and college libraries were closed on Saturday evening, but it was possible that the paper’s archives were online. Parking my car at the top of High Street, I walked to the only real hotel in town, looking for Internet access. I got lucky with a cafe at the rear of the hotel, but unlucky with the website that belonged to the paper: Its archives ran back only a year and a half. There was one phone number and two e-mail addresses: editor@ and adverts@. I typed to the first: WHEN R U OPEN?
I was messaged right back. FOR AS LONG AS I’M HERE.
WOULD LIKE 2 COME BY. I thought for a moment, then typed the only bait I could think of: STOPPING @ TEA LEAVES. WANT SOMETHING?
1 DOUB ESPR + 1 REG COFFEE MED SZ W/2 CREAMS & 4 DNUTS. I’M UPSTAIRS.
Fifteen minutes later I stood on Heron Street in front of a shingled storefront with stairs running up the outside of the building. I climbed the wooden steps and knocked on the door.
“It’s open.”
With one hand balancing my tray of drinks, the other grasping the bag of doughnuts and door handle, I pushed the door open with my foot.
The man inside hopped up. “Oh, sorry,” he said, taking the tray and bag from me and setting them on a table. He held out his hand. “Tom Wittstadt. Editor in chief, editor in minor, editor ed-cetera.”
He was medium height with a full face, curly salt-andpepper hair, and a bit of a belly under his blue Hawaiian shirt.
“And this is Hero.” A black Lab, lying close to the chair where Wittstadt had been sitting, thumped his tail.
“Hello, Hero.”
The dog lifted his head, his nose quivering. His eyes were opaque.
“He can’t see you, so he sniffs a lot,” the editor explained.
“Usually he stays put. You okay with dogs?”
“Yeah, sure. Can I pet him?”
The editor nodded. “Just talk to him and let him know you’re coming.”
