“Trust me, Webb and his people will be able to control that story. But if it gets out that there’s even a remote possibility that Pamela was murdered, it will cause a firestorm.”
He exhaled slowly. “Damn. I was afraid that was where you were going with this.”
She did not respond, but when he glanced at her he saw that the hand resting on her thigh was curle nto a tight little fist.
“Do you really believe that’s what happened?” he asked, gentling his tone.
“I don’t know. But I intend to find out.”
“Have you got any hard evidence to support the idea that someone killed Pamela Webb?”
“None whatsoever,” she admitted. “But I’ll tell you this much. If I’m right about how Pamela died, then it’s very possible that her death is linked to the deaths of my parents seventeen years ago.”
“No offense, but you’re starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist.”
“I know.”
“It probably doesn’t mean much coming from a stranger,” he said quietly, “but for what it’s worth, I’m very sorry for what you went through the night you found your parents. Must have been a god-awful nightmare.”
She gave him a curious, half-shuttered look, as though he had surprised her with the simple, utterly inadequate condolences.
“Yes, it was.” She hesitated. “Thank you.”
He knew better than most that sometimes there was nothing else to say. He concentrated on his driving.
Irene propped one elbow on the side of the door and braced her chin against her hand. “It’s true that I don’t have any solid evidence to indicate that Pamela might have been murdered. But I do have something.”
“What’s that?” he asked, deeply wary.
“The summer that Pamela and I spent together as friends, we invented a code phrase that we used to let each other know when something was really important and that it had to be kept a total secret from everyone else.”
“So?”
“Pamela used that code in the e-mail note she sent to me asking me to meet her here in Dunsley.”
He tightened his hands on the wheel. “No offense, but a teenage code is not a lot to go on.”
“It’s enough for me,” she said.
Six
The center of town was busier than Luke had ever seen it since he had arrived in Dunsley. The parking lot in front of the post office was jammed with trucks, vans and SUVs. He glanced through the windows of the Ventana View Cafe and saw that every booth was filled.
A long, gleaming black limo occupied three spaces in the parking lot in front of the municipal building that housed the mayor’s office, the town council chambers and the police department. Luke pulled into a slot beside the big car and sat quietly for a few seconds, studying the scene.
“Something’s missing here,” he said.
Irene made a soft little sound of disgust. “Like the major media?”
“Looks like the news of Pamela Webb’s death hasn’t gone beyond the town limits yet.”
“Except for the story in this morning’s edition of the Glaston Cove Beacon, you mean,” she said wit rim pride.
“Except for that,” he agreed. “But since I doubt that anyone outside of Glaston Cove actually reads the Beacon, I think it’s safe to say that the story is still very low profile.”
Irene unfastened her seat belt. “The Dunsley Herald went bankrupt years ago. I doubt if the Kirhyville Journal has got the word yet. And you’re right about the limited circulation of the _Beacon. _” She smiled coolly. “All of which means I’ve still got an exclusive.”
His gut tightened. Disaster loomed.
“You know,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “it might be a good idea to talk about how we wan o approach this conversation with McPherson. Never hurts to have a strategy.”
But he was conversing with himself. Irene was out of the vehicle, slamming the door shut behind he nd heading toward the entrance of the municipal building. He saw her reach into her oversized shoulder bag and take out a small device.
A recorder, he thought. As he watched, she slipped it into the pocket of her trench coat.
“And to think that I came to Dunsley for peace and quiet,” he said to the empty front seat.
He got out of the SUV, pocketed the keys and went after Irene. He caught up with her just as she strode through the front door of the municipal building.
A short distance beyond the entrance, a tall, distinguished-looking man with a very familiar profile stood talking in low tones to Sam McPherson.
Ryland Webb possessed a full head of the silvered hair that seemed to be a requirement for public office. He also had the face for the job, Luke thought. The combination of rugged, man-of-the-West angularity mixed with just the right touch of old-world aristocrat photographed well.
An attractive, well-groomed woman in her early thirties stood at his side, gripping his hand in a silent gesture of loving support. The fiancee, Luke decided.
On the other side of the lobby, an intense, twitchy man spoke urgently but very softly into a phone. An expensive-looking leather briefcase sat beside one foot.
“Pamela was a deeply troubled woman, as everyone in this town is well aware,”
Webb said to Sam. He shook his head in a melancholy gesture, the long-suffering, grieving father who has always feared that his daughter would come to a bad end, no matter how hard he worked to save her. “You know as well as I do that she struggled with her inner demons from the time she was a teenager.”
“Thought she was doing okay these past few years,” Sam said evenly.
“She was seeing a psychiatrist again,” Ryland said. “But obviously in the end her illness overwhelmed her.”
“It doesn’t look like she OD’d on street drugs.” Sam frowned. “The bottle we found on the table is a legitimate prescription. I’ve got a call in to the doctor who wrote it.”
Ryland nodded. “That would be Dr. Warren. Worked with Pamela for quite a while.
This isn’t his fault. I’m sure he never realized that she was planning to kill herself.”
The harried-looking man with the briefcase ended his call and hurried toward Ryland.
“Sorry to interrupt, sir, but I just spoke with the people who are handling the funeral arrangements. They picked up your daughter’s body at the hospital morgue a few minutes ago and are on their way back to San Francisco. We should be going, too.
It won’t be much longer before the media gets wind of the tragedy. We need to have a statement ready.”