"Ben Franklin's buried in Philadelphia," Tess said. "His parents are buried in Old Granary."

"Whatever. Point is, the ground there was wet and spongy. That would speed things up."

Tess grimaced. "Gross."

"You asked."

"I know. What else?"

"An unclothed body tends to decompose faster than one that's clothed, especially if it's tight clothing."

"The mummy effect."

"Was your body-"

"I didn't see any clothes," Tess said quickly. "That doesn't mean there weren't any."

"If I buried a body in a cellar and wanted to hurry up decomposition, I'd strip it. It'd be a pain in the neck, but you have to figure the whole business wouldn't be much fun. I'd take the time."

And unclothed remains might take longer to identify, buying time for whoever had-what? Tess shuddered at the thought-the real possibility-that she'd stumbled on a murder victim.

"Most of this is common sense," Susanna went on. "We've all seen dead deer and skunks and such on the side of the road. It's a different picture in summer than in winter, in Florida than in Wyoming. You follow?"

"Oh, yes. I follow."

"As I recall, children and diseased bodies tend to decompose faster than healthy adults." She let the tide wash over her ankles, yelped at the cold water and dashed back to the warm, dry sand, then went back for more. "Also, fat people go faster than skinny people."

"I don't even want to think about that one. It's disgusting."

"Think of it as natural. Mutilated bodies also decompose faster. Makes sense, don't you think?"

Tess walked along the sand, the cold water lapping at her feet as she thought about the natural process of decomposition occurring on a corpse buried in a shallow grave in the carriage house cellar. What she saw the other night had to be her imagination. "What would slow decomposition?" she asked quietly.

"Dry, cool conditions, as I said. And bogs. If you get dumped in a bog, your body can last for ages." She shrugged, matter-of-fact. "Anthropologists love bogs."

Tess breathed out. "Charming."

"A lot of people think lime speeds decomposition, and it can, but only if the body's wet. Otherwise it can slow the process. And arsenic. Arsenic slows decomposition."

"There's lime in the cellar. For the lilacs."

"I noticed."

"Could a body buried in the carriage house cellar last March, when Ike took off, decompose between then and now?"

"Yes."

Tess couldn't speak, felt her head spinning. She was so cold that the seawater seemed warm under her feet.

"Are you going to barf?" Susanna asked.

"No. I'll be okay."

"You want me to throw water on your face?"

"I'm fine."

"Tess, I want you to listen to me. Whatever you saw the other night is dead or nonexistent. If they're dead, they know how they died, and they know how they ended up in that cellar. You don't need to know." Susanna grabbed Tess by the shoulders, her thick, black curls hanging down her shoulders, her eyes bright, intense. "Nobody gets buried in a cellar for a good reason."

Tess nodded grimly. "I know."

"Chances are there's no truth to be found out and justice to be served here. Even if there is, it's not your job."

"That's what I keep telling myself." Her voice was quiet, calmer than she'd anticipated. "Right now, I'm ending up looking like some hysterical nut."

Susanna gave her a pointed look. "Better than ending up buried in someone else's cellar."

Tess managed a smile. "True."

"Now, are you feeling better? You're not going to throw up or faint?"

"I'm fine."

"Good, because Ahab's walking across the rocks."

"You're thinking of Ishmael. Ahab's the one with the missing leg."

Susanna grimaced at the approaching figure of Andrew Thorne. "If this guy favors his ancestors, I can see why Moby Dick wanted a piece of Ahab. Talk about your take-no-prisoners type. Can't you see him on deck with a harpoon?"

"The whaling industry did incredible damage-"

"Tess. I'm not talking about endangered species. I'm talking about your neighbor. You've seen him with his daughter. I haven't."

"What are you saying?"

Her expression turned serious, less animated. "I'm saying you should be careful before you end up way over your head in very deep, cold water."

Andrew arrived, squinting at the two women in the bright sun. "Am I interrupting?"

Susanna Galway gave him her brightest, prettiest smile, which Tess had seen melt even Davey Ahearn and Jim Haviland. "We were just discussing nine-teenth-century American literature. Doesn't this place make you think of Herman Melville?"

Tess could see Andrew didn't believe Susanna. He knew they'd been talking about him. But he said, "I can see how it would." Then he turned to Tess. "Word's out about last night. Lauren Montague's here."

Susanna dropped her shoes onto the sand and tucked one foot in at a time. "Time I headed back to Boston. Tess?"

"Later," she said, aware, as Susanna would be, of Andrew's eyes on her.

"You'll call me?"

Tess nodded and slipped on her own shoes, remembering running on the beach as a child, flying a kite, listening to her mother tell tales of New England history, her father watching her every move, knowing that their time together was short. She felt as she did then, aware of what was going on, yet determined to pretend as if her life were normal and nothing bad would happen.

In daylight, Lauren was even more impressed with what she'd done last night. It was a miracle she hadn't been caught. She breathed in the scent of lilacs, now, forever, mingled with the stench of death. Of Ike. Her brother. Dear God, if only he'd let Joanna Thorne find her own way out of her restlessness and depression. If only he'd left Beacon-by-the-Sea after her death instead of hanging around, cheerful, dreaming big dreams, on the prowl for someone else to idolize him.

For a while, Lauren had been sure it was Tess Haviland her brother had chosen as his new project. Yet, as the young graphic designer walked up the carriage house driveway, Andrew Thorne beside her, the hem of her jeans damp and sandy, her short blond curls whipped by the wind and her cheeks decidedly pale, Lauren knew it couldn't be so. Ike went for the vulnerable, the depressed, the ones who wouldn't act on their own dreams without him. That wasn't this woman. It might not have been Joanna, if he'd left well enough alone.

Andrew couldn't have meant to kill him.

Lauren smiled at him, but he didn't smile back, not out of rudeness but obliviousness, she decided. If he'd killed Ike in a premeditated fashion, she'd never have tried to protect him. As it was, she wondered what he must be feeling now, knowing the police hadn't found Ike's remains. Fear? Relief? Anger? He was impossible to predict.

"Hello, Tess," she said graciously. "I hope I haven't come at a bad time. I heard about last night. How absolutely horrible for you."

"Well, it looks as if there never was any skeleton. Luckily."

Lauren nodded. "Indeed. Better this turned out to be a false alarm than an actual dead body."

"Have you talked to the police?"

"Paul Alvarez called. My husband had already heard." She moved away from the lilacs, the sun warm on her face. "Paul wants me to get in touch with my brother, but it's not that easy. Seven years ago, Ike took off for nine months without telling me where he was, without even so much as sending me a Christmas card. It's just the way he is."

Andrew leaned against Tess's rusted car, but Lauren wasn't fooled. She knew he was taking in everything, wondered if he'd guessed what she'd done for him. But it wasn't just for him. It was the right thing to do. Her brother had taken his wife, left his daughter motherless. If Andrew had lost his temper, reverted to his waterfront brawling days, who could blame him? A jury, perhaps, the way they'd blamed Jedidiah Thorne over a century ago, no matter how much Benjamin Morse had deserved his fate. Truth and justice could be so complicated, she thought.