lake afterward, you know. Might as well get some use out of the mileage, see.”
“Absolutely.” Luck smiles sometimes.
“I see that the crew from the Mansion came,” he said.
“Yep.”
“You think they're weird, Carl?”
“No weirder than anybody else.”
“Some of 'em seem nice. But I don't know why they dress like that. Just to make people look?”
“Making a statement. Nothing else.”
“I think they do it just to aggravate people.” He stared across the room to where Toby and Kevin were still talking to the girls. “The darkhaired kid with the thing through his nose, see him? That's what I mean.”
“Pretty harmless, I think. Really. Remember, not too long ago, burning the campus down? The sixties and seventies?”
“Yeah.”
“Which you rather have? That, or these kids?” I suppressed a smile. “Or, back in your day, the agitators who wanted to go against the King?”
He looked at me squarely. “You ain't too big for me to whip.”
I almost missed what he said, because my eye had settled on the figure of William Chester, standing near the coffin. I drew Knockle's attention to him.
“What's he doing here?”
Old Knockle stared for a second. “Oh. Uh, well, I know what you said, but he had the bond money right with him, and since I had to bring him back up this way, and I was comin' right here anyway, I thought it'd be okay if I left him in the car.” He cleared his throat. “Looks like he got out.”
“That it does.”
“I'm really sorry, Carl. He said he'd stay in the car.”
“I just bet he did.” I didn't want to draw too much attention to Chester, but for two cents I would have just walked up and knocked the idiot over the head.
After taking some of the sting out for Knockle by getting him another cookie, I went looking for Hester. I saw her two rooms away, but before I could get to her, I felt a tap on my shoulder. Byng, in uniform. He looked very concerned.
“Carl, you got a second?” he asked in a low voice.
“Sure.”
He motioned me toward the hall, and I followed.
“I got a call from Harry,” he said. “They got a missing persons report on Alicia Meyer. She's been having a real rough time over her boyfriend and all, a'course. She was at a friend's house over in Conception County last night. They went out to eat at Gourmet Georges'. She went to the john, never came back. Guess her friends spent most of the night lookin' for her. Can't find her. She's just disappeared.”
“What time, any idea?”
“Not sure, but it had to be before one A.M. That's when Gourmet Georges' closes for the night.”
“So, like what? Somebody snatched her right out of the women's room?” That was spooky.
“Oh, no. No, I forgot. Her car was gone, too. Like she just drove off.”
That put a completely different complexion on the case. I was relieved. “Ah. So, maybe she just wants to get away for a while?”
“It's not like her, they say.”
“They always say that, don't they? I mean, if it was like her, they wouldn't have reported it.”
He let that sink in. “Well, sure.”
“I'll bet Harry finds her before supper,” I said.
“Hope so,” he said. He looked around. “Lamar's here? I really ought to express myself to him before I leave.”
“Good idea.” I pointed out the receiving line. “Don't forget to sign the register.”
I found Hester in another anteroom, talking with the funeral director and two older gentlemen I recognized as teachers from Freiberg High. I motioned, and she got away fairly quickly. I told her, quickly and quietly, about the cable car, and about the blueprints. I also mentioned William Chester. She'd already seen him.
“I hope he's not here for the reason I think he is,” she said very quietly.
“Pardon?”
“I hope he's not here hunting,” she said, a little louder.
“Yeah.”
Just as I was about to mention Alicia Meyer taking off, we were interrupted by one of Edie's three classmates.
“Excuse me, are you Deputy Houseman?” She was about five-ten, slender, brown hair and eyes, maybe twenty-five or so.
“Yes.”
“Hello, I'm sorry to bother you, but my name is Darcy Becker, and I knew Edie, and the sheriff just said that I should be talking with you.” She seemed very confident, self-assured, and sophisticated. Polished. As Old Knockle would have said, you could tell she'd been away.
Since Lamar had handed her off, I was fairly certain that she'd approached him with something important about the case. Something he thought we should hear, and something he figured he shouldn't.
“Nice to meet you. This,” I said, gesturing toward Hester, “is Special Agent Gorse of the Iowa DCI.”
“Hello,” said Hester.
“Oh. Are you, well, working together? About this?”
“I'd suggest,” said Hester, “that we might step outside.”
The media were out there. We ended up moving out through the kitchen, past the preparation and, if necessary, autopsy room; and ended up in the garage between two parked hearses. It was a little gloomy, but it was private as hell.
“So, Lamar said you should talk to me?”
“Yes,” she said. “He said that this… well, I thought that since Edie had, well, taken her own life… I thought I might know why. The sheriff said I should talk to you right away.”
“Why did you think she might have killed herself?” asked Hester.
“Well, I know she's been kind of down. Lately. Well, for a while, really. But lately, things had taken a turn, I think… ” She looked at us beseechingly. “I don't really know, but she had gotten mixed up with some older man. I think.”
Hester and I exchanged looks.
“It's possible,” I said. “Why do you think that?”
“Well, we tried to get together, and we talked on e-mail, and I couldn't make it, and she called me, because it was going to be her daughter's birthday, and she was worried, it seemed to me. No. Well. No, no, she was frightened. Scared. Worried and scared, I guess.”
“About… ” I prompted.
She sighed. “Well, I called her, I mean when I couldn't make it. And we talked on the phone.”
You have to be so careful not to spook somebody, but at the same time, you sometimes just about have to drag the simplest stuff out of them.
“About some older man?” Hester, this time. Gently, not wanting to stress her.
“Yes. I think she was, well, involved. Pretty far, I think. And I think he was either married, from what she said, or at least there was another woman in the picture, and she was afraid to let him go, and afraid to stay.” She looked at Hester. “You know?”
“I think so,” said Hester.
It struck me then. “You wouldn't be 'DarcyB2' would you? Your e-mail address?”
“I… Yes, I am.” She looked at me and thrust her head forward slightly. “How on earth do you know that?”
“Let's back up a bit,” I said. “There are a couple of things you apparently haven't heard about this.”
As it turned out, on Sunday she and her two friends had heard Edie was dead, that it was suicide, and they
