My mother and I were having coffee and dessert in the living room when the doorbell rang.
“Caro, honey!” My father enveloped me in a bear hug as soon as I opened the door. Peering over his shoulder, I shot Dylan a questioning look.
“Jim wanted to surprise you both.”
“He sure did,” I said, then concentrated on observing my parents.
My father was holding my mother at arms’ length, a devilish grin on his face. “Linda! Why, you don’t look a day older than when I last saw you.”
My mother blushed. “Thank you, Jim. You’re in pretty good shape yourself.”
Indeed, my father looked handsome and trim and considerably younger than his fifty-eight years—just one of the many benefits of going straight and getting a job he loved.
I rolled my eyes at Dylan as my father hugged my mother considerably more gently than he’d hugged me.
“What are we in for?” I whispered.
“Don’t ask me. They’re your parents.”
My mother and father sat side by side on the sofa. Were they …? Yes, they were holding hands. I was longing to yank their hands apart when Dylan murmured, “Leave them be.”
I was shocked by my impulse. Equally shocked that Dylan had known what I was thinking.
With their foreheads bent toward each other so that they almost touched, my parents conversed in low tones. I heard my mother mention Tom a few times, my father asking about the murder.
“Did you have dinner?” I asked Dylan.
“I grabbed something at the airport, but I can eat.”
“Dad, want something to eat?”
“Whatever you have, Caro, would be nice.”
“And to drink?” I asked over my shoulder as I walked into the kitchen.
“Why don’t we open a bottle of wine?” my mother said.
“Now?” I asked. “It’s almost nine o’clock.”
“A nice red would suit me,” my father called out.
“Got it,” Dylan said, and hurried to open a bottle.
I took leftovers, cheese, and bread from the fridge and placed them on the kitchen table. I put out plates, cutlery, and wineglasses. My parents were still engrossed in conversation when they joined Dylan and me in the kitchen.
Dylan and my father piled food on their plates and started eating. In between, Dylan and my father fell into conversation about a case they’d both worked on.
“I’m so glad you finally have a legitimate job that you like,” my mother said to my father.
“Like?” he roared. “I love working with Mac and Dylan.”
I smiled at my father, pleased that he was happy and looking so well.
Jim winked at me, then covered my mother’s hand with his. “Linda, I hope you take your time deciding what you want to do—about your marriage and your future.”
“Right now my main concern is not being charged with killing Ilana Reingold. My lawyer thinks they don’t have a solid case against me, but I’ve started to worry again.”
“All I can say is, John Mathers is an upstanding lawman,” my father said. He turned to me, “And your own daughter is an excellent detective. When I was a suspect in a homicide a few months ago, she made it her business to find the real killer.”
Three pairs of eyes regarded me with various expressions. My father beamed at me with pride and my mother studied me with speculation, but Dylan was the first to express what he was thinking.
“While Carrie has proven to be a remarkable detective, she is not a trained investigator. If you’ll remember, Jim, by chasing after that killer, she managed to put herself in harm’s way—which is not something we want.”
“Of course we don’t,” my father agreed.
Time to redirect the conversation. “I thought the police were looking at Dirk Franklin as a possible suspect.”
“They were,” my mother said, “because of his personal relationship with Ilana and because he’s been visiting his cousin here in Clover Ridge since he was a kid.” She frowned. “Though I can’t see what that has to do with anything.”
Dylan and I exchanged glances.
“Come on. Out with it,” my father coaxed.
“A man named Chet Harper was murdered twenty years ago,” Dylan said. “His son was tried and convicted for the crime but later exonerated. Chet Harper was the father of the young woman who was killed the other day.”
“The day before that young actress was murdered,” Jim mused.
“And the old homicide was never solved.” My mother scoffed. “Sounds like your police chief is looking to tie up three murders with a neat ribbon.”
Dylan frowned. “Linda, John Mathers isn’t that kind of a cop. If two or all three of the murders are connected, he’ll find the link. Otherwise, he’ll keep an open mind.”
“You’re saying there might be two killers,” my father said.
“Possibly three,” I said, “if we include Daphne’s ex-husband. Still, I can’t help wondering if her murder is related to her father’s all those years ago.”
“What do you know about the twenty-year-old murder?” my mother asked.
“The man was an abusive drunk,” I said. “He beat his family and got into bar fights. Someone knifed him one night when he was home alone.”
“Sounds like there must have been plenty of people who wanted to kill him,” my father said, “yet they never came up with the right person.”
“Could his wife have murdered him?” my mother asked.
“She was at work.”
“I still don’t understand why Lieutenant Mathers was so interested in the possibility that Dirk might have been in Clover Ridge when this man was murdered all those years ago,” my mother said.
“Because the police suspect that Chet’s wife had a lover who might have killed Chet because he’d been mistreating her,” I explained.
My mother laughed. “I can’t see Dirk in the role of gallant lover.”
“Why not, Mom? This was twenty years ago. Dirk would have been in his midthirties.”
My mother pressed her lips together as she thought. “Well, why doesn’t the man’s widow tell the police who this person was?—unless she’s no longer alive.”
“She left town right after the murder, moved to the West Coast, and changed her name,” Dylan said.
“Her son Robby Dowd—that’s what he goes by now—recently came back to the area to find his father’s murderer. He happens to work in the gym Dylan and I belong to.”
My father chuckled. “Now there’s a bit of good detecting right there. Carrie, how did you find out this Robby Dowd was Chet Harper’s son?”
I felt my cheeks grow warm. “Robby told me himself. He knew I’d been involved in a few homicide cases, so he asked me to help him find his sister’s killer—possibly the same person who murdered their father. He thought his mother might have had a lover, but he can’t ask her because he has no idea where she’s living. I asked Dylan to try to track her down.”
“So without this woman’s testimony, there’s no way of knowing who her lover was,” my father said.
“If she had a lover. If he’s still alive,” my mother said. “Lots of ifs in this story.”
Dylan cleared his throat. I sensed his hesitation about what he was about to share. “The woman once known as Patricia Harper is very much alive. She remarried some years ago and is presently living with her husband across the sound on Long Island.”
I grinned. “That’s brilliant. Good job, Dylan!”
“Actually, Rosalind, my secretary, deserves all the credit. All I did was show her some of the various ways to locate people who don’t want to be found,” Dylan said.
“Have you told John?”
“Not yet,” Dylan said. “I will, of course, but right now he’s concentrating on the two current homicides.”
“I know Robby will want to see his mother ASAP.”
“Maybe that’s not such a great idea,” Dylan said.
“Why shouldn’t he?” I asked. “Don’t you think he deserves some answers? His mother took off, leaving him and Daphne when the police were already treating him as a suspect.”
“Of course he deserves answers. That woman has a lot of explaining to do.”
The doorbell rang, startling us all.
“Who on earth could that be at this time of night?” my mother said as I headed to the front door.
Dylan followed me into the hall. “Ask who it is before you let anyone in.”
“I plan to,” I said, pissed that he thought it necessary to state the obvious. “Who is it?” I called out.
“It’s Tom, Carrie.”
I cracked open the door. My mother’s husband loomed in the doorway. He looked more disheveled than he had when he’d shown up at the library. What’s more, he now reeked of liquor.
“I want to speak to my wife.”
“Now isn’t the best time.”
“It is for me,” he said as he pushed his way inside.