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  AnnaLise had learned from experience that it didn't pay to keep things from her two mothers. 'Kathleen was just...'

  She looked toward the young widow and Kathleen took it from there. 'The chief came by last night to tell me that Rance's shooting... wasn't an accident.'

  'Joe Palooka did in Rance on purpose?' Daisy gasped.

  'No,' Kathleen said. 'That's just the point. The police lab says the bullet that killed Rance came from a deer rifle. Joe and Rance were both just plinking bottles with pistols.'

  'A poacher, then?' AnnaLise asked. 'According to Chuck, Dickens Hart was shot by a deer rifle, too.'

  'Not just "a" deer rifle,' Kathleen Smoaks said, eyes now clear and a little hard. 'The same deer rifle.'

  Chapter Nineteen

  'The bulletistics came back?' Phyllis Balisteri was a faithful fan of CSI shows, if not a reliable learner from them.

  'Ballistics,' AnnaLise corrected.

  'I don't know the specifics,' Kathleen said. 'All I was told is that Rance and Dickens Hart were shot with the same gun.'

  Now AnnaLise understood Kathleen's sleeplessness. The widow — the newly enriched widow — would naturally become the prime suspect in her scumball husband's killing. But given the ballistics convergence between the two shootings, would she also be implicated as Hart's assailant? Or, again given the convergence, exonerated of both?

  'It doesn't make sense,' AnnaLise said. 'What possible connection could there be between Rance Smoaks and Dickens Hart?'

  'Hold on,' Daisy said, 'that sounds―'

  'No, she's right,' Kathleen said. 'Rance was a mean, out-of-work drunk and Hart is a rich, successful―'

  'Egomaniac,' AnnaLise supplied. 'Maybe that's what they had in common.'

  'Big heads?' Mama looked at Daisy and they both giggled.

  If synchronized eye-rolling were an Olympic event, the two younger women would have received medals.

  'Their egos.' Kathleen glanced up at the clock. Swinging her legs out of the booth, she dug a five-dollar bill from her bag. 'Thanks for the cake and conversation.'

  'Feel better?' Mama said, taking the five to the cash register.

  'Not so much, but also not your fault.' Kathleen Smoaks went out the door.

  'Nice girl, but a pretty undeveloped sense of humor,' Daisy said as she and AnnaLise got up to leave as well.

  Then Mother Griggs looked around. 'Phyllis? Did you cut us two more pieces of Coffee Time?'

  'Of course not. What if there's somebody wanting to buy them in the meantime?'

  'You'd sell our cake right out from under us?' Daisy protested.

  'You'd ask me to turn away a paying customer?'

  'I'm a customer, too,' Daisy pointed out.

  'But not paying.'

  'Only because you won't let us,' AnnaLise said. 'We'd be happy to...'

  As if on cue, the door chimed and Mrs. Bradenham swept in. 'Please tell me you still have a cake.'

  'A whole one?' Mama said, taking aluminum foil off a pan big enough to hold the aforementioned entire cake — but now, of course, minus three large squares. 'How many times have I told you, Eee-mah? For a whole cake, you got to call ahead of time. Otherwise it's not fair to my other―'

  'I apologize, Phyllis, but I am entertaining a few people for tea this afternoon, and I simply must have one of your cakes.' Mrs. B was stripping a bill out of her wallet as she spoke.

  'Sorry, Ema,' Daisy said, approaching the counter, 'but I'm afraid that cake's already been spoken for.'

  Stand-off at the 'I'm OK, You're Not' Corral.

  'How about a compromise?' AnnaLise, as Intervening Adult, suggested. 'Daisy will purchase — ' with a look toward Mama — 'one piece and Mrs. B can buy the rest.'

  'Which reminds me,' Mrs. B said. 'I dearly hope Lorraine can come to my little party.'

  She turned to Daisy. 'Tell me you will, please? It has been far too long, and I promise plenty of goodies.'

  'Goodies?' Daisy said it like Sesame Street's Cookie Monster says, 'Cookies'. The only thing missing was furry blue paws clapping together.

  AnnaLise knew all was lost, cakewise. The only thing she could hope for was leftovers from the 'tea'. Unless Mrs. B...

  'And I am so sorry I cannot include you, Little One,' Bobby's mother said to AnnaLise, 'but it will be just we old gals.' Tee-hee.

  Us old gals. Tee-hee that.

