She laughed. “Yep, that’s me, so beautiful, I’m self-absorbed. I’m going back now. Good-bye, Mr. Goddard.”

She was off and running before he got to his feet. He didn’t try to catch her, just stood for a while by that gnarly old tree and watched her until she disappeared in the distance.

Just his damned luck. The beauty queen was Kelly’s sister.

“I wonder why the killer would leave a perfectly good driver there lying beside the body,” Kelly said at dinner that night. “Surely he-or she-knew it would be a big clue for Jack Wolf.”

George said, “I spoke with John today. His office is deeply involved now. He’s got two very good investigators on his staff and Jack agreed to use them. You’re right about that Callaway. I’m glad I don’t own any.”

“Are you still using Nikes, Dad?”

“I’m a Tiger fan-what else would I use?”

Kathleen said, “Olivia told me that Jack won’t leave them alone. She says he’s going to arrest one of them because he can’t very well let this go unsolved. She doesn’t know what to do.”

“She needn’t worry too much since Milo hired Patricia Bigelow,” Kelly said. “The rumor is she was there for the very first interview with the Hildebrand family. She’s a barracuda.”

George nodded. “I hope if I’m ever sued, she’s not the opposing counsel-she’s very bright, committed, as intense as they come. I’ve sometimes thought it a pity that Horace is such a longtime friend and only a middling lawyer. I’d hire her in an instant.”

Kelly said, “Detective Lambrowski, who’s an investigator in the D.A.’s office, said she was hinting at a police conspiracy. That had him huffing around.”

“What did John Goddard say?” Mary Lisa asked.

Kelly buttered a dinner roll and didn’t answer her. Her mother said, “As I understand it, neither John nor Jack is saying much of anything. But I’m so very worried about Olivia. She’s scared. How I wish Monica were here this evening, she’d know what to do.”

“And what would Monica do, Mother?” Mary Lisa asked, and immediately wished she had stuck her knife through her tongue instead. Was she nuts?

“Your sister,” Kathleen said slowly, staring Mary Lisa down, “is a very clearheaded, focused individual. I will have to phone her in the morning and ask her what she thinks. I’ve always wondered if there was graft involved in the police department since Jack Wolf came here three years ago. He’s from Chicago, you know.”

“Graft about what, Mom? With whom?”

“Well, Mary Lisa, you’ve been gone for a long time, haven’t you? No one would expect you to know much of anything about what’s happening in Goddard Bay.”

“Okay,” Mary Lisa said. “But it was just a question, really.”

Kathleen said, “Patricia Bigelow is Milo Hildebrand’s lawyer in a lawsuit he has pending against John Goddard’s father, Thomas. Olivia says Thomas Goddard is going to lose. And now his son is persecuting Milo, on his father’s account.”

Mary Lisa rolled her eyes, she couldn’t help it.

Her mother ignored her. “Why wouldn’t John want to help his father? Or Chief Wolf, for that matter? He and John Goddard went to school together. It was the Goddard family, with John’s recommendation, that asked Jack to come out here, and then helped him get elected chief of police. So there’s some payback owed there. If they push Milo as a suspect, it could ruin him, and maybe the lawsuit goes away. John Goddard and Chief Wolf have a lot of leeway to push the investigation in any direction they wish. Everyone knows that.”

George said, “I’ll tell you why that couldn’t happen, Kathleen. Thomas Goddard is a businessman, did his share of wheeling and dealing in his younger days, but this lawsuit with Milo Hildebrand, from what I’ve heard about it, is more of a nuisance than a threat to Thomas. As for John Goddard, he’s so honest I worry for him because there’s room for gray in the world and I’m not sure he knows it when he sees it. He wouldn’t bring charges against Milo Hildebrand unless he was convinced he was guilty. Nothing less.”

“I can’t believe you’re defending John, Dad,” Kelly said. “Look what he did to me, your own daughter. He’s ruthless, and he’d do anything to be governor, whatever, like Mom said.”

Mary Lisa saw anger in her father’s eyes-her eyes. It was so rare, she stared at him, mesmerized. But when he spoke finally, his voice was calm, with only a bit of sarcasm leaking through. “Oh? Did he tell you he wanted to be governor, Kelly?”

“Well, not in so many words, but I do know him well enough to know he can’t be trusted. He didn’t do well back east so he came back here where his family has influence. His father got him elected district attorney, and that’s who he owes his allegiance to.”

Her mother looked ready to jump into the fray again, so Mary Lisa quickly said to her sister, “I met John Goddard running on the beach this morning.”

Her sister froze for a second, and when she spoke, venom was thick in her voice. “I’ll bet he told you he dumped me, didn’t he? He’s a liar, Mary Lisa. Don’t you believe anything he said.”

“You don’t believe he would say anything like that about you to me, your sister, do you?”

Kelly looked uncertain, but her anger flared again. “Yeah, he’d say anything about me to anyone. He’s furious because I gave him the boot. Men like him can’t deal with being rejected.”

“That may be, Kelly, but for your information, he was quite reticent about it,” Mary Lisa said, and smiled. She looked down at the shrimp huddled in the middle of her plate on a small pile of brown rice. She reminded herself she’d come back mostly to see her father, and perhaps to find some comfort in being home again. But what had she really expected? She’d walked onto the stage of another soap opera, this one with a nice juicy murder, only this wasn’t a stage. This was her family and it was real, as real as that LeSabre that struck her in Malibu.

“You don’t look well, Mary Lisa,” Kathleen said.

“It’s nothing, really, just a headache brewing.”

“I thought your friend Judy Reinbold was coming over,” her father said.

“Yeah, she is. I’ll take some aspirin and lie down before she comes. I also need to call my friend Lou Lou in Malibu.” She laughed. “Hey, that rhymes.”

“It sounds like a stripper’s name.”

“No, actually, she’s an excellent makeup artist for the show. And it’s not her real name.”

“What is her real name?” Kelly asked.

“She won’t tell me, won’t tell anyone.”

Kelly asked, “Are you going clubbing with Judy?”

“Not that I know of. Is there a new place in Goddard Bay where one would do that?”

Kelly shot a look toward her father. “It isn’t exactly one of those posh clubs you’re used to down in L.A. but there’s this okay place now over in Tumaluck with a mostly twenties crowd. I’d take you there, introduce you around, but Mick’s coming over.”

“Mick who? Do I know him?” Mary Lisa asked.

“Yeah, Mick Maynard. He’s Jason Maynard’s older brother.”

The table was suddenly deathly still.

“Why is he coming over, Kelly?” her father asked.

“I don’t want him here,” her mother said.

“He didn’t do anything,” Kelly said as she speared a green bean on her fork. “He’s cute and unattached. Hey, maybe he’ll tell me stuff.”

Mary Lisa said slowly, “I remember Mick Maynard. He went to school with Monica, right?”

Kelly nodded, didn’t look at either her mother or her father.

“This isn’t a good idea for you to see him, Kelly,” her father said. “Not now, not three days after his brother was murdered, the murderer still out there.”

“We’re not, like, dating or anything, Dad. He told me he was lonely and confused. I offered to let him talk to me. We’re going for coffee out at the Goddard Bay Inn.”

Silence again.

“For heaven’s sake, I’m not going to sleep with him! I’m only doing a good deed.”