Page 5 of Again with Feeling

Another laugh escaped me. “This keeps getting better and better. All right. Who are you supposed to have murdered? Besides Mr. Huggins and Sheriff Jakes?”

“My brother.”

I kept walking. My steps rang out on the creaky old boards. The little girl with the kite was laughing. A pair of teenage boys were trying to feed french fries to a seagull and screaming every time it came close to them.

“Okay,” I finally said.

“Needless to say—well, I suppose it’s not needless, is it?” Vivienne took a breath. “I didn’t kill him. I loved my brother. Deeply. I want you to prove I didn’t do this; I will not be known as a kin slayer and a fratricide. And more importantly, I want you to find out whodidkill him.”

“Vivienne—” I struggled for a moment with what to say. “I’m sorry for your loss. But I don’t think I’m the right person—”

“You are, though. That’s why I called you. I’ve been keeping my eye on you, Dash, and you’ve outdone yourself. It’s a shame things worked out the way they did because I think you and I might be kindred spirits.”

If you’ve never had a homicidal maniac call you a kindred spirit, let me tell you, it takes the shine off your day. And I didn’t love that part aboutkeeping an eye on youeither. But all I said was “I’ve helped with a few investigations, but only because—”

“It’s always ‘only because,’” Vivienne said, and it took me a moment to recognize the note in her voice as amusement. Wry amusement. As though she knew all too well. “It’s a friend, or a friend of a friend, or a long-lost nephew.”

My throat was strangely dry, but I managed to say, “No nephews.”

“Let me tell you why you must be the one to investigate my brother’s death. The first reason is because you’re good at it. You won’t settle for superficial answers. You won’t accept the story that those bumbling police will embrace. Because you want to know the truth, Dashiell.” Again, her tone changed—taking on an intensity that surprised me. “That’s always our charge, isn’t it? To see truly, to know truly, so that we may write truly. That’s what carries us into the dark.”

“Actually, I think I just read too much Chandler at an impressionable age.”

She laughed, and it broke the unexpected tension of the moment. “Second, because my family will talk to you, Dashiell. In fact, they’ll tell you everything you want to know. Because you destroyed my life once, and they will assume—gleefully—that you’re trying to destroy it again. Hammer a few more nails in the coffin, that kind of thing.”

“Nice family.”

“You have no idea.”

“Also, I feel like I have to point out that you destroyed your own life. And you framed me. And you tried to kill me.”

“But that’s all in the past. I can’t hire a private investigator, Dashiell—Dash. If my family suspects that I’m trying to build a defense, they’ll clam up. And they certainly won’t reveal anything that will give away the truth. And if you’re going to find whoever killed my brother, you’ll need them to talk to you.”

“I haven’t said I was going to—”

“And the third reason is because I’m innocent, and I know you won’t let an innocent person go to prison while a murderer walks free.”

I opened my mouth to say something snarky, but I stopped myself. Instead, I said the only honest thing I could think of: “This feels like a trap.”

She laughed, but it was dark and short. “I imagine it does.”

“Why don’t you tell me what happened to your brother—what you know, I mean—and I’ll think about it? I’m not making any promises.”

“He disappeared in the summer of 1985,” Vivienne said. “June 21. The solstice.”

“He—that was over thirty years ago.”

“That’s right.”

“Why are they charging you with murder now?”

“Because his body was found in the slough behind his home.” She spoke with a chilling matter-of-factness that reminded me that Vivienne Carver was no stranger to gruesome death. “It had been weighted down and hidden in the water, but something must have given way, because some bones washed ashore a few weeks ago. They identified the body with dental records, and my family was quick to explain to the police that I must have killed him.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re hoping for a civil suit. They’ve always wanted to get their hands on my money.”

That was…a lot, but I said, “No, I meant why do they say you killed him?”

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