"Forget it. What about Dirk Arneson?"

"He's off the hook for everything except using his employer's yacht as a bachelor pad. His poker pals were located in New Orleans and questioned. They backed up his alibi. He was released with an apology."

"Poor Tucker. Foiled again."

"He doesn't like you, either. And he'd write me off as a crackpot for accusing a dead man of killing that girl if not for that fingerprint. But there is the print. And there is Jeremy's kinship with Carl Wingert, a notorious criminal at large. Tucker's wading through Carl's history now to familiarize himself, but in a way that's working against us."

"How so?" Amelia asked.

"He can't quite reconcile that Carl the terrible could pass himself off for years as Bernie the tenderhearted. So far, we haven't got anything forensic to prove that Bernie is Carl's alter ego, and until some turns up, Tucker's waffling."

"You've gotta be kidding me!" Dawson exclaimed.

"He says a lot of older people have missing fingers, because reattachment wasn't always the option it is now, and he's right. He also backed me into a corner until I admitted that I've never seen Bernie, so I can't ID him as Carl, whom I've also never seen in the flesh."

Amelia asked, "How do they explain his car being abandoned, all that?"

"They can't, except to say that maybe he's having senior moments and forgot where he left it."

"The phony addresses, the absence of public records?" Dawson said.

"All suspicious, but not a smoking gun." Headly turned to Amelia. "I don't suppose you have a picture of Bernie."

"No."

"Figured that. Carl wouldn't have let himself be photographed. The SO is going to have one of those computer programs age the picture from Carl's Wanted poster, see if it resembles your seventy-something neighbor, but for right now, they're soft on him. Additionally-"

"Jesus. There's an additionally?" Dawson left his chair and made an aimless circuit of the kitchen.

"Additionally, Tucker's wrestling with Jeremy's motive for killing Miss DeMarco. And if you believe that he wielded the murder weapon thinking he was killing her, then I allow that there's a problem with it."

"But he didn't think he was killing Stef. He thought it was Amelia."

"Tucker's not sold on that, and he's got some strong arguments."

"Like what?" Dawson asked.

"Like how Jeremy could have planned it. How would he have known that Amelia would be in the village that night?"

"He couldn't have known," she said.

"Right. That's the hangup. Even Knutz, who's on my side, winces when I assert that it was a crime of opportunity. My take? Jeremy tied up at Saint Nelda's dock to ride out the storm. He saw Miss DeMarco, mistook her for you, and seized the opportunity."

Wryly Dawson said, "It was a dark and stormy night."

"To them my theory sounds just that cliched. Homicide detectives deal in facts and hard evidence. We're short on those."

"Except for the fingerprint," Amelia said.

"If it's a recent print-which is being argued-it places Jeremy there."

"Then what's the problem?" Dawson asked.

"I say again, motive. Murder is quite a leap from spooking Amelia with a busted beach ball. If Jeremy is only trying to mess with her mind, when he spotted her running through the rain, why didn't he just jump out of the bushes and shout boo?"

"Tucker didn't actually say that, did he?"

"It was almost that inane. But here's their refrain," Headly said, going back to Amelia. "Why would Jeremy want to kill you? Now, to me, his motive is obvious."

"The children," she replied.

"Ultimately. Hear me out," he said, holding up both hands before she could say more. "What I think, Jeremy and Carl were too cautious to act before Willard Strong's trial ended. They'd been impatiently biding their time until Willard was residing on death row and the dust had settled. They were almost there, days away from completion, the end was in sight when...a strapping, good-looking lad appears on the scene."

He tilted his head toward Dawson, who realized they'd come back to the disconcerting topic of him and Amelia.

"He shows up out of nowhere," Headly said, "and you start spending time with him. The children also seem gaga, which wouldn't have set well with their father. To Jeremy, the new man in your life was a catalytic event."

She looked at Dawson uneasily. "He's hardly in my life."

"And they wouldn't want him to be."

"But we'd just met."

"Sometimes that's all it takes." After a short but awkward silence, he continued. "A romance between you two at least appeared to be blossoming. Jeremy had to stop it."

"This means that Stef died because of me." Shooting a glance at Dawson, she added, "Because of us."

"No." Headly propped his elbow on the table and shook his index finger at her. "Listen to me. Your perceived attraction to Dawson was only an excuse for Jeremy to act sooner rather than later. Eventually, no matter what, whether or not you'd ever met Dawson, he would have killed you. If not Jeremy, then his father would have. Because-and make no mistake about this, Amelia-the man is evil.

