“You don’t just eat around the core?”
But, not to be distracted, she asked, “Was your house searched?”
He returned the apple corer to the jug. “If by
“They ransacked the place. Even confiscated my motorcycle. They took it apart piece by piece. I had it reassembled, but it was never the same, and I wound up having to get rid of it.”
He looked over at Bellamy, who appeared to be hanging on every word, but she said nothing, so he continued.
“That pair of panties was the Holy Grail of Moody’s investigation. His thinking was that the man who was caught with them was the deviant who’d used them to strangle her.”
She stared thoughtfully into near space. “Of all the indignities, the cruelties, that Olivia and Daddy were subjected to over Susan’s death, I believe that aspect of it was the hardest for them. It was certainly the most embarrassing. It implied any variety of dreadful things. Either she’d been molested or…”
“Or,” he stressed, “she’d willingly let the man remove them. Or she had taken them off herself. Which I’m inclined to believe.”
“Why?”
He stopped pacing and gave her a meaningful look. “The first time we went out.” She dropped her gaze to the tabletop.
“Also, there wasn’t any other indication of sexual assault,” he continued. “She wasn’t bruised or torn down there. No bite marks. No semen. Whatever took place before she was killed was consensual. Even Moody thought so.”
“Nevertheless, the missing underpants added a salacious element to the crime and made it all the more horrible.”
“And yet…” Placing his hands flat on the table, he leaned down close to her and said in a whispery voice, “The girl in your novel is choked to death in the same manner.”
“Because that’s what happened.”
“But doesn’t it spice things up, which equates to selling more books?”
Her eyes flashed with anger. “Go to hell.”
“I’ve been,” he fired back.
She stood up so abruptly that her chair went over backward, making a slamming sound against the floor that reverberated and shocked them both into silence.
She turned to pick up the chair, but Dent stepped around the table and set it upright before she could. He’d made her temper flare. He was intentionally goading her, and he didn’t know why, but he knew he didn’t like himself for it. He’d begun to notice how weary she looked. Given her father’s condition, and the state of her house upon her return from Houston, he doubted she’d slept much last night. The violet half-moons beneath her eyes indicated that she hadn’t slept well for quite some time.
On impulse, he said, “Want to get some air?”
She looked at him quizzically.
“Outside. Fresh air. Let’s go for a walk.”
She went to the window, moved aside the curtain, and looked up at the sky. “It’s overcast.”
“It’s hazy.”
“It’s muggy.”
“The climate is worse in here.”
He took her arm and propelled her out the back door, giving her little choice. Once on the sidewalk, they fell into step companionably. She even took a deep breath of contentment.
“See?” he said. “We needed to get out of there for a while. It was getting intense.”
“We rub each other the wrong way.”
Looking at her askance, he said, “We could rub each other till we get it right.” He watched for her blush and wasn’t disappointed. She’d needed that extra color in her cheeks. It flattered her. “I’ll let you go first,” he offered teasingly. “Unless you want me to. Which I’m happy to do.”
She rolled her eyes. “There’s a park a few blocks up.”
Five minutes later, they were seated in side-by-side swings with old-fashioned wood plank seats and heavy suspension chains. They were the only people near the swings. Some distance away, a middle-aged couple played catch with their young grandson. “Throw the ball to Paw-Paw,” he heard the woman say.
Farther away still, a quartet of teenaged girls in skimpy shorts and tank tops practiced cheerleading. Nearest him and Bellamy a pair of lovers lay on a blanket beneath a shade tree, lost in each other.
Dent moved his swing sideways to bump lightly into hers. “I’ve talked you through my experiences of that day and what came after. But you stopped at the point where Susan returned to the pavilion from the boathouse and started dirty dancing with Allen Strickland.”
She gave her swing a push. “What do you want to know?”
“Did you actually see Susan leave the pavilion with him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you follow them?”
“No.”
“Okay…” He drew out the word in the form of a lead-in.
She continued swinging, going a little higher on each arc. “Okay, what?”
“What did you do?”
She started to speak several times before words actually formed. “I headed for the boathouse.”
“Why the boathouse?”
“I… I think I went to find Steven.”
“You
The swing made several pendulous cycles before she said, “The sky was getting darker. I’d seen Steven walking toward the lake and wanted to make certain that he was aware of the approaching storm. I thought he should come back to the pavilion.”
“But neither of you made it back to the pavilion in time. The funnel dipped out of the cloud, you both got caught at the boathouse and had to take cover there.”
She nodded.
“What about Susan?”
She turned her head toward him as the swing sailed past. “What about her?”
“You weren’t worried about her, too?”
“Of course I was.”
“But you didn’t chase after her.”
“She was with Allen.”
“All the more reason to check on her.”
“Maybe I did. I—”
“You said you went to find Steven.”
“Yes, yes, just like in the book.”
“Forget the friggin’ book.”
He set his swing to rocking crazily when he quickly abandoned it. He stepped in front of Bellamy’s swing and grabbed hold of the chains, bringing it to an abrupt halt and wedging his thigh between hers to hold the seat high off the ground.
“What are you doing?”
“More to the point, what are you?” he asked. “This makes twice today that you’ve stalled there. Why? How come your memory is so detailed about what you wore and shoulder straps that kept slipping down, but you go all vague and sputtery when recounting what you did and where you were between the time you saw Susan return from her drinking binge at the boathouse, to when they dragged you from beneath the collapsed roof of it?”
She gazed back at him, wide-eyed and apprehensive. “I testified at Allen Strickland’s trial that I went in search of Steven. I was in the boathouse when the tornado struck. I wasn’t that badly hurt, but I was traumatized
