“Would she have stayed in her house?”

“You bet.” Her jaw set, her voice resolute, she turned back to me. “She wouldn’t have sold it. She had me, and eventually, when she told our neighbors, she would’ve had them. We also found out the county has an assistance program for the visually impaired and blind. Juniper Grove does too. She wasn’t happy about applying for help, but she was a realist. She would’ve survived. But Dalton took that from her.”

There was no point arguing that Dalton wasn’t the killer. In her grief, Shelly had concluded that he was, and she would not be budged. It felt right and safe. I grabbed a quick sip of tea—it tasted as sour as it smelled—and thanked her for taking time out of her day.

At the door she told me to watch my step, drawing my attention to the wind-driven sheet of snow on her walkway.

I took one step forward and wheeled back. “You said Laura applied for assistance.”

“She started the process. It takes time to complete.”

“Assistance from Juniper Grove as well as the county?”

“Sure. The county offers financial help, but the town offers practical help through a volunteer program. Snow shoveling, lawn cleanup, driving to appointments, that kind of thing. Laura was going to need both money and everyday help.”

“What’s the town’s program called?”

“The Volunteer Aid Program.”

“Where did she apply, and when?”

Bewildered by my questions, Shelly nevertheless answered. “She printed the application online, then she took it to Town Hall, about two weeks ago. Before Christmas. Why? Is it important?”

CHAPTER 14

Moments later I was in my Forester, driving for Town Hall. Why hadn’t I thought of it? None of Laura’s confidants had betrayed her. Town records had. Charlotte or Brodie had.

With a new snowstorm darkening the sky to the west, there weren’t many shoppers on Main Street, so I easily found an empty parking space. Luckily, Joan Hudson was at her desk in the Records Section. She took one look at me, barreling toward her with focused determination, and assumed I was on the rampage over her calling Dalton.

“I phoned Dalton about Brodie searching his divorce records because he deserved to know,” she said through nearly locked jaws. “It’s not something I regularly do, and telling you would have—”

I broke in. “I’m not here about that. I think you did the right thing telling Dalton.”

She brightened and her jaws unlocked. “Oh.”

Taking the chair by her desk I asked her if she recalled Brodie or Charlotte looking up records in the Volunteer Aid Program.

She puffed out her cheeks. “The applications from seniors and such are here, so are the volunteers’ records. We match people. Why?”

“Laura Patchett filled out an application.”

“Does this have to do with her murder?”

“I think so.”

“Hang on.” Joan rose and walked to her sole colleague’s desk. She talked, she waited a beat, and the other woman nodded.

Bingo.

The woman followed Joan back to where I was sitting. “I must have been out on a break, but Cheryl was here,” she said, retaking her seat.

Cheryl, younger than Joan by a decade and likely her junior in status, was eager to please. “Joan had told me to watch out for Charlotte, so I sneaked up on her and found her in the program’s applications.”

“When was this?”

“Oh, like ten days ago? Now, I don’t know if she located Laura’s application in particular, but she was rifling through them. If that’s what she was looking for, she found it. The program doesn’t have more than sixty applications for assistance and they’re in alphabetical order.”

Charlotte Wynn, what have you done? Without a doubt someone who suspected Laura was losing her eyesight had asked Charlotte to search the program’s records for proof. Or maybe Charlotte had acted all on her own. And then what? Had she taken that proof to Brodie? Or directly to Dalton?

“Did you tell Laura that Charlotte might have been looking for the application?” I asked.

“No, but I wish I had,” Cheryl replied. “Does that help?”

“It does.”

“I’m glad. I liked Laura.”

“Did anyone else ask to see the program’s records?”

“I never saw anyone.” Cheryl looked to Joan.

“Not anyone who didn’t have business looking at them,” Joan said. “From now on I’m banning Charlotte Wynn from searching the Records Section on her own. No more privileges. If Roche and White need a record, I’ll get it. Charlotte can take a seat by the door.”

I thanked them, exited Town Hall, and strode west for the offices of the Juniper Grove Post to talk to Mary. Whatever she was holding back, she was going to spit out.

Just inside the Post building was a long and narrow room where reporters and various underlings worked. Head high, eyes front, I walked past their cubicles as though I belonged there and marched toward a set of glass-enclosed offices at the back. I’d never been to Mary’s office, but I doubted the woman who headed circulation and advertising did her job from a cubicle no larger than a queen-sized bed.

I saw her two seconds before she saw me, and when she caught the expression on my face, she knew I knew she’d been holding back. She gave me the same look Joan had—a blend of belligerence and remorse. I know you’re angry, but I can explain.

Until that moment I hadn’t been totally convinced that Mary had withheld important facts, but on seeing her face, seeing her shoulders sag and her chin drop, I was.

She motioned me inside her office door—as though I needed her invitation to enter—and asked me to sit. She remained standing and so did I.

“Rachel, I haven’t been completely honest with you,” she began.

No kidding. “Stop right there, Mary. I haven’t got time for excuses. You asked me to help you, and I’ve been trying to do that. Two people are dead.”

She acted as though I’d slapped her. “I don’t think . . . this was personal, I couldn’t—and you wouldn’t either. No mother would—not that any of this was his fault.”

“Parker.”

She sank into her chair. “It started with Parker. Started.”

I sat too, waiting for her to elaborate.

“Parker told me about Connor Morse’s arrest record. He said a student at JG thought drugs were in Morse’s past. So near the end of his senior year, Parker attended the Youth Law Enforcement Academy in Denver, and he found someone who could hack the online database. Morse had been arrested in Denver and charged as an adult, so his record was in the database. Parker got a printout.”