"Sweet, lovable Bernie is a sham. In truth, he never existed. It was Carl Wingert all along, and he duped you well. Because, behind the limp and age spots, he's a terrorist who believes that you deserve to die. I'm as certain of that as I am that it's gravity holding me onto the planet."

"Why would he want me dead?"

"Punishment for leaving Jeremy."

"Jeremy was the one who destroyed our marriage. I wasn't the one having an affair."

"This isn't about morality. Do you think Carl cares who slept with whom? No. It's about loyalty. He has strong feelings about it. But-and here's the kicker-it's one-sided. It's loyalty to him that he's a fanatic about.

"Conversely, he doesn't blink over leaving someone behind. He saves his own skin first. He's done it time and again. At Golden Branch, he sacrificed one of his men so he could escape, and, frankly, I'm amazed that he took Jeremy and Flora, straight out of childbed, with him when he ran.

"Once, during a standoff, one of his gang members tried to surrender. He walked out of a motel room with his hands raised. He was killed on the spot, but not by police. Carl, from inside the motel room, shot him in the back of the head and then escaped during the confusion that ensued."

Headly was laying it on thick, perhaps for shock value, but Dawson was glad he wasn't sparing Amelia the cold reality of the kind of man her father-in-law was. Jeremy had the same bloodline.

Headly continued. "Carl Wingert is unconscionable. He believes his actions, no matter how detestable, are justified. He'll vanquish anyone he considers disloyal, and you, Amelia, were disloyal.

"I'm sure Jeremy's mind has been poisoned against you. But even if he still worships the ground you walk on, even if he is madly in love with you and entertaining a fantasy about reuniting with you and his sons, Carl will never allow it. He'll kill you."

"Then why didn't he yesterday when I was alone at the beach house?"

"Because he's too smart to have followed up Jeremy's mistake with another. He couldn't kill you and then disappear. That would have been too obvious. It probably galled him, but he had to continue playing Bernie until he was safely off the island. Now he has time to plan something else."

"What am I supposed to do in the meantime? While he's planning. The boys and I can't remain under lock and key indefinitely."

"It won't be indefinite."

Dawson stopped prowling around the room and looked sharply at Headly, whose expression was as grim as he'd ever seen it. "What does that mean?"

"Everything I've told you up till now?"

"Yeah?"

"That's the good news."

Chapter 20.

Is this Harriet Plummer?"

"Isn't that who you asked for? Who's this?"

"My name is Bernie Clarkson. I'm calling you from Saint Nelda's Island."

"Where?"

"Offshore from Savannah. I hate to bother you, Ms. Plummer, but he wrote your name on the back of his business card."

"Who did? Dawson?"

"Uh...let's see, I had it right here...Yes, Dawson Scott. Tall, long hair?"

"Why did he give you my name?"

"So you do know him? He does write for the magazine?"

"Yes."

"Good. That makes me feel better."

"About what?"

"About what he's up to."

"Look, if you're a reporter-"

"Reporter?"

"The magazine has no comment other than to say that Dawson was questioned by the police, but it was pro forma, nothing came of it, and he was released. That's it. Okay?"

"I know all that. I'm not a reporter. Just an ordinary person who wants to know if Mr. Scott is, well, safe to talk to."

"Safe? Maybe you'd better back up and start at the beginning, Mr. Clarkson."

"Well, I was walking on the beach, which I do twice a day. The exercise helps my hips."

"Uh-huh."

"Mr. Scott approached me and struck up a conversation. Seemed to be a nice enough fellow. We chatted about this and that, then he asked if he could interview me."

"Why would he want to interview you?"

"That's why I'm calling you, to ask why he would want to interview me."

"He didn't tell you?"

"He said he was working on a story for the magazine."

"He's covering the Willard Strong trial. Are you familiar with it?"

"It's big news down here."

"Well, Dawson is writing a story about the double murder of Strong's wife and her lover."

"Jeremy Wesson."

"You knew him?"

"I never met him, but I know his ex-wife very well. Amelia and her children spend summers next door to me on the island."

"Well, there you go. That's the connection. The last time I spoke to Dawson, he was hoping to get an interview with her."

"Why?"

"Because typically an ex-wife is a great source of information on a subject. If you're well acquainted with the former Mrs. Wesson, it makes sense that Dawson would want to talk to you, possibly as an inroad to her. Okay? Now if there's nothing-"

"I don't know that I'd want to be quoted."

"If you ask Dawson not to quote you, he won't. Or he'll refer to you as 'an unnamed source.'"

"I wouldn't want to hurt Amelia's feelings by talking behind her back."