Before she left Nev’s that evening, Janet decided to let her mom-ness shine through. Tallie had joined the darts game. Janet went to find her and told her she was leaving the car for her.
“I’ll get a lift from Christine. You take Summer home. Do you hear that, Summer?”
Tallie gave her a thumb’s up. Summer didn’t look as aggrieved as Janet thought she might. Rab assured her Ranger wasn’t afraid to use the sharp end of his teeth.
As they walked to the car, Christine asked, “Did any of that, back there, help your thinking? Give it direction? Provide decompression? We depend on your brains for simple things like planning cockamamie life-changing adventures, so we need to keep them from exploding.”
“Direction? Possibly. Increasing the murk of nebulous worries and fears? Definitely. Decompression? Definitely not.”
“There’s nothing silly about healthy fear.”
“Good, then I won’t feel silly asking you to come into the house with me while I make sure no bampots are lurking or hiding.”
Neighbors were home with lights on when they pulled into Janet’s driveway. She saw Ian appear and disappear in his upstairs window. He was checking to see who’d arrived, no doubt, and she realized his nosiness was a comfort. The kitchen light was on at Daphne’s, too, and Janet pictured her and Rachel Carson gobbling the bounty of scones she’d stuffed in her backpack. Christine insisted on checking around the outside of the house before they went inside to do the same. They found no bampots, and a few of Janet’s worries and fears dissipated like tendrils of mist. Christine waved when she was back in her car with the door locked, and Janet locked up behind her. She went into the family room and sat, shoulders and arms relaxed, eyes closed—and mind back on overdrive.
Decompression hadn’t come at Nev’s. The atmosphere that Janet had felt lighten when Daphne left the shop that afternoon now felt like wet wool. She took out her phone and listened to the recording they’d made. The quality was better than she’d expected. It was just too bad the clarity of the recording didn’t make anything else clearer. She got out her laptop and listened a second time, pausing it every so often to make notes in a new document. She played it a third time, letting it run in the background, and added notes about other incidents no one had mentioned:
Tom at the school, interaction with Hope, the way he watched her walk away
Her comments about Alistair. Odd chemistry with him? With Gillian?
She knows how to use a sword
She doesn’t remember details of childhood friendship with Gillian?
But she remembered something Gillian didn’t?
She doesn’t like bookstores or houseplants, but she has a pet lapdog?
She hasn’t been in contact with anyone in Inversgail since she left?
Tallie arrived home as the recording ended for the fourth time. She came into the family room and flopped into a chair.
Janet saved the document, but didn’t close the laptop. “Good game?”
“Fun more than championship quality. Summer’s getting good. I kind of hoped I’d find you in bed.”
“Did you want to be alone down here? I can—”
“No, no, sit down,” Tallie said. “If you’d gone up, it would’ve meant you thought you could sleep, that’s all. I don’t like seeing you so worried.”
“I’m just clearing my head.”
“How’s that working for you?”
“I’m fine. You’re a good daughter.”
“Could you use some company?” Tallie asked. “Do you want company?”
“Not really. You’re welcome to stay up, but no, I don’t need company.”
“Music?”
“Music would be nice.”
Tallie got up and went to their old CD player. “What do you want to hear?”
“Miles Davis. In a Silent Way.”
“That kind of night, huh?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Janet listened to the upstairs sounds of Tallie getting ready for bed and the jazz musicians feeling their way toward genius. Then she started typing again, using Tallie’s logic and adding her qualifying phrase to the end of statements they thought or assumed were true:
Daphne went to Nev’s twice—as far as we know
Daphne hasn’t communicated with anyone in town since she left—as far as we know
Sam Smith was killed with a brick—as far as we know
Daphne arrived in town Monday night—as far as we know
Daphne didn’t know Sam Smith—as far as we know
Daphne has no interest in Tom—as far as we know
Daphne doesn’t use a real sword—as far as we know
Daphne knows how to kill animals in the wild—as far as we know
Sam Smith wasn’t curled on the ground hiding a stab wound—as far as we know
There’s no evidence to suggest Daphne killed Sam Smith—as far as we know
Janet reread the document and decided her notes were as loose and open-ended as Miles Davis’s composition. But her notes might not even make as much sense as trying to dance a tango to his music.
Now it was late. She was tired. If she deleted the notes, it might be like clearing her mind, and she’d be able to sleep. She hesitated over the delete key, then hit save, closed the laptop, and set it aside. She nestled her head into the cushiony back of the chair and listened to the final cut on the CD, her thoughts improvising with the musicians.
Daphne could have killed Sam Smith. I’ll tell the others tomorrow. The SCONES. They won’t be convinced—about the name or her guilt. There’s no proof. I’ll talk them into calling Norman, anyway. And if Daphne’s guilty, Gillian and Tom can teach happily ever after. No more bampot.
Janet was almost asleep, listening to Miles wail on his trumpet, when she realized there was something else wailing. But not on the CD. Not in the house. She got up and lowered the volume, then turned it off and went to the back door. Tallie padded down the stairs as she opened it.
“Howling,” Janet said. “Is it Rachel Carson?”
“Do you have Daphne’s phone number?”
“No. How long has that been going on?”
“Way too long.”