  Mrs. B turned to Mama. 'I know you need to be here, Phyllis, tending to your business. I so admire that quality in you. Now, if you will just wrap up my cake?'

  She slapped a one-hundred-dollar bill on the glass-topped counter.

  As the door closed behind Mrs. B, Mama held the bill up to the light, flexing and straightening it like a flag in the wind. 'Give my regards to the "old gals" this afternoon, Daisy. Me and Ben Franklin here, we'll be having a little party of our own.'

  It was barely eight a.m. on the kitchen wall clock when Daisy and her mother returned home.

  'I don't have to meet Tucker until ten,' AnnaLise said, 'so I think I'll start going through Hart's journals. Maybe I can find something that'll shed some light on who might have wanted to kill him.'

  'Or still wants to see him dead. I have to say I don't picture Kathleen killing anyone, even her lowlife husband.' Daisy set her handbag on the kitchen table.

  AnnaLise looked at it. 'They say you shouldn't put purses on tables. The leather picks up all sorts of bacteria. You know, from public restrooms and restaurants, where you set them on the floor.'

  'I'd like to be there when you suggest to Phyllis that her floor is dirty,' Daisy said, leaving the purse where it was.

  'One fray I think I'll avoid, thank you very much.'

  'Good decision,' Daisy said, dumping out the coffee she'd made hours ago. 'Speaking of staying out of things, please don't get involved in whatever is going on here. Just let the police handle it.'

  'I'm sure Chuck is very capable,' AnnaLise said, 'but you know me. Poking around is what I do for a living.'

  'Well, then, when exactly are you going to go back and do it?' Daisy was looking firm, unusually so for her. She set down the rinsed pot. 'I thought this was supposed to be only a weekend visit.'

  Honesty is universally touted as the best policy, though in AnnaLise's experience that always hadn't been the case. 'I asked my newspaper for a temporary leave of absence.'

  'Because of me?' Daisy's arms were defiantly crossed in front of her breasts.

  'Originally.' AnnaLise shrugged her good shoulder. 'Now maybe I'm eligible for temporary disability.'

  'You're lucky it's not permanent. You could have been badly hurt. I think you should go back to Wisconsin and your life there.'

  'While I still have it? Is that what you mean?'

  'You have to admit, everything was fine until you rode back into Sutherton.'

  Ouch. Though AnnaLise's mother — while patently unfair — was right, if you discounted her starring role in Mrs. B's near exsanguination.

  'So what are you saying, Daisy? That I'm the cause of Rance Smoaks and Dickens Hart being shot? Then what about Ichiro Katou? I didn't even know the man until four days ago.'

  'Yet the cane that hit him was found in our garage.'

  'In your garage, and by me.'

  'Yes, by you. And don't tell me you didn't suspect that I put it there.'

  Daisy had her on that one. 'Maybe at first. You have been suffering... spells, you know.'

  'I'm forgetful, not homicidal.' Daisy picked up a dish towel, looked at it and then threw it back toward the counter. The towel hit the edge and slipped to the floor. AnnaLise picked the thing up, waving it like a red-striped flag of surrender.

  'Truce, please? I don't think you hurt anyone, Daisy. But you can't possibly believe I did, either.'

  'I don't.'

  'Then why are you so angry at me?'

  'Because I want you to be safe. I want you to go home to Wisconsin and mind your own business.'

  'Sutherton is my home, Daisy. And back in Wisconsin,
I'd still be a police-beat reporter and therefore not minding my own business. Besides,' AnnaLise was relenting a little, 'I'm not going anywhere until I know that everything's OK here. That this mess is all figured out.'

  AnnaLise swung away toward the stairs, wondering why she was espousing exactly the opposite of what she'd told Bobby just two days earlier. Now angrily declaring Sutherton home and swearing her allegiance — not just to Daisy, but to the whole damned town and all its current, major problems?

  The Prodigal Daughter, halfway up the steps, needed to have her head examined.

  'Well, then, let's do it.' Daisy's words stopped AnnaLise, not so much for what she said, but for the tone in which she said it. Calm. Measured. Almost... resolved.

  AnnaLise turned. 'Do what?'

  'Let's sort this all out, so you can go back north where you belong.'

  'How can we do that? You know something I haven't been told?'

  'Lots.' Daisy shrugged. 'Mostly not very interesting or important. But you know the right questions to ask and I'm thinking maybe if we put our heads together, some sense can be made of these goings on.'

