She frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t know about that. I think Jonah died in an accident when he was only in his early forties, but Josiah Jr., was older. He died of emphysema and lung cancer after years of heavy smoking. Poor Emily had to put her own life on hold for years to take care of him—which wasn’t an easy task. Her father was a…difficult man. I remember being very intimidated by his perpetual scowl back when I was a teenager.”
Filing that tidbit away, Mac went along with the conversation, looking for other tidbits of information. “Emily is the police chief’s wife?”
“Yes. Emily Davenport now.”
“No siblings to help her out with her difficult father?”
“She has an older half brother, Lucas, but he had a falling-out with his father—and with most of Honoria, for that matter—and he left town after high school. Fifteen years later, he came back to visit his sister. Their father was already dead then.”
No mention so far of congenital ailments in the McBride family, something Mac needed to know, especially after… “I didn’t realize Mrs. Davenport has an older brother. I don’t think I’ve met him.”
“No. I’ve only met him a couple of times myself. He’s nine years older than Emily. Lucas and his wife live in California and only come back to visit a couple of times a year. But they’ll be here in August for Trent’s wedding, I’m sure.”
It was increasingly obvious that she didn’t share her town’s penchant for idle gossip. So far, all Sharon had done was answer his innocuous questions without much embellishment. While Mac admired her discretion, it wasn’t getting him very far. He took a calculated risk with a bolder question. “You weren’t kidding when you said the folks around here like to gossip. Am I mistaken, or do the McBr
ides seem to attract more than their share of talk?”
Sharon wrinkled her nose. “You aren’t mistaken. It seems as if there’s always one scandal or another involving the McBrides. It’s unfair for the most part, I might add. They’re really a very nice family.”
“If you say so.”
That noncommittal comment brought her chin up in defense of her friends. “I do say so. I’ve known them for ages and they’ve all been very nice to me and my family. I certainly hope you aren’t letting a few spiteful locals make you question your decision to hire Trent for your renovation team.”
“I don’t base my hiring decisions on idle chatter.”
“Good,” she said with a brisk nod. “Any large family in a small town is going to attract its share of gossip, of course. Every big family has its share of scandals—divorces, unwed pregnancies, that sort of thing—and the McBrides are no different. But most of the accusations leveled at the McBrides have later proven to be completely unfounded. Like when Sam Jennings accused Emily of embezzling from his accounts at the bank—he was just trying to stir things up. Sam’s also the one who led everyone to believe Lucas killed Roger Jennings, when all along it was Sam himself—and Roger wasn’t the first person Sam killed, either.”
Mac set down his fork. “I don’t think I followed all that.”
Sharon made a sound of exasperation, and shook her head. “Sorry. It just makes me so mad that people are telling you these stories about the McBrides. They really don’t deserve the treatment they get around here.”
“No one mentioned anything about murder to me.”
She pushed a strand of hair out of her face, still looking annoyed. “No, of course not. Everyone knows the truth now. I suppose I should tell you the story so you won’t go away with a misconception about Lucas.”
“I wouldn’t want you to betray your friends’ trust just to satisfy my curiosity,” Mac murmured, feeling vaguely guilty about the lie.
“It’s common knowledge around here now,” she said with a shrug. “Even though it all happened more than four years ago, it was a huge scandal and people still like to talk about it. It started when Emily was a toddler and her mother—Josiah Jr.’s second wife, Nadine—apparently ran off with a married man, Al Jennings. Josiah was always very bitter after that, and mixed very little with the townspeople. He and Lucas, his son by his first wife, who died of pneumonia, didn’t get along well. Actually, Lucas didn’t get along well with many people, because he had such a temper as a boy. Probably because his own mother died so young and his father was such an unpleasant man. Especially after Nadine disappeared with Al.”
“It sounds like enough to make anyone surly.”
Smiling a little in response to Mac’s wry comment, Sharon continued, “Anyway, Lucas had a sort of hate/hate relationship with Roger Jennings—the son of the man Nadine supposedly ran away with. Roger blamed all the McBrides for his father’s defection, and Lucas took the brunt of it because he and Roger were close in age. One night very soon after Lucas finished high school, they had a particularly bitter public quarrel. Roger died that night.”
“How?”
“He fell off a cliff on McBride land, close to Lucas’s house. It was all very tragic and very mysterious and, needless to say, the local gossips had a field day. They all decided Lucas killed Roger. They had him tried and convicted even before the funeral. There wasn’t enough evidence to arrest Lucas, but the people who never liked him, anyway, didn’t care about that. They made life here so unpleasant for him that he felt he had to leave. He took off in the middle of the night, and no one heard from him for years.”
“Which, of course, only made him look more guilty in the eyes of his accusers.”
“Exactly. Fifteen years later, Lucas came home to visit his sister, Emily, and the truth came out. Nadine McBride and Al Jennings were murdered by Al’s own brother, Sam. It turned out Sam had been a jilted lover of Nadine’s, and he killed her and Al in a jealous rage. When Sam’s nephew, Roger, came too close to finding out the truth several years later, Sam pushed him over the cliff, making it look as if Lucas was the real murderer.”
“You had a triple murderer living right here in Honoria?”
“He was my dentist when I was a teenager. I always thought he was sort of weird, but I never dreamed…Anyway, he even tried to do away with Rachel, Roger’s younger sister, when she stumbled onto the truth four years ago. Had it not been for Lucas and Wade rushing to her rescue, he might have killed her. Now Sam is in prison where he belongs and Lucas is married to Rachel and living quite happily in California.”
Mac had followed the tale with only a slight effort. “So Lucas married the sister of the man he was accused of murdering?”
“Yes. He owns a successful software company now. He’s made loads of money, which might have something to do with why the whole town practically salutes him every time he comes back to visit.”