“Ah, Dr. Roper, the coroner on the case,” Earl said. “I’m Dr. Garnet, but call me Earl. This is my wife, Dr. Janet Graceton.”

They all shook hands

“So tell us,” Earl continued, “what’s your connection to Kelly, other than having had the investigation dumped in your lap?”

The comment took Mark by surprise. “How did you know it was a dump? You’re not connected with NYPD are you?”

Earl laughed. “No, I’m in ER at St. Paul’s Hospital in Buffalo, though some of my staff probably think of me as a cop.”

“And I deliver babies,” added Janet, her smile bright. “We’re definitely not with the police.”

“But bureaucracy’s bureaucracy,” Earl continued, “and I’ve had a lifetime of stuff shuffled my way. As soon as I saw the article in the Herald, I figured they were sloughing the whole thing onto you.”

“I’ll say they did. Though I would have done whatever was necessary anyway, to bring Kelly justice. She was a very special lady.”

“You knew her?” Earl asked.

“Only as a kid.”

“Really. What do you remember of her?”

“Like I told everyone here, I remember the important stuff for a seven-year-old boy. She could ride a bike like the wind, had a jackknife dive to die for, and when it came to cannonballs, no one on the dock was safe.”

Earl laughed again, even though his eyes remained sad. Mark found him more sincere than those who’d gushed over Kelly at the service. He immediately liked Earl Garnet.

“What else?” Earl asked.

And Mark had figured he’d be the one asking the questions. “Well, I guess what I recall most was how much fun she was. She always made me feel great.”

“She sometimes mentioned a Dr. Roper. Was he your father?”

“Yes.”

“She spoke very highly of him. Said he was the one who gave her enough confidence to apply to med school.”

“I know she sure liked talking with him. They’d spend hours together in his study. He actually was her doctor for a while. I found his old file on her in our basement.”

“It must be especially sad for him, knowing someone murdered his protégée.”

“At least he was spared that. He died nearly a couple of months after she disappeared.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It was all such a long time ago.”

“Yet her disappearance must have been painful for him and for you. Did he ever talk about it?”

Boy, this guy likes to probe, Mark thought, also realizing that he didn’t mind. Earl seemed genuinely interested. He could tell by his eyes. They never wavered from him. “Actually, I didn’t know she had vanished. My father told me only that she’d gone away, and I had no idea I’d lost her until much later. As a result I haven’t any traumatic last-time-I-saw-Kelly stuff to cloud my memories of her.” He found himself smiling. “So all of them are pretty happy. My favorite even now is of us spending hours on the dock, swimming and joking together. She especially liked watching the clouds and making crazy interpretations out of the shapes.”

Earl’s face suddenly grew animated. “Ah, yes, Kelly and her cloud game. It was fun-”

“You played it with her?”

“Yes-” He seemed to stop himself, his expression growing serious again. “It must be hard for you, investigating who killed her, yet having been so close.” Oddly, he sounded guarded now.

Shit, surely this man wasn’t going to suddenly bottle up the way Leannis did. Then he noticed how still Janet Graceton had gotten and the sideways look of astonishment she gave her husband.

The moment hung there, the seconds elongated.

He didn’t figure it out.

It simply popped into his head.

Intuition, insight, instinct – whatever, he just knew. This guy had loved Kelly. He must have been the one!

As he cast about for what to say next, a dark shape moving across the other side of the room drifted into his field of vision. He turned to see Samantha McShane glide toward Chaz Braden, a half-finished drink in her hand.

“Murderer,” she said, her voice low, yet the guttural sounds traveled throughout the room.

Chaz froze, his own drink halfway to his lips.

“You killed her! I know you did. I’ve known it for twenty-seven years.” Samantha’s anger brimmed into tears, a few of which coursed down her cheeks, leaving faint tracks in her makeup.

Chaz went white.

Walter came running up and tried to take her by the elbow. “Samantha, for the love of God!”

She shoved her husband’s hand away and looked at him, her stare fierce, her tears stopping as quickly as they’d come. “This man murdered our Kelly, I know he did. And he has to be brought to justice. He has to!”

As Samantha verged on the edge of hysterics, Mark realized just how unsteady, even volatile her emotions were.

While everyone nearby remained too shocked to move, her husband managed to slip an arm around her shoulders, whisper into her ear, and begin to walk her to the exit.

Suddenly Braden Senior was at his son’s side.

“Unfortunate dear,” he said loud enough for all to hear. “Overwrought, understandably.” Once Walter McShane had led his wife out of earshot, Charles turned to the rest of the group, and added, “It’s tragic, but the woman’s sadly unstable. Of course she’s distraught, but has always been far too emotionally charged and changeable. Bad for Kelly, bad for the marriage. Sorry for the disruption, but I’m sure I can count on your understanding.”

The sheer unflappability of the man took Mark’s breath away, until he noticed Braden’s right fist was clenched so tightly that the knuckles were white.

Chaz eyed the remnants of his drink and placed it untouched back on the bar. The color still hadn’t returned to his face. But when he saw Mark looking at him, he responded with an angry glare.

The embarrassed silence slowly dissolved as people resumed their conversations in small groups.

Mark turned to resume his own conversation with Earl and Janet, but saw them headed for the door.

On impulse he followed at a discreet distance, not at all sure what he would do.

“So tell me about Kelly,” Janet said, settling back in her chair.

Earl paused with his fork halfway to his mouth.

He and Janet sat across from each other at a table by one of the big windows in the main dining room of the Plaza Hotel. It offered a view of Central Park across Fifty-ninth Street, but he’d barely noticed. He also found the food tasteless – most of his dinner remained on his plate – and Janet was uncharacteristically quiet. Despite sensing his act about Kelly grow rapidly transparent, like a con artist hooked on his own lie, he continued the sham. “What everybody said about her gave a pretty good picture.” His breezy tone sounded false to his own ear.

Janet’s glacial blue eyes held steady on him. Finally, she reached across the table, touched his hand, and interlaced her fingers with his. “It’s time you told me what’s up here.”

He felt sheepish. “It’s ridiculous. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you right out – didn’t want to worry you was the main reason. I’d hoped the story would go away. The NYPD obviously weren’t interested, and after a few days of holding my breath, nobody from Hampton Junction came knocking on my door either. But now, by keeping quiet, I’ve made such a big thing out of something that happened so long ago-”

She raised the fingers of her free hand to his lips and silenced him. “Earl, what’s the deal? Were you two lovers?”

He sat there, feeling caught, his quiet serving as an admission of… of what? Not guilt. He felt more regret and sadness than shame. “How did you know?”

She shook her head, obviously incredulous that he had to ask. “I could understand it being a shock – all these years you believed she’d escaped, and now you find out she had been murdered. But your needing me to be with you at the funeral, your being in a daze for the last week, then your letting slip about Kelly’s cloud game-”