Maddie knew when to press and when to take a step back. For now. “Well, think about it.” She smiled and kept one hand in her pocket and the other wrapped around the handle of her briefcase. “And if you change your mind, give me a call.”

Carleen slid the card into the front pocket of her blue apron. “I won’t change my mind. Some things are better left buried in the past.”

Perhaps, but what Carleen didn’t know but would find out was that Maddie rarely took no for an answer.


“No. I can’t help you.”

Maddie stood on the pockmarked porch of Jewel Finley, a second cocktail waitress who had worked at Hennessy’s at the time of Alice’s death. “It’ll just take a few moments.”

“I’m busy.” Jewel’s hair was in pink rollers and Maddie thought she detected the aroma of Dippity-do. Lord, did they still sell Dippity-do? “Rose was my good friend and I’m not goin’ to talk against her,” Jewel said. “What happened to her was a tragedy. I’m not goin’ to exploit her misfortune.”

Her misfortune? “My purpose is not to exploit anyone, but to tell everyone’s side of the story.”

“Your purpose is to make money.”

“Believe me, there are easier ways to make money.” Maddie felt her temper rise, but she wisely held back. “Is there a better time for me to come back?”

“No.”

“Perhaps when you’re not quite so busy.”

“I’m not goin’ to talk to you about Rose, and I doubt anyone else will talk to you neither.” She stepped back into her house. “Good-bye,” she said and shut the door.

Maddie stuck a business card in the porch screen and walked toward her Mercedes parked at the curb. Not only did Maddie not take no for an answer, she was like the damn Terminator and she’d be back.


“Do you know when he’ll be back?”

“That depends on if the fish are biting. Tomorrow, if it’s bad. Who knows, if it’s good.” Levana Potter looked at Maddie’s business card and turned it over. “But I can tell you that he remembers everything about that night.” The wife of the retired sheriff looked up. “It still haunts him.” She’d found Levana digging in the flower bed in the front of her ranch-style home, and the good news was that the sheriff would more than likely be willing to talk to Maddie. The bad news was her interview would have to wait on the capricious lake trout. “Did you know the parties involved?”

“Sure.” Levana stuck the business card in the pocket of her shirt, then shoved her hand back inside her gardening glove. “The Hennessys have lived in this valley for generations. I didn’t know Alice much. Just chatted the few times she came into the little ice-cream and gift store I used to own off Third. Pretty thing and seemed kind of sweet. Looked like an angel. She had a little girl, I know that. After Alice died, her aunt came and took her. I don’t know whatever happened to her.”

Maddie smiled a little. “Do you remember her name?”

Levana shook her head and her white permed hair wafted a bit in the breeze. “Heavens, no. That was twenty-nine years ago and I only saw her a few times. Heck, I have a hard time remembering my own name sometimes.”

“Alice lived at the Roundup Trailer Court.”

“Heck, that was torn down years ago.”

“Yes, I know. But I can’t find any records of people who might have lived there at the same time as Alice and her daughter.” In her diaries, Alice had mentioned a few women by their first names. “Do you recall a woman named Trina who may have lived next door to Alice?”

“Hmm.” Levana shook her head. “That doesn’t ring any bells. Bill will know,” she said referring to her husband. “He remembers everyone who ever lived in this town. I’ll give him your card when he gets back from his fishing trip.”

“Thank you. I’m not going to be here in town tomorrow, but I’ll be back the day after.”

“I’ll tell him, but it might be next week.”

Fabulous. “Thank you for your time.”

On the way home from the Potters’, Maddie stopped off at the grocery store and bought a roasted deli chicken and some Excedrin. Carleen had been guarded and uncooperative and Jewel had been openly hostile. Her head pounded, she was frustrated by her lack of prog ress, and she had an urge to put someone in a headlock.

With a blue basket hanging off one arm, she took her place in line at checkout number three. The next time she spoke to Carleen and Jewel, she’d try a less businesslike tactic. She’d try the nice-as-pie, friendly approach. If that didn’t work, she’d go all Jerry Springer on their hillbilly asses.

“I saw you at Value Rite earlier,” a woman in the next line over said.

Maddie looked up from putting her basket on the conveyor belt. “Are you talking to me?”

