I knew exactly when the Murphy murders had taken place, so those stories weren’t difficult to find. They matched Derek’s account in pretty much every particular, with very little additional information. The police had been notified in the early hours of the morning, when one of the neighbors called to report a domestic disturbance and shots fired at the Murphy house on Becklea Drive. According to the newspaper article, five-year-old Patrick Murphy had been woken from sound sleep by a “bang,” and when he stuck his head out into the hallway, he had seen his father, gun in hand, move from the master bedroom to the room where Patrick’s grandparents, Margaret and John Duncan, slept. Patrick, being more astute than the usual little boy, had made for the outside door and had run down the street to his friend Lionel’s house, where Lionel’s father had called the police. Upon arrival, the Waterfield PD had found all the inhabitants of the Murphy household (with the exception of Patrick) dead: Peggy and her parents in their beds, and Brian on the floor in Patrick’s room. Police Chief Roger Tucker had gone on record to say that the police were treating the case as a homicide and suicide, and that there was no doubt whatsoever that Brian Murphy had killed his wife and his in-laws, and that he had then gone to his son’s room to finish the job. The police found several bullets in the boy’s bed but were unable to say for sure whether Brian thought he had actually succeeded in killing Patrick, or had realized, too late, that the child was gone. In either case, he had ended his short reign of terror by shooting himself.

A follow-up story, a day or two later, quoted a couple of neighbors and friends of the family as saying that Brian had been increasingly sullen and difficult to deal with over the last few months. There had been problems at work-he had been a forklift operator at a nearby warehouse-and management had had to give him several warnings about his temper and about his increasing tardiness. He had taken to hanging out at a local bar late into the nights, and it must have made it difficult for him to punch in by six in the morning. Once he had turned up at his wife’s place of employment and caused trouble. Mr. Nickerson, her boss, didn’t want to speak ill of the dead, but he had gotten the impression that Mr. Murphy was, not to put too fine a point on it, stinking drunk. And at four o’clock in the afternoon, too. Brian had removed his wife, bodily, from the premises, but the next morning, when Peggy Murphy came back to work, she had claimed that everything was fine, and having no choice but to believe her, Mr. Nickerson had taken her word for it.

So much for that part of it. I started scanning the microfiche for missing persons.

In any town of any size, people disappear once in a while. It was just a few months ago, as a matter of fact, that Professor Martin Wentworth from Barnham College had gone missing. He had been acquainted with my late Aunt Inga, and at the time, while we were trying to figure out what had happened to him, Wayne had explained to me that it’s extremely difficult for someone to just disappear without a trace. Someone usually knows something, whether it’s the missing person himself, if he left under his own steam, or it’s whoever did away with him, if he didn’t. In most cases and both scenarios, the missing person shows up sooner or later, either alive or dead.

I had requested the microfiche for a couple of years before the Murphy murders, just in case Brian Murphy had buried someone under his house, and also for the time around two years ago, when Venetia Rudolph said there had been squatters in the crawlspace. The idea that the body might belong to one of the squatters made a certain amount of sense. It would explain why they cleared out suddenly, too. Does a body buried in the ground smell? I wondered. Nah, probably not. If buried bodies smelled, then nobody would ever visit churchyards.

The thought inspired a pang of guilt, and I promised myself I’d go visit my Aunt Inga’s grave again shortly. It had been a few weeks since I’d been there, and the flowers I’d put out had probably died long since. Pushing the thought aside for more pressing, or at least more immediate matters, I went back to microfiche scanning.

Nobody seemed to have gone missing during the time the Murphys had lived on Becklea, and there was no mention of any missing persons two years ago, either. I scanned the pages for any information about the squatters, but couldn’t find any. I’d have to ask Venetia again, to see if she knew anything more about them. I didn’t even know if they were old or young, runaway kids or professional hobos. Waterfield didn’t seem to have a large homeless population, so maybe it had just been someone passing through on their way to or from Canada, maybe. Illegal aliens or something.

Since it was still early, and the Waterfield Weekly was located just across the street, I dropped in there, as well, and went through the same process of requesting microfiche and access to the machine. The Waterfield Weekly, being a weekly, could squeeze more issues of their newspaper into a microfiche box than the Clarion could, and the woman behind the counter gave me several boxes that covered several years each. I popped one in the machine and started scanning idly.

I wish I could say that I found a marvelous clue that explained everything, but no such luck, I’m afraid. I came across a few photographs of members of the Murphy family taken at various times, though. There was one of Peggy, taken around Christmas, outside her place of employment on Main Street. Apparently the town did a Dickens Christmas celebration every year, during which the shopkeepers and business owners dressed in period costume and handed out grog, hot chocolate, and toddy, along with Christmas cookies. Peggy was kitted out in a long dress and velvet bonnet, and her cheeks glowed with cold. She looked familiar somehow, although it was difficult to see her face clearly under the bonnet. As part of the same article, I also saw a picture of Dr. Ben in frock coat with tails, and bushy sideburns he must have grown especially for the occasion. I printed it out, just so I could show it to Derek, although he’d probably seen it before, come to think of it.

I could find no pictures of little Patrick Murphy, although his father made it into print in an article about St. Patrick’s Day. Apparently there were a fair few descendants of Irish immigrants in the Pine Tree State; enough to enable a Maine Irish Heritage Society, which put on a big shindig in Portland every year, with a St. Patrick’s Day parade and everything. Brian was redheaded and freckled, with a green wool newsboy cap on his head. He didn’t look unhappy or particularly homicidal in the picture, but then it was a special occasion, so maybe he’d put on a happy face for the camera. He was hoisting a tankard of beer, anyway, seated at a table in the Shamrock, celebrating.

Shortly after that, I came across an article about the Waterfield High School prom for the year the Murphys died, and I squinted at the pictures of smiling girls in poufy dresses and boys with fluffy hair. A familiar face caught my eye, and I leaned closer, giggling, at the sight of a tragically hip seventeen-year-old Derek in an ill-fitting tuxedo, side by side with a plump girl with big hair and a strapless dress with an enormous ruffle around the hips. I printed it, too, looking forward to sharing it with him.

Like the Clarion, the Weekly had no information about any missing runaways or hobos during the time frame that Venetia had mentioned. But since I’d gotten into looking at prom photos, I looked for the articles about prom two years ago and was gratified to see a picture of Josh and Paige, and one of Shannon with some good-looking boy I’d never met. She looked like a Hollywood starlet in a white, clingy gown, with that dark red hair falling over her bare shoulders, while Paige looked small and waiflike next to the tall Josh. The top of her head didn’t even reach his shoulder.