Page 59 of Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

“So you’re saying,” I said slowly, “that the falling-out occurred because you and Lila were discussing books that made Bethany feel like she wasn’t as smart as the two of you.”

Rachel studied the wall of the house for a moment, then said, “When you put it that way, it seems pretty ridiculous. But you have to remember, we were a bunch of teenage girls, and you know how emotional they can be.”

Ididknow how emotional teenage girls could be, but I also knew how close siblings could be—well, or as close as I could get to it with my cousins Dixie and Teddy. We’d been like siblings growing up. But then again, we’d gone ten years without speaking to each other, so maybe it wasn’t so far-fetched after all.

“Bethany was murdered the next spring,” I said, realizing I was jumping quite a bit, but I wasn’t sure what else I was going to get from her about their friendship.

She looked a little startled at the swift change in direction. “Yes, that’s true.”

“Lila and Bethany’s parents were briefly considered suspects, but then quickly ruled out, correct?”

She nodded. “To the best of my knowledge, that’s true.”

“I’m trying to figure out why, though,” I said. “If their father beat them and she died due to a blunt force injury to herhead, wouldn’t it stand to reason that perhaps their father got a little carried away with a beating and perhaps accidentally killed her?”

Rachel’s eyes flew wide. “Well, I suppose that makes sense, but I have no idea what the sheriff was thinkin’. I just know what people speculated and the Brewers were never arrested.”

“What about Lila?” I asked. “Was she ever worried about being a suspect?”

Rachel swallowed, looking nervous. “No, she wasn’t there that night. She and I were at a party and she got home late. They said she got home after the window of the possible time of death.”

“And they had no other suspects?” I asked.

She shook her head. “You have to understand, I was seventeen years old, and I wasn’t privy to the sheriff’s thought process, not that he’d have been inclined to tell us anyway.”

“Didn’t her parents press the sheriff to find the murderer?” I asked.

She shook her head again. “They were pretty private people. If they did, I didn’t know anything about it.”

We drifted into silence, and I let it hang between us for a bit. That was something I’d learned from one of my PI classes that I’d taken online. If you let someone stew in silence long enough, eventually they’re going to want to fill it.

Rachel squirmed again, so it must’ve been working, but not enough to pry any unsolicited information out of her.

“What about Chuck Petty?” I asked innocently, lifting the glass of lemonade to my lips and taking a small sip, but I watched her closely and noticed the way she stiffened at his name.

“Well, now,” she said with more of a Southern drawl than she’d been using up to this point. “That’sa name I haven’t heard in a good bit. What makes you ask about him?”

“Well,” I drawled myself, “I hear he ran away around the time that Bethany was murdered. That seems awfully coincidental.”

She shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. I heard he was at a party that night too.”

“The same party you were at?” Dixie asked.

“Oh, no,” she said. “We never ran in the same circles, but his friend Tim said that he and Chuck were hangin’ out by the creek, fishin’ I think, at least ten miles south of Sweet Briar. A convenience store owner said that he saw Chuck during the murder window, which gave Chuck his alibi.”

“So why do you think he ran away?” I asked.

“Lord only knows,” she said. “He was a very unhappy boy.”

“How so?” Dixie asked.

“Well, his father was the mayor of the town at the time, and he wielded his power like a club. He was pretty hard on Chuck and expected great things from him. But Chuck, well…let’s just say that he wasn’t the brightest either. And he made up for his lack of intelligence with his fists. He was constantly gettin’ into trouble, and his father was constantly gettin’ him out of it.”

“Is that why the sheriff didn’t push harder on his alibi?” I asked.

“What?” she asked, sounding startled. “Of course not. I’m sure it’s because his alibi was solid.”

“Not really,” I said. “If what you say is true, it’s possible that the convenience store owner may have only seen Tim, not Chuck, and Tim just vouched for him.”

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