“Yeah.” The other woman had short dark hair and wore a T-shirt with a picture of her grandkids on the front. “Carleen said you were askin’ about Rose and Loch Hennessy.”

Wow, word really did travel fast in small towns. “That’s right.”

“I grew up with Rose and she had a few problems, but she was a good person.”

A few problems. Is that what they all called pumping lead into two people? Maddie would call it a psychotic breakdown. “I’m sure she was.”

“That little waitress got what she deserved for messing with a married man.”

Tired, frustrated, and now pissed off, Maddie said, “So you think that every woman who gets involved with a married man deserves to die on a barroom floor?”

The woman tossed a bag of potatoes on the conveyor belt in front of her. “Well, I just mean that if you mess around with another woman’s man, you might get hurt. That’s all.”

No, that wasn’t all, but Maddie wisely held her tongue.


Maddie tossed her briefcase on the sofa and glanced at the photo of her mother sitting on the coffee table. “Well, that was a waste of makeup.” She kicked off her shoes and put the photograph face down. She couldn’t look at her mother’s cheery smile when her day had been a bust.

Barefoot, she walked into the kitchen and reached into the refrigerator for the bottle of merlot she’d opened the day before. She thought better of it and grabbed the Skyy vodka, diet tonic, and a lime. Sometimes a girl needed a drink, even if she was alone. While she poured vodka into a highball glass and added the tonic, the George Thorogood song “I Drink Alone” ran through her head. She’d never liked that song. Perhaps it was the writer in her, but the chorus was redundant. Of course when you drink alone you drink with nobody else.

Just as she slid ice and a slice of lime into the glass, the doorbell rang. She grabbed her drink and raised it to her lips as she moved through the living room. She certainly wasn’t expecting anyone, and the person on the other side of the door was the last person she expected.

She looked through her peephole at Mick Hennessy, and she unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door. The late afternoon sun cut across Mick’s cheek and one corner of his mouth. He wore a wife beater beneath a blue plaid shirt that he’d hacked the sleeves off just above the bulge of his biceps. The pale blue in the plaids matched his eyes and set off his tan skin and black hair like he belonged on the cover of a magazine, selling sex and breaking hearts.

“Hello, Maddie,” he said, his voice a low rumble. He held a business card between the fingers of one raised hand.

Shit! The last thing she needed today was a confrontation with Mick. She took another fortifying drink and waited for him to start yelling. Instead he flashed her a killer grin.

“I told you I’d give you the name of a good exterminator.” He held the business card toward her. It was white, not black, and had a rat on it.

She hadn’t realized she’d felt a little anxious un til relief curved the corners of her lips into a smile. She took the card from him. “You didn’t have to come all the way out here to give this to me.”

“I know.” He handed her an orange and yellow box. “I thought you could use this until Ernie’s Pest Control can get out here. It’s easier than hunting for a smelly carcass.”

“Thanks. No man has ever given me…” she paused and looked at the box. “A Mouse Motel 500.”

He chuckled. “They had a Mouse Motel 200, but I thought you deserved the best.”

She opened the door wide. “Would you like to come in?” She should tell him why she was in Truly, but not right now. She just wasn’t in the mood for another confrontation.

“I can’t stay long.” He stepped past her, bringing with him the scent of the outdoors and woodsy soap. “My sister is expecting me for dinner.”

“I always wanted a sister.” Somewhere to go for holidays besides a friend’s house.

“If you knew Meg, you might consider yourself lucky.”

She shut the door and moved into the living room beside him. She had to admit, it was strange having him in her house. Not just because he was Mick Hennessy, but because it had been a long time since she’d let a man in her home. The energy seemed to change, the air to sexually charge. “Why?”

“Meg can be…” He smiled and glanced about the room. “A horrible cook,” he said, but Maddie got the feeling that wasn’t what he’d been about to say. “The kind of cook who thinks she’s a lot better than she actually is, which means she’ll never get better. If she’s thrown peas in a casserole and calls it dinner, I’m out of there.” His gaze returned to hers and he pointed to her drink. “Hard day?”

“Yeah.”

“More mice feasting on your granola bars?”

She shook her head. He’d remembered that?

“What happened?”

She was fairly certain he’d hear about it soon enough. “Nothing important. Do you have time for a drink?”