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“He is so aggravating,” Dickce said. “Sometimes you just want to jerk that knot in his tail.”

“Dickce, why do you have to use that awful expression?” An’gel shook her head. “I agree, though. He can be mighty exasperating. I think he did find out something but he’s going home to tell Reba first. Come now, let’s go home.”

An’gel didn’t feel like talking during the drive back to Riverhill, and apparently neither did Dickce. An’gel pondered Sarinda’s sudden and rather odd death. How could they have all missed the fact that Sarinda had a drinking problem?

An’gel knew that many alcoholics were adept at disguising their addiction, and perhaps Sarinda had been among their number. An’gel found it sad. Sarinda had never married, though An’gel was never certain why. She wondered whether Sarinda had been carrying a torch all these years for Hadley Partridge. Seeing him today might have been a shock, although An’gel would have supposed it to be a pleasant one.

But for Sarinda, it might have been a bitter reminder of forty lonely years. Could Hadley’s sudden return—and show of pointed interest in her, rather than in Sarinda or any of the other women—have had anything to do with Sarinda’s getting so drunk she fell down the stairs?

Another, more sinister interpretation of Sarinda’s death occurred to her. Sarinda had asked the odd question, “What if Callie never left Athena?”

They had all thought it was merely a bid for attention this afternoon. In light of Sarinda’s sudden demise, however, An’gel found herself reconsidering the idea that Sarinda had had another purpose in mind when she posed the question. If she had known more than she let on about what happened to Callie all those years ago, and if what happened to Callie was the result of foul play, could someone in that room today have been responsible? Not only for Sarinda’s death, but also for Callie’s disappearance?

Had both women been murdered?

CHAPTER 6

You’ve been watching too many reruns of old detective shows. Turning everything into a mystery.

An’gel scolded herself mentally for the wild ideas she was entertaining over Sarinda’s death. The timing of it was simply coincidence. If Sarinda truly had been a secret drinker, then it was only a matter of time before she had an accident. In this case, it sadly turned out to be a fatal accident.

An’gel’s thoughts had seesawed back and forth between a verdict of sad accident and deliberate murder since the previous evening. As she sat finishing her third cup of coffee at the dining room table this morning, she was glad she hadn’t shared any of this with her sister.

Dickce broke into her thoughts. “You’ve hardly said a word since we got in the car last night to drive home from Sarinda’s. I’ve been waiting for you to tell me what’s on your mind. You’re stewing over Sarinda’s death, obviously.”

Her sister knew her only too well, An’gel reflected. “Yes.” She hoped the terse response would be enough to quell her sister for the moment, but Dickce didn’t snub that easily.

“You think someone pushed Sarinda down the stairs, don’t you?” Dickce toyed with a small bit of scrambled egg on her plate.

“I think it’s a possibility,” An’gel said.

“I do, too.” Dickce set her fork down and leaned back in her chair. “Maybe we’re simply all off balance, thanks to Hadley, but the more I think about the meeting yesterday, the more I believe there was something going on underneath it all that we don’t understand.”

“That’s what I’ve been feeling,” An’gel said. “But I wonder whether I’m trying to make too much out of Sarinda’s behavior yesterday.”

“It’s possible,” Dickce said. “After what we’ve been through the past few months, we’re bound to be oversensitive, I suppose. Murder here at Riverhill, and then more murder at Willowbank, when we went to St. Ignatiusville for the wedding.”

An’gel grimaced. “The last thing we need is to be involved in another murder, and I’m hoping that this turns out to be an accident.” She pushed away from the table and stood. “All right. I’ve had enough of this. The sun is shining, the morning is warm, and I have gardening to do.”

“You’d better get it done this morning,” Dickce said. “I was listening to the weather report before I came down to breakfast, and we’ve got a storm system coming our way by mid-afternoon. Sounds like we could be in for nasty weather. Heavy rain, thunderstorms, and high winds.”

An’gel pushed her chair in to the table and stood with her hands along the back. “I didn’t check the forecast this morning.” She paused. “If we’ve got that kind of weather coming, I shouldn’t bother putting in new plants, then. The wind is liable to wreak havoc with whatever I do today. Not to mention the azaleas I planted yesterday.”

“In that case,” Dickce said, “why don’t you come with Benjy and me this morning? I’m taking him shopping for clothes and shoes. He’s going to need new things for when he starts at Athena College in the spring.”