21

IT SEEMED THAT BY RISING, DR. RASMUSSEN had sent a signal, and cell phones were pulled out, people separated, and murmuring voices stirred the air.

Charlie mixed the last of the bourbon with a little water and stood at the kitchen door, where he could see the long hall and entrance door. Sheriff DeLaura arrived and was waved into the library. Several minutes later Chief Engleman and several deputies escorted Dorothy Dumond and Earl Marshall out. Engleman was carrying the trash bag. DeLaura looked down the hall and strode partway to Charlie.

“You stick around,” he said in a tight, cold voice. “I want a long talk with you. Where’s Dr. Rasmussen?”

Charlie shrugged, but she stepped out from the dining room and the sheriff motioned for her to go with him to the library. Behind him, Charlie could hear Tricia talking to one of her brothers. “I called home and I’m leaving just as soon as the sheriff says I can. Not another night in this town.”

“Me too,” Ted said. “Stuart, what did you tell William?”

Charlie turned to look at them.

“Only that Charlie found the checks. The rest can wait until I get home and he’s in better shape. I told him I have to hang around another few days to take care of Pamela’s remains when they release her body. We decided on cremation.”

After Rasmussen was finished with the sheriff, she left quickly. He asked for Jenna next, and when she was finished giving a statement, she and Stuart went out to the terrace. Watching them, Constance recalled what Stuart had told Charlie earlier, that he didn’t have time for a long-distance romance. She thought that might change in the near future.

“You know the Sheriff of Nottingham will hold me until last, don’t you? And he won’t be in a hurry to let me go.” Charlie said. At her nod, he added, “I know this great little Italian restaurant, like being in a Tuscan trattoria. And after that, I know about this little gingerbread house… ”

Her eyes could be like ice chips, he thought watching her, and they could be as warm and blue as the summer sky, the way they were when she smiled and nodded. “I know my wifely duty,” she said. “I’ll wait for you.”

After Tricia finished her statement, she asked Stuart if he wanted her to wait to give him a ride to his camp. Stuart said maybe he could go with Charlie and Constance when they took Jenna back to town, and maybe Jenna could take him to the camp later, if she didn’t mind, maybe. She blushed slightly and said that would be fine, since she had her car available in town.

Quickly then, Jenna looked at Constance. “You talked with Andrea’s mother, didn’t you? I want to get in touch with her. She should be the one to press a case against Earl Marshall for stealing her daughter’s novel. I hope she can recover every cent he has left. I want to help her do that. I want to shout to the world that he stole Andrea’s novel.”

“We told her that we’d let her know how this comes out,” Constance said. “We’ll go see her tomorrow.”

“May I go with you?” Jenna asked.

“Of course. I’ll call to tell you what time we’ll leave.”

Lawrence, the last family member to talk to the sheriff, came to them and said, “I guess I’d better read that novel myself. What’s the title of it?”

“I have the copy Constance let me read,” Jenna said. She withdrew it from her handbag and showed it to him.

Finally, with Jenna and Stuart out on the patio, and she alone in the television room waiting for Charlie, who was in a long conversation with the sheriff, Constance thought about the bleak house that had brought joy to no one, about the joke that misfired, the tragedies that ensued, and she thought about Andrea Briacchi, where it all started and where it all finally ended. Rest in peace, she thought, and in her head she heard herself whisper her name, Andrea.