“I figured it isn’t any of my business, unless some jerk shows up and starts making trouble, of course.”
Mark’s face darkened. “If that happens, give me a call. I’ll help you take care of him.”
Dean murmured something noncommittal and took a sip of his coffee.
“He’s very taken with her,” Anna commented, standing close to Mark and studying his face. “Do you think she is married?”
Dean had wondered if Anna was going to join them in the sitting room. He lifted one shoulder in a slight shrug, gave her a look to remind her that he wasn’t at liberty to talk freely to her, then turned back to Mark.
“I appreciate your bringing those notes by this evening,” he said, knowing Anna would be interested. “Are you sure you never found anything to indicate that events here happened any differently than everyone says?”
As he’d expected, Anna moved closer, listening intently.
Mark shook his head. “What I found was very sketchy,” he admitted. “I interviewed a few locals, dug up some old newspapers, tried to get my hands on some official documents.”
“And...?”
“And—not much,” Mark said. “The locals all gave me various versions of the same story, with some individual exaggerations. The newspaper articles were oddly uninformative, considering the scope of the story. And no official documents appear to have survived.”
Dean frowned. “Surely there are some old police reports. Something.”
“Not according to what I was told. Most of the records were apparently lost in a tornado back in the fifties.”
“And the newspaper articles?”
“Simply stated that Ian and Mary Anna Cameron, local residents, were killed in a shoot-out with Deputy Stanley Tagert when he tried to arrest them for bootlegging and other suspected crimes. Their stepfather and Mary Anna’s fiancé both declared themselves too grief-stricken to be interviewed, their friends clammed up, a couple of attention-grabbing neighbors claimed they’d known all along that Ian Cameron was a criminal.”
“Lies!” Anna exclaimed. “All lies.”
>
“There has to be something more,” Dean muttered. “Someone had to know what really happened.”
“Stanley Tagert knew,” Anna insisted. “As well as whoever pulled the trigger on Ian and Buck and me.”
“Stanley Tagert died on a hunting trip about a year after the shootings. That left only the third man alive,” Dean told her, forgetting just for that one moment that he shouldn’t be speaking to her. “He’s the one we have to identify, though I don’t know how we’re going to do it.”
“Third man?” Mark looked in bewilderment from Dean to the apparently empty corner toward which Dean seemed to be staring. “What third man?”
Dean frowned, embarrassed with his gaffe. “I, er, have reason to believe that Tagert may have been in on the crime and that Ian and Mary Anna died because they saw something they shouldn’t have.”
Mark looked skeptical. “Why do you think that? How could you possibly know anything about this, especially since you’ve only lived in these parts a short time?”
Dean groped for something to say, looking to Anna for suggestions. For once, she was quiet, shrugging apologetically.
“You have found something, haven’t you? A diary? A journal? What is it, damn it?”
“I—” Dean started to deny it, then changed his mind. “I have come across something,” he admitted. “But I’m not at liberty to tell you about it now. Not until I have more evidence.”
“Evidence of what?”
“Evidence that the Peavy family fortune is founded on murder. Probably bootlegging.”
“Oh, man,” Mark groaned. “You are going to stir up a hornet’s nest if you start making that claim around here. You don’t know how prickly Margaret Peavy Vandover is when it comes to her family honor. Not to mention the senator, the mayor and the chief of police. These people have power around here, Dean. You have no idea how difficult they can make things for you if they set their minds to it—especially Margaret.”
“I’m aware of that. Why do you think I’m looking for more proof before I say anything?”
“Even if you find the proof,” Mark said, “why would you bother to bring it out now? Isn’t it possible that you’d be harming innocent descendants of wrongdoers, rather than exacting justice? I know this is a strange question coming from a so-called journalist, but why would you want to break a story like this when there’s no one alive who really cares?”