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Gran’s face turned grim. “Don’t you worry about those two,” she said. “I’ll deal with them. In the meantime, get a load of this. Vicky married Quintin for his money, right? And Quintin married her to give him an heir. Only she got what she wanted but he didn’t. So talk in town back in theday had it that he killed her and got rid of the body. Case closed.”

“Did he remarry?” asked Dooley immediately.

“Not as far as I know. Why?”

“If he married Vicky for a baby, and she couldn’t give him one, wouldn’t he find himself another wife so he could have that baby?”

It was an excellent observation, and I wished I’d thought of it first.

“Very clever of you, Dooley,” said Gran. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. If Quintin killed her, why didn’t he find himself another baby mama right after?”

“So maybe he didn’t kill her?” I ventured.

“Yeah, maybe he didn’t. Anyway, something to think about. I gotta go,” she said, and got up. “We’re staking out Gardner’s house tonight, Scarlett and me. Wanna come?”

It was a tempting offer, I had to confess, but I’d vowed never to come near the Gardner house ever again. I didn’t want to lose the bit of hair that I had left, you see.

“Maybe some other time,” I said therefore.

“Pussy,” said Gran with a smile, and walked out.

Chapter 19

Quintin Gardner heard a car door slam and peered out through the curtains of his sitting room—his favorite room in the house. When he saw that his sister had arrived in her beefed-up BMW the corners of his mouth sagged.

For a brief moment he considered not opening the door but then decided against it. Marcia wasn’t the kind of woman who took kindly to a brother who refused to let her in. It was, after all, as much her house as his, as it had been the ancestral home for the past century, and the house where all the Gardners had lived ever since Grandpa Gardner had made his fortune with his first gummy bear.

So he shuffled out of his sitting room, dropping his newspaper on his favorite easy chair as he did, shuffled into the hallway, and went to open the door for his sibling.

“What do you want?” were his first words, not exactly dripping with brotherly love.

Marcia, if she was offended, didn’t show it. Instead she stuck her nose in the air and pranced in.

“I heard about that girl that was found,” she announced. “Is it true the police were here to interrogate you?”

“They were here to interview me,” he said, experiencing his usual pang of regret that his father hadn’t stopped conceiving after he’d had a son, and had insisted on bringing his sister into this world. How much sweeter life would have been if he’d been an only child.

“So?” said Marcia, who was a rail-thin, bony woman with coarse features about fifteen years Quintin’s junior. She hadn’t always been this unattractive. Once upon a time she’d had the entire male population of Hampton Cove clamoring to court her—though the extreme wealth of her family may have had something to do with that of course.

“So what?” he asked as he led her into the sitting room where he liked to entertain his guests, few though they usually were in number, and fewer every year.

“So who is this girl? Is it true she’s the spitting image of Vicky?”

He winced, as he usually did at the mention of the name of his beloved wife.“I saw the pictures,” he said as he sank into a fauteuil. “I think it’s her. Though of course that’s quite impossible.” He gave himself up to the same worried thought processes that had held him in their grip since the police contingent’s visit: could it be that Vicky had somehow managed to stay young forever? She’d always been obsessed with her good looks, and had hated every wrinkle or blemish that marred her perfect alabaster skin.

“What did the police say?” asked Marcia. “Do they know who she is, this girl?”

He shook his head.“That’s what they were here to find out. They don’t have a name, and they have no idea what happened to her, and were hoping I could enlighten them.” He scoffed, “They actually seem to think I had something to do with her murder. Can you imagine? Me! I hardly ever leave the house these days, let alone wander around murdering innocent young women and dumping them in ditches.”

“So she was found in a ditch? Where?”

He waved a hand.“Somewhere outside Hampton Cove. Farmer Giles or something.”

“Giles Turner,” said Marcia, nodding. “He always was smitten with Vicky, wasn’t he?”

Quintin narrowed his eyes.“You’re not saying that this Giles person kept Vicky all these years and suddenly decided to kill her?”

Marcia shrugged.“I’m saying anything is possible.” She gave her brother a searching look. “So you really think it’s Vicky, Quintin? Is that even possible?”

“I don’t know. But I’m sure the police will be able to tell us in a couple of days.”

Marcia threw up her hands.“How you can remain so calm about all this is absolutely beyond me! If it really is Vicky, where has she been all this time? And why did she disappear so suddenly twenty years ago? Don’t you want answers, Quintin?”