“Not really. Just that it was hot and a lot of people showed up. I was in one of the concessions that served drinks-soda and lemonade. We were busy all day.”

“Louise, did you know Jenny Burke?” Rick asked.

“Sure. We all knew her. She ran the volunteer program. We all worked with her.”

“Do you remember if any of the guys seemed to pay particular attention to her, or seemed to be extra-friendly with her?”

“Not offhand. I think the guys all tried to show off for her, though. No one in particular, but it seemed they all thought she was something else. Mrs. Burke was real pretty and real friendly. I remember that at her funeral all the volunteers were there.”

“Anyone stand out in your mind as being particularly upset? Or acting strangely? I know it was a long time ago…”

“Twenty-six years, but I remember. We were all upset. Mrs. Burke was the first person I actually knew who’d been murdered. It hit all of us pretty hard. Like I said, she was real friendly and we all idolized her. I don’t remember anyone being more upset than anyone else.”

“Was she equally friendly with everyone?” Denver asked.

“Sure.”

“Was there anyone you ever saw her argue with, or anyone who sought her out more than the others?”

“Honestly, no, I don’t remember anything like that. There could have been, I just don’t remember anyone in particular.”

“Well, if you remember anything else-or the name of anyone else who worked that day-give me a call back.”

“Sure, Chief. Phyl, I’ll talk to you later.”

Phyllis pushed the button to end the call.

“Anything else, Chief?” she asked.

“Not right now. But thanks, Phyl. That was a big help.”

“Okay if I leave for the day?” Phyllis glanced at her watch. “I told my husband I’d pick him up after work. His car’s getting inspected.”

“It’s quitting time anyway, Phyl. You go on,” he told her.

“Why did you groan when Phyllis’s sister named names?” Annie asked after Phyl had left the room.

“Oh, well, let’s see.” The chief leaned back in his seat and looked at the ceiling. “She named the sons of the high school principal, the former chief of police, the mayor, and a county judge.”

Rick brightened. “Great. So let’s take a look at them.”

Denver was tapping his fingers on the tabletop.

“What?” Cass asked.

“They were a cocky little foursome back then. Inseparable. Practically lived at one another’s houses, went everywhere together. And always into something, the lot of them.” He closed his eyes briefly. “They were the biggest pains in my ass, frankly. Twenty-some years ago, and I still see red when I think about them.”

“Were any of them arrested back then?” Annie asked.

“With Jon Wainwright’s father the chief of police and Kenny Kelly’s father the judge?” He snickered. “What do you think?”

“What types of things were they involved in?” Annie pressed.

“Minor things. Loitering. Disturbing the peace. Starting fights after the soccer games. Speeding, underage drinking. They never were written up for anything, but they were always pulling pain-in-the-ass things that took your time and pissed people off.”

“Low-level sex offenses?” she continued. “Allegations of rape, Peeping Tom activity…?”

The chief shook his head. “Not that I know of, but if there’d been any of that stuff, Chief Wainwright would have dealt with it himself. He wouldn’t have involved us young guys in anything like that. Not if it involved his own son, or the sons of any of those other men.”

“I guess there weren’t records kept of that sort of thing.”

“Not if it involved any one of those four. All the annoying crap they pulled back then, you’ll never find a word written down.”

“What are you thinking, Annie?” Rick asked.

“Just that if you scratch hard enough, you find that kids who have grown into adults like our killer exhibited aberrant behavior at an earlier age. You don’t wake up one day and decide you like to hurt people. You’ve thought about it-fantasized about it-for a long time before you act upon it. I was just wondering what early behavior our boy may have exhibited. What fantasies he may have tried to act out. Peeping is a first step for many who graduate into more serious sex offenses. It’s a logical place to start.”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you there.” The chief shook his head. “I wouldn’t have been brought into that loop.”

“They were, what, high school juniors, seniors that year?” Rick asked.

Denver nodded. “Seniors.”

“Any of them college-bound that fall?”

“All of them, far as I remember.”

“So they would have been out of town by the end of the summer,” Annie said.

“When the killings here stopped,” Cass said softly.

“Do I dare ask if you know if any of these men are back in town for the reunion?”

Denver nodded. “They’re all here. All four of them. Saw them at the clambake last weekend. Spoke to each of them myself.”

“Lucy and I were there,” Cass said.

“If our killer was there, he would have seen her. Would have noticed right away how much she looks like Jenny,” the chief said.

“I guess it’s too much to ask if you know where any of these guys have been for the past twenty-six years?” Rick said.

“Oh, well, I know that Ken Kelly keeps the family summer house here in Bowers. And Jon Wainwright, I think I remember him saying he’s worked for a security company for the past, oh, I don’t know, fifteen years or so. Joey Patterson, he’d gone into the Marines for a while, don’t know what he did after that. And Billy Calhoun did tell me where he’s been living, but I don’t really remember. Someplace out west, I seem to think he said,” Denver replied. “I can start asking around.”

“We need to be subtle, Chief. At least for now. We’ll have an edge, as long as he isn’t aware that we’re closing in on his identity,” Cass pointed out. “And if we’re wrong… And we could be wrong-a lot of people would have had that bird stamp on their hand after that weekend.”

“Give me their names again.” Rick reached across the table and grabbed the pen Annie had earlier used. “I’ll call them in to Mitch, have him run the names. See if anything hits. Then, in the meantime, we can start backtracking to find out where each of these gentlemen have spent their time since they left high school.”

The breeze began to blow hard across the marsh, sending the cattails chattering and the birds seeking shelter from the coming storm. He sat on the stump of a tree that had long ago been cut down, and stared across the clearing at the bird blind that stood at the end of the wooden walk.

His eyes kept returning to the plaque that marked a memorial for the woman he had once loved with all his heart.

This is all your fault, Jenny. I’m sorry to say it, but there it is. If you hadn’t led me on the way you did-what were you thinking, leading me on like that? Did you think it was funny? A game, maybe?

His face twisted into a scowl.

You don’t play those kind of games with people who love you, Jenny. I guess I showed you that, didn’t I?

She had always been so nice to him, right from the first day. She’d talked to him like he was an old friend, like he was on her level. Never talked down to him, never made him feel like the stupid gangly kid he knew himself to be.

It always killed him to think that his father had made him volunteer at the sanctuary as a punishment for having been caught looking where he shouldn’t have been looking. If it hadn’t been for that, he’d never have gotten to know her the way he did. He’d never have fallen in love with her, or she with him…

Oh, he’d known who she was, everyone in Bowers Inlet knew Mrs. Burke. She was a knockout, for sure. Only the kids who worked with her at the sanctuary got to call her by her first name. Jenny.

“Call me Jenny,” she’d said that first day.