happened, instead of the way they actually did.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Yes.’
Gino pursed his lips and nodded. ‘Pretty quick on the trigger for a confused old lady.’
Maggie shot him a cold glare. ‘It wasn’t the first time I had a gun pressed to my head, Detective, and I think I’m pretty much of an expert on whether the man holding that gun is prepared to use it. She probably saved my life.’
Gino had the decency to feel bad, which didn’t mean he had the motivation to show it. Something wasn’t right, and it was eating at a part of his brain like a termite.
‘She tells some tall tales sometimes, but she’s a dear woman. Founded Bitterroot with her sister, over half a century ago. This was their land; this is her town.’
‘Gotcha. So she shot Weinbeck?’
Maggie Holland’s lips were pressed tightly together, bleeding all the color out. ‘She thought he was going to kill me. And he would have. He was crazed when he broke in. Crazed.’
‘Uh-huh. You want me to carry that in?’
‘Please.’ She hurried to follow him, and moved immediately to stand behind Laura’s chair. Her posture was rigid, protective, almost like that of a bodyguard, which Gino thought was pretty strange, considering the old lady had just saved her life.
Iris and Magozzi were sitting on a sofa opposite the rocker, both with notebooks propped on their knees, when Gino carried in the tray like a college waiter. He set it down on the coffee table between them and listened.
‘So he broke in, grabbed Maggie, pointed a gun at her head, and asked where he could find Julie, is that about right?’
Laura was nodding emphatically. ‘Exactly right. So I did my little-old-lady act, told him I’d get a map, and toddled out to the kitchen.’ She looked at Iris and smiled. ‘I don’t usually toddle, you know. I do stretching exercises every morning to keep myself limber. That was just an act.’
Iris smiled back. ‘That was very clever.’
‘I thought so. And I do have a map of the village in the kitchen drawer. But that’s also where I keep the gun.’
‘Ah.’ Iris nodded. ‘The.357 on the table over there.’
Gino sat down in an armchair and actually started pouring tea. Christ, this was weird.
‘Yes, indeed. Maggie said I couldn’t put it back in the drawer, although that’s where it belongs. She said I had to put it down and leave it so you people could check it. For what, I just don’t know.’
‘It’s just procedure, Miss Laura.’
Funny how she knew to call her that, Gino thought.
‘So you came back into the living room, what? Holding the gun under the map?’
Laura beamed at her. ‘Now, you’re the clever one, because that’s exactly what I did. Toddled back in, pretending to study the map, then when he reached for it, I shot him.’ She looked over at Kurt Weinbeck’s body and shook her head. ‘I just hate doing that.’
Magozzi felt a chill run up his spine. ‘You hate to shoot people?’ he asked conversationally.
‘Well, of course I do, Detective. Don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Then you understand. It’s dreadfully distasteful, but… we do what we have to do. We take care of our own. Not that I’ve shot that many, of course. Not personally.’
Not that many? Not personally? Whoa.
He glanced at Maggie Holland, whose features suddenly looked paralyzed. When she caught him looking, she rolled her eyes and actually tapped a forefinger on the side of her head.
Iris was still bent over her little notebook, continuing to write, as if Laura hadn’t said anything unusual. Magozzi had to bite his tongue to keep from firing questions. Batty or not, you couldn’t just let a statement like that hang there without a token follow-up, at least.
Iris stopped writing and looked up a second later, her expression blandly pleasant. ‘How many, do you think?’ she asked Laura.
Way to go, Iris Rikker.
The old woman blinked, then her eyes wandered to follow her brain. ‘Oh, my. All together?’
‘Yes, if you please.’
‘Goodness. I guess… I’m not quite sure…’ She was blinking faster now, and her eyes were starting to water. ‘Well… I guess we could look in the lake. Is it important?’
Maggie Holland closed her eyes.
‘Not really,’ Iris said. ‘Is that Lake Kittering?’
‘That’s the one. You live on Lake Kittering, don’t you, dear?’
Iris stopped writing, but she kept looking down at her notebook. ‘Close to it. I didn’t realize you knew that.’
Laura chuckled a little. ‘Of course I know that. We all do. You bought Emily’s place.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well, just so you know, Edgar isn’t in the lake.’
Iris started writing again, but the script was a little shaky. ‘He isn’t?’
‘No. We buried him. Of course we were much younger, then. Ruth – she was my sister, did I tell you that? – at any rate, she was even younger than I was, and Emily was just a little swell in her tummy…’ Her eyes wandered and seemed to lose focus until her gaze found Maggie, standing right next to her. ‘Oh, Maggie. Hello, dear.’
Gino and Magozzi exchanged a knowing glance. This sure as hell wasn’t going to go much further. The old woman was losing it, if she ever had it in the first place.
‘Are Alice and Bill coming?’
Magozzi’s mind twitched a little at the names, but he let it go when Maggie answered her.
‘They’re on their way. I called them before the officers came in, remember?’
‘Oh. Should I go to the bathroom first?’
‘Would you like to?’
‘Oh, yes, very much.’
It took her a while to get out of the rocker this time, as if the muddle in her mind could no longer manage to control the still-limber body.
The moment they heard the bathroom door close behind her, Iris looked at Maggie Holland. ‘Who was Edgar, Maggie? The one they buried?’
Maggie looked disgusted. ‘Don’t be silly. Nobody buried anybody.’
‘And I don’t suppose there are any bodies in the lake, either?’
‘Of course not.’
For some reason, Magozzi believed her.
‘Quickly, before she comes back,’ Iris said, and Maggie sighed.
‘Edgar was Laura’s husband. That’s according to Laura’s grand-niece – she’s the woman on her way here now, and certainly in a position to know since Laura and her sister raised her right here at Bitterroot. Apparently he was an abusive, hateful man. He kept both sisters virtual prisoners on the original farm, which happened to include your land in those days, Sheriff. He beat them, treated them both like chattel, impregnated Laura’s sister, and then simply disappeared. God knows where he went.’
Just like Lars, Iris was thinking, but she didn’t say anything.
‘There was no outside help for mistreated women in those days. Not that there’s all that much these days,’ she added bitterly, touching the scar on her neck. ‘Laura and Ruth suffered under that reality, and after Edgar left, they were determined to create a sanctuary where things like that never happened to women. That was the beginning of Bitterroot.’
‘So they didn’t kill anybody,’ Gino said, and Maggie glared at him.
‘You don’t understand, Detective. You can’t possibly. You suffer under abuse long enough, you start to fantasize about killing your abuser. You don’t act on it, of course, because that’s the nature of your own psychology. You love your abuser, or at least convince yourself you do. Except in a very few cases, all of which make the
