“Actually, I’ve done some research, myself,” Mark confessed a bit sheepishly. “A couple of years ago, when I first moved here and heard the legend, I thought it might make an interesting book.”
“You’re writing a book?” Dean asked, startled.
Mark grimaced. “Nah. It’s just a bug I get every so often. The urge generally leaves me after I sweat blood over the first few pages.”
“And you thought of writing a book about the Cameron Inn?”
He nodded. “Seemed like a good idea at the time. And then ... well, things started happening when I looked into the twins’ deaths.” He finished the sentence in a mumble.
Dean cocked his head, studying Mark closely. “What things?”
Had Mark, perhaps, encountered a beautiful, ghostly woman who begged him to clear her brother’s name? Had he, too, become obsessed with that vision, losing sleep, losing interest in food, unable to concentrate on anything else? Had he wondered when he would see her again? Or what might have happened between them, if she’d been real?
Had Mark thought he was losing his mind?
“Nothing supernatural,” Mark said with a quick laugh, as though sensing the direction Dean’s thoughts had taken. “Just weird stuff I probably caused myself, maybe because I wasn’t committed enough to the idea of actually finishing a book. You know, notes disappeared, sources suddenly dried up, people stopped talking. Maybe if I’d pursued it more seriously, I’d have figured out what went wrong. But then the financial situation here at the paper turned critical and I was too busy saving my livelihood to think about legends.”
Surreptitiously, Dean glanced around the shabby lobby. Was the newspaper still in desperate straits?
Again, Mark seemed to read his thoughts. “Things are better now, though obviously I’m never going to get rich running a small-town daily. But it’s a good life. Helluva lot better than the rat race of political reporting.”
“That’s your background?”
“Yeah. Let’s just say I burned out. The Destiny Daily became a comfortable refuge at a time when I badly needed one.”
“You said things got weird when you started looking into the twins’ deaths. Was there any evidence that someone was trying to keep you from finding out the truth?” Dean phrased the question carefully, since he didn’t want to go into too much detail about his own interest in the story.
Mark frowned. “I was just beginning to wonder about that, myself, when everything started going to hell here at the paper. After that, there wasn’t time to think about it. And then, once I had the situation here under control, I guess I just forgot about it.”
“You don’t suppose your problems at the paper were connected, do you? A way of getting your attention off the Cameron twins and back onto your own business?”
Mark went still, his gaze sharpening. “Damn,” he muttered. “I must really be losing my edge. Covering elementary-school talent programs has dulled my once-suspicious, cynical nature.”
“Then it is possible?”
“It’s something I should have thought about,” Mark admitted. “But—”
He went silent for a moment, thoughtfully stroking his chin, and then he shook his head. “It isn’t likely, Dean. For one thing, why would anyone care about a seventy-five-year-old scandal? It makes a nice, spooky little legend, but it hardly affects anyone’s life these days.”
“What about the Peavy family? The twins’ stepfather inherited the inn when they died. I’m assuming the family’s current prominence in the community began then.”
“Not exactly,” Mark corrected. “The stepfather, Gaylon Peavy, was never overly successful with the inn. After his death, his son, Charles—the mayor’s grand-father—took over and kept it running until he could find a buyer, but the family money came from shrewd investments Charles made after selling the inn.”
“Investments in what?”
Mark started to answer, then stopped and shrugged. “I’m not sure, exactly. Everyone just said Charles Peavy was a smart investor.”
“We can still assume that his initial investment capital came from the sale of the inn. Which his father conveniently inherited when the twins died in the mysterious shoot-out.”
Mark cocke
d his head. “You have reason to believe Gaylon Peavy was involved in the twins’ deaths? Have you found something at the inn? What—a journal? A diary?”
Dean shook his head. “Nothing like that. It’s just that the story as it’s been told to me doesn’t quite ring true. Something’s off—or maybe I’ve just read too many murder mysteries,” he finished self-deprecatingly.
Mark didn’t smile. “I’m a fan of the genre, myself.”
“Maybe we’ve both read too many.”