  This was a Daisy that AnnaLise wasn't accustomed to. Her mother tended toward follower — of Mama, even of AnnaLise — not leader. But maybe she was turning over a new leaf. Or just really, in her heart of hearts, wanted AnnaLise long gone and hard to find.

  Daughter took one step down to sit on the landing next to the gun cabinet. She looked at her mother through the spindles of the railing. 'Oookay. So where do we start?'

  'Well, like people said — ' Daisy was now leaning against the cupboard — 'I don't see Kathleen killing Rance. With Joe Palooka right there, she'd have to shoot her husband in cold blood and then fool Joe into thinking he'd done it himself.'

  'Not so high a bar, given how much both men had drunk, but I agree. Besides, why wouldn't Kathleen have put Rance out of her misery years ago?'

  'The inheritance, maybe?' Daisy said. 'Remember that Nanney Estill died just a month ago. With Rance gone, Kathleen wouldn't have to worry about him drinking their money away. She could start over — maybe even with Bobby Bradenham.'

  AnnaLise shifted uncomfortably. 'You think he still has a thing for her? And vice versa?'

  'What I think is that each human believes there's a soulmate awaiting them somewhere in the world. Bobby's fixated on Kathleen as his. That's why he never married anybody else.'

  And just maybe some influence from his mother, as well.

  'Like Daddy was your soulmate.' AnnaLise said it offhandedly, the way you ask someone how they are and just expect them to say 'fine'.

  She wasn't prepared for Daisy to look up at her in surprise, then turn away. 'Timothy Griggs was a very good man.'

  'But you did love him?' The question was out of AnnaLise's mouth reflexively, like she was back on the beat in Wisconsin, putting questions to strangers. Now, though, the reporter was intruding on her own mother, a completely different emotional vector.

  Truth to tell, AnnaLise had been so young when her father died that she could barely recall life before the hospitals and the waiting rooms. And what she did 'remember' was probably highly subject to nostalgic embroidery.

  Being hoisted onto her father's shoulders to place the star atop the Christmas tree. Did AnnaLise actually remember the moment or had she concocted an internal video to expand the photo in the family album?

  Tim Griggs crooning a song to Daisy in the middle of Sal's Taproom. Fact, or a scene from some movie, with her father and mother substituted for the actors performing the leading roles?

  'Yes, I loved Tim,' Daisy said, meeting AnnaLise's eyes. 'It just seems like such a long time ago.'

  'I know.' Silly, but AnnaLise's world was righted. Her personal love life could be as ambivalent as... well, it currently was, but she wanted an ironclad fairy-tale for her parents, living or dead. To know that Joanie really did love Chachi.

  AnnaLise smiled.

  'What?' Daisy asked.

  'Just thinking about an old TV show,' AnnaLise said. 'Hey, did you ever tell me about any uncles?'

  Daisy looked heavenward. 'No. You have no Uncle Jesse or Auntie Em, or Cousin It, either. You just spent way too much time in front of the television, adopting imaginary family as your own.'

  'Well, I certainly didn't have any real relatives to play with.'

  They both laughed.

  'Nope, but you did have real friends. At first, only Bobby Bradenham. Then, when you got a little older, Sheree and Chuck. You were — and remain — very lucky in your friendships.'

  AnnaLise couldn't dispute that. 'Speaking of Bobby, I'm worried about him. If he is in love with Kathleen, as you believe, that gives him a motive for killing Rance Smoaks.'

  'Using the same gun that wounded Dickens Hart?'

  'Well, that's just the problem. Or one of them, at least,' AnnaLise said, warming to her subject. 'If Bobby turns out to be Hart's potential heir, it'll look to the police like Bobby had a pretty good reason to kill Hart, too.'

  'Another inheritance? That would mean you have a mighty greedy friend.'

  Daisy was right: Bobby gets the money and the girl. And the girl's money to boot.

  AnnaLise decided to change tacks. 'Let's look at this from the police point of view.'

  'And by that, you mean Chuck's?'

  'Yeah. Weird having both the chief of police and the primary suspect as friends.'

  'Probably even worse for them,' Daisy said.

  There was that. 'You know what I don't understand? I've known Bobby for more than twenty years and always thought his father was killed in a car accident. Now, all of a sudden, people are talking about his being "a little Dickens", as Mama so delicately put it.'

  'You can't rely on everything Phyllis says.'

