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“What if the ground is full of skeletons?” Dooley said, “and on a rainy day like this they all come popping up out of the soggy earth and try to drag us down with them?”

“Skeletons don’t drag anyone down, Dooley,” I pointed out with iron logic. “They’re dead, you see, so they don’t have the capacity to drag anyone down, and definitely not the two of us.”

“In the movie they all came alive again, and tried to drown that poor girl.”

“That’s because that was just a movie,” I said. “And you know that what happens in movies isn’t real, Dooley. It’s all special effects and make-believe.”

“Still,” he said as he directed a nervous look at the now soggy lawn, fully expecting the first skeleton to come popping out any moment now, ready to drag us down with it.

“Look, I’m pretty sure that skeleton was the only skeleton buried down there.”

“I don’t know, Max. This could be an old burial ground of Native Americans. And you know what that means. These dead people get very upset when someone builds a house on top of them, and when they get upset they sink the house and all of its inhabitants.”

I swallowed away a lump of uneasiness. Dooley made a good point.“Maybe we should move next door,” I suggested. “I’m sure Odelia’s house isn’t built on an ancient burial ground.”

“Who knows? Maybe this entire neighborhood is built on an ancient burial ground, and we’re all in mortal danger.”

“In that case we’ll make a run for it,” I said. “But until the first skeleton pops its head out of the ground, I’m staying put.”

And as I tried to go back to sleep, it irked me a little bit that every time I opened my eyes, Dooley was staring intently at the ground, waiting for the first skeleton to appear.

Chapter 14

Marge arrived at the library just when the first fat drops of rain started pummeling the world below. She hurried inside, and was glad to be out of the rain. Odd, she thought. She checked her weather.com app every morning and also at night before going to bed, and it hadn’t mentioned rain for Hampton Cove or the surrounding towns. But then weather prediction wasn’t an exact science, and it was notoriously hard to know what surprises the weather gods had in store for mere mortals like her.

And she’d just hung up her coat and moved to the shelf where returns were delivered to start collecting them on a trolley, when the first visitor walked in. It was old Mrs. Samson from down the road. Mrs. Samson, a frequent visitor of the library, loved romance novels—the saucier the better—and faithfully dropped by every week to stock up on a fresh selection of reading material.

“Marge,” she said by way of greeting as she ventured into the library, then suddenly turned back. “I just want you to know that I don’t believe a word of what people are saying. Not a single word.”

“And what are people saying?” asked Marge, though she had a pretty good idea by now.

“Oh, just this and that. About that skeleton, I mean. I’ve known Vesta for years and years and years and even if she did kill your father I’m sure she must have had her reasons and has never killed again. And if anyone says otherwise I’m putting them straight and telling them that as a dearfriend of the family I know, and they don’t.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Samson,” said Marge. Even though Mrs. Samson wasn’t exactly a friend of the family it was still touching she was prepared to jump to their defense like that.

“I mean, there are so many violent men out there, and I, for one, don’t blame the women who kill them. It’s self-defense, isn’t it? And with the law being on the side of the perpetrators, a woman has to take the law into her own hands or else she doesn’t know what will happen. That man might as well kill her one day if she doesn’t kill him first.”

“Mrs. Samson, I can assure you that my mother never killed anyone. When my dad died they had been divorced for many years, and it wasn’t my mom that killed him but a heart attack.”

“Uh-huh,” said Mrs. Samson, though it was obvious she didn’t believe a word Marge was saying. “Just look at that poor Nicole Kidman in thatBig Fat Lies series.”

“Big Little Lies,” Marge corrected her.

“That’s what I said. Nicole bravely pushed her husband down the stairs because she had to, otherwise that horrible pig would have bashed her head in. Oh, yes, he would have, no matter what Meryl Streep has to say about it.”

“First of all, Nicole Kidman didn’t push her husband down the stairs,” said Marge. “And secondly, like I said, my parents were long divorced before my dad died. And also, my parents never lived in the house on Harrington Street. Tex and I only moved in there twenty-five years ago, and Mom only moved in with us ten years ago, when she felt the house where she was living had become too big for her and so she sold it. So you see, that body in the basement can’t possibly be connected to us. That body has been there from way, way before we ever moved in.”