“That’s exactly what we’re saying,” I said.
“This whole town knew the cops were dirty,” Mrs. Moore said. “Payoffs and the like. They even got confessions from innocent men.”
I turned back the reel of time, seeing the three men who had questioned me in the days following Beth’s death. Ford, much younger, his cheeks still rosy from youth and without the mustache. Sheriff Lancaster’s bald head had shone under the lights, beads of perspiration evident on his forehead. Detective Wright was the younger of the two but still seemed old to me. He wore a cheap polyester suit the color of Silly Putty. His brown hair was cut into the mullet style, so popular with the high school boys. That style had seemed odd on him, especially because his hair had thinned on top. Only Ford had been young and kind. The room had been hot, and he’d brought me a cola.
Time and time again, they’d come back to the Paisley boys. Around in a circle like the Ferris wheel, trying to trap me into saying something that contradicted what I’d already said.
“Deep ties ran through this town. They protected their own,” I said, thinking out loud.
“But we’re about to put a stop to that,” Cole said. “Mrs. Moore, I hope that will bring you some comfort.”
“Is there anything else you can think of?” I asked.
“The night before she died, she came home late,” Mrs. Moore said. “I asked her where she’d been and she wouldn’t say and told me to mind own business. We got into a fight. I thought she’d gone to see some man, and I shamed her for it. Now I feel pretty sure she must have gone out to confront whoever it was who killed her.”
“The next day she was killed,” I said. “It has to be connected to wherever she went that night.”
“To who she went to that night,” Cole said.
Mrs. Moore pressed a tissue to her mouth. “All my life I’ve had to take scraps and act like I was grateful when the Lancasters and Richardses pranced around this town. If Richards did this, I want to know. I have to know. And I want him punished.”
Cole jerked to his feet. “I just thought of something. Mrs. Moore, do you have Thea’s cell phone? Maybe she has one of those tracker things where you can tell where people were.”
“Sheriff Ford already took it,” Mrs. Moore said. “He said it was evidence or something.”
Ford already had the phone. They would have examined everything already. If they had anything on Richards, he would have already seen it. Texts, calls, and wherever she went in the days before her death would all be on there. He obviously hadn’t found anything or he would have told us. Once again we were without any leads.
“You think it was Richards?” Ford asked as he sank into his office chair. “Are you kidding me?”
“We could be wrong.” I instinctively put my hand on Cole’s knee. We were sitting side by side, and I suddenly felt as if we were in the principal’s office. “But we wanted to tell you what we thought of and how it all fits together.”
“A cover-up?” Ford asked. “It seems completely implausible to me. No one has that much power.”
“They might have thirty years ago,” Cole said. “It would explain why they wanted to pin it on Luke.”
“Listen, guys, I understand where you’re coming from, but we don’t have a trace of evidence. Hell, we don’t even know if he was the married man Beth talked about in her journal. We can’t just implode a guy’s life because you two have a hunch.”
“Can’t you bring him in?” I asked. “At least question him.”
“On what grounds?” Ford asked. “Anyway, I think you guys are mistaken about this. I was friends with his wife, Sharon, back in the day. We went to high school together in Boise. Those two were madly in love. Richards isn’t our guy.”
“You were friends with Sharon?” I asked. This development had me reeling. Did this mean he would never be able to accuse Richards? He’d be blind to his guilt perhaps? Or—and this thought made me sweat—had he helped the rest of them cover it up and was merely putting up with my questions to keep himself out of trouble? How deep did this go? Had they involved Ford?
I exchanged a look with Cole. I could tell by his heightened color that he was wondering the same thing I was. Had we been misled by Ford all along?
I studied Ford, trying to see some crack in his conviction. Did he simply not want to interfere in Richards’s life and turn out to be wrong? But his expression was as open as always, looking back at me with the same compassionate eyes I remembered from thirty years ago.
“I want to solve this as much as you two,” Ford said. “But I can’t just go around accusing people. Especially not ones who have as much to lose as he does.”
As much to lose. That was exactly why we thought it was him. A teacher with the ambition to become governor and maybe even president someday doesn’t pair well with a pregnant teenager.
We’d just arrived back at Cole’s when his phone buzzed. He looked at the screen and then back at me. “You won’t believe who’s at my gate.” Before I could guess, he said, “Sharon Richards.”
“Sharon Richards is here.” What was she doing? Had she noticed me poking around town and gotten worried I was going to figure it out? Did she even know I was here? Or was she here to talk to Cole?
“Should I let her through?” Cole asked.
“I think we have to,” I said. “But we better make sure we’ve got one of our phones on record the entire time.”
He gave me a worried look before punching the code