  'But I heard it from Sheree, as well. And who knows what Bobby has picked up on.' A thought struck. 'Maybe that's why he was interested in doing a DNA test like Ichiro Katou did.'

  A slight cloud across Daisy's face. 'Didn't you tell me that paternity testing is different from this grand, "worldwide" kind?'

  'True,' AnnaLise admitted. 'To prove paternity you'd have to have samples from both people.'

  'Samples?'

  AnnaLise slipped her right hand through the railing, using her thumbnail to click flaking paint off a spindle. 'Like the scrapings from inside your cheek.'

  Daisy gazed up at her. 'Or the blood from a shooting?'

  Chapter Twenty

  'Doesn't that sort of put the cart before the horse?'

  'My point exactly,' said Daisy.

  AnnaLise had come down from her encampment on the staircase landing and was sitting at the kitchen table with her mother.

  Which didn't mean she understood the woman. 'And what "point" is that?' AnnaLise asked.

  'Look, Bobby wouldn't shoot his maybe father in order to get proof that he was his real father. Even if he was.'

  Well, that certainly clarified things.

  'Besides,' Daisy continued, 'in North Carolina, an illegitimate child can't claim any portion of a parent's estate unless the parent acknowledges that child prior to the parent's death.'

  AnnaLise's jaw dropped. 'How in the world do you know these things?'

  'You're not the only one who watches television, you know. I just prefer cable access and news. Educational programming that broadens the mind.'

  Well, lah-dee-dah. 'But assuming Hart knows Bobby is―'

  'If he is―'

  AnnaLise started over. 'Assuming Bobby is Hart's son, Dickens may already have a will naming Bobby as his heir. And, by now, Chuck should know about that.' AnnaLise glided her mother's purse away from her and picked up her own cellphone.

  'You're just going to call the chief of police and ask him?' Daisy seemed stunned at her daughter's directness.

  'Of course.' AnnaLise punched up Chuck Greystone's official number. 'You'd be surprised how much law enforcement will tell you. A lot of it's public information available on the department's daily bl
otter, anyway.'

  Daisy began to say something, but AnnaLise cut her off. 'Ugh. Just his voicemail. I'll try him later.'

  The cell beeped as she went to put it down. 'Battery's dying,' AnnaLise said, waving it off.

  But Daisy wasn't paying any attention to the phone. 'You know, maybe we're bothering about the wrong thing.'

  'What do you mean?' AnnaLise asked. 'You don't think Hart's will is important?'

  'Maybe, maybe not. But isn't the real question what Bobby knows? Does he believe — or at least, suspect — Dickens Hart is his real father? Because, if not, none of the rest of this matters.'

  Daisy was right. Maybe a confused mind throws a stronger beam of light into darker corners. AnnaLise picked up her cell again.

  'I thought your phone was dead,' Daisy said. 'Besides, are you sure you want to talk with him about this over the telephone?'

  'Good point.' AnnaLise plugged her phone into its charger and checked her watch. 'I have just enough time to get dressed and meet Tucker at Ichiro Katou's apartment.'

  'What do you expect to find there?' Daisy asked as AnnaLise got up from the table.

  'I'm not sure. Maybe some connection between Dickens Hart and Ichiro. Who knows,' she teased, 'maybe he's a "Little Dickens", too.'

  'You really do enjoy digging up all this dirt, don't you?'

  Startled by her mother's tone, AnnaLise laughed, trying to recapture their earlier mood. 'C'mon, Daisy — you say that like it's a bad thing.'

  But mother was standing — or sitting — her new ground. 'You just be careful, AnnaLise Marie Griggs,' she called from the table as her daughter mounted the stairs to change. 'Sometimes secrets are kept for good reason.'

  Daisy's words were echoing in AnnaLise's head as she retrieved her car from the inn and drove toward Hart's Landing.

  Her mother knew something — something that she wasn't prepared to share with AnnaLise. All of the doubts that had been set aside by Daisy's cogent conversation in the kitchen came rushing back. The Daisy who had discussed the shootings of Rance Smoaks and Dickens Hart was the old Daisy. Hell, better than the old Daisy.

  AnnaLise's mother had ably laid out possible motives, including those for Bobby Bradenham and young Widow Smoaks. Then, when AnnaLise said she was meeting Tucker at Ichiro's apartment, Daisy'd done a 180 — telling her it might be best to just leave things alone.