“I think you might have to prove that,” Kate said.
“Anytime you want to, baby,” he said with hot eyes.
“Not to me, you idiot, but to the whole town.”
“Could you two stop playing a scene from one of my romance novels and think about this seriously?” Sara said.
“Jackisgoing to have this dumped on his head. The question is...what arewegoing to do about this?”
“I don’t see anything we can do,” he said. “Obviously, I can’t stay in this town. But then, I’ve always thought I’d like Seattle. Or maybe I’ll move to New Mexico. High mountain desert.”
Kate and Sara were staring at each other. When they seemed to reach an agreement, they looked at Jack.
“Did I miss something? What are you two thinking? Anybody want a beer?”
“Sit,” Sara ordered.
Jack didn’t move.
She stared at him. “Do you really and truly believe that your father killed two women, buried them, then planted a tree over their bodies? And that he kept a secret like that until the day he died?”
“No,” Jack said. “He might get into a bar fight and smash a head, but...” He took a breath. “If he’d killed Cheryl, it would have been by accident and he wouldn’t have had the calm calculation that he needed to cover it up. He sure as hell wouldn’t have kept his mouth shut.”
“Which he had to do,” Kate said. “My impression of your father is that he tended toward flamboyance rather than coldly hiding two murders.”
“He certainly never planted a tree in his life,” Jack said.
“So...” Sara said. “We agree that Roy probably didn’t hide two murders and he certainly didn’t plant a tree. However, I think that he did do something to that poor girl that he wanted to hide. He was so worried that she’d report him that he tried to discredit her before she told on him. I think that’s the real reason he edited the videos to make her look bad.”
“You mean he wasn’t doing all that to save the honor of his son?” Jack was sneering.
Sara turned to him. “Was Roy good enough with a computer to do that kind of editing?”
“I don’t know,” Jack said. “Maybe. But you know Donna. She would have helped him bury the bodies. She worked with the parks department and she did a lot with computers.”
“Donna?” Kate asked.
“Roy’s mother,” Sara said quickly.
“Wait,” Kate said. “If she was Roy’s mother, then she was Cal’s wife.” She looked at Sara. “If you loved Cal, why didn’tyoumarry him?”
“The question we all ask,” Jack said. “Everyone in this town wants to know the answer to that one.”
Sara shook her head. “Neither of you two couldeverwrite a novel. You need to stay on point. If Roy didn’t kill Cheryl,who did?”
They were silent for a moment.
Jack said, “If I say thatweshould try to solve this twenty-year-old murder—which, by the way, is impossible to do—can we order in pizza?”
“Four kinds of cheese,” Sara said.
“Just sauce and a very thin crust for me,” Kate said.
Jack took out his cell. “I want everything but anchovies.” He called and ordered, then they looked at one another in silence.
“Where do we begin?” Kate asked.
“With her,” Sara said. “With Cheryl. What was going on in her life that backfired so much that someone wanted to kill her?”
