“Ah . . . right.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I like the work I’m doing now. It’s useful. But law enforcement was in my blood. I know it sounds corny, like I’m some kind of Boy Scout or something, but it’s how I’ve always felt about the job. I think it’s how most of us feel. We’re proud of what we do. Because we believe we’re making a difference.” He paused, looking back out over the bay, at a father and son horsing around in a bass boat. He was smiling when he turned back, but it faded quickly. “Some of us give our lives to the job. The job doesn’t always return the favor.”

Lizzy glanced back into the house. She hadn’t noted it until now, but there was no sign of a woman about the place, and no ring on his finger. Single? Divorced? She recalled the trace of wet leaves she’d picked up earlier, and found herself wondering if Roger Coleman had given up something—or someone—for the job, and if the choice had been worth it.

Andrew had been idly swirling his tea, ice cubes rattling rhythmically against the glass. He set it down now, and leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Would it be breaking any rules to discuss where the case stood when you left? Neither of us wants you to go against your principles, but Lizzy has her own sense of duty. She’d like to know that she’s done everything she can to clear her grandmother’s name. She did go to Summers first, but he wasn’t much help.”

Roger nodded slowly. “I’d like to say that surprises me, but it doesn’t. The man doesn’t give a damn about public safety. He sees being police chief as a gig, a stepping-stone to bigger things.”

Andrew caught Lizzy’s eye with a look that said I told you so. “Mayor Cavanaugh just announced his retirement.”

Roger’s lips thinned. “Then you can bet the VOTE SUMMERS yard signs are being printed as we speak. Not that it was any big secret. We all knew he was angling for mayor, or higher. We could see him working it, milking the high-profile cases to get his name in the paper. He was all about the show. Unless it made him look bad. Then he wanted no part of it.”

Andrew’s brows knitted. “You think the Gilman murders made him look bad?”

Roger blew out a long breath. “The Gilman murders made everyone look bad. People in Salem Creek aren’t used to seeing that kind of thing on the local news. So when they do, it doesn’t take long for the finger-pointing to start. And the fingers weren’t just pointing at Summers. Cavanaugh was taking heat too, and Election Day was right around the corner. It was in everyone’s interest to make it go away.”

“Not everyone’s interest,” Lizzy shot back. “But he did get his way. There was never a resolution. No arrest. No trial. Nothing.”

Roger looked at her over steepled fingers. “You have to consider the evidence we had. Or, rather, didn’t have. We had the bodies and an anonymous tip, but nothing that linked your grandmother directly to the murders. No motive. No weapon. And no concrete forensics to speak of. Say we go ahead and make an arrest to tamp down the noise. Then we go to court. Only we can’t make the case and your grandmother’s acquitted. The last thing Cavanaugh wants while he’s out stumping for votes is for people to remember that two girls died on his watch, and that his police chief let a killer walk free.” He paused, shrugging heavily. “Sometimes, when you can’t make a case, it’s better to do nothing than to poke the hornet’s nest. Strategy must have worked. He’s still there.”

Andrew sat up straighter in his chair, as if grasping the full import of Roger’s words. “You think it was Cavanaugh who asked Summers to slow-walk the investigation?”

“No,” Roger replied flatly. “I think Cavanaugh told him to bury it completely. Summers probably wasn’t too keen at first. A conviction would have made him a hero, a champion of law and order. But when he realized a conviction wasn’t likely, he changed direction quick. I suspect there was some back-scratching involved. Cavanaugh wanted the story to go away so he could win reelection, and Summers wanted a hand when it finally came time for the mayor to head south.”

Lizzy stared at him, stunned. “So he just dropped a murder investigation?”

“Starved is more like it, but it amounts to the same thing. He claimed it had to do with budgeting, but none of us bought that. Here’s this huge case, and all of a sudden my guys can’t get the overtime they need to do the legwork, can’t get approval for labs that might help us nail down how long the girls had been in the water, or whether either of them had been poisoned. Nothing but alcohol came up on the tox screens, but that’s not unusual when a significant amount of time has passed before samples are collected. Fermentation skews everything. Toss in a couple weeks of submersion and things get really messy.”

“What about the Gilmans?” Lizzy asked, eager to change the subject. “Weren’t they demanding answers?”

“They were—or at least Fred Gilman was. But Summers managed to convince him the investigation had hit a dead end and that was that. Not that Gilman ever changed his mind about your grandmother’s guilt, but that was fine with Summers. He didn’t care what people believed, as long as he and Cavanaugh didn’t get their hands dirty.”

Lizzy stared at him, astonished. “Didn’t get their hands dirty? My grandmother was getting death threats, Detective. We were terrified every time she left the house.”

“I know. Things got . . . out of hand. It was bad enough when word leaked that we’d found the vial in Heather’s pocket. Blue glass, just like your grandmother used, but with no label. When she verified that the girls had visited her shop the afternoon they went missing, well, it was inevitable that people would jump to conclusions. As far as anyone knew—including us—Althea was the last person to see the girls alive.”

“Assurance,” Lizzy told him quietly. “That’s the name of the oil blend she made up for Heather that day. She wanted to make a boy fall in love with her. That’s why she came to the shop, for a love potion. But Althea didn’t believe in love potions. She thought they were manipulative, so she sold Heather the Assurance oil instead, to dab on her wrists. It’s a combination of cedar and carnation oils, used to inspire confidence. Not a sedative, and not remotely poisonous. But my grandmother told you all of that.”

Roger nodded. “She did.”

“But you didn’t believe her.”

“The neck of the vial was cracked when we retrieved it from Heather’s pocket. There was nothing to test, no way to verify its contents. We thought a sedative of some kind might account for how someone your grandmother’s age could have overpowered two young girls. We were doing our jobs, Ms. Moon.”

“I was there the day you came with your men,” Lizzy said softly. “I let you in.”

“Yes,” Roger said, the slight inclination of his head an acknowledgment that they’d officially crossed into uncomfortable territory. “I remember.”

Lizzy stood abruptly and moved to the railing, the combination of anger and memory making her vaguely queasy. Andrew must have sensed her mood because he was suddenly beside her, sliding a hand over hers on the railing. He said nothing, but the question in his eyes was easily read.

Are you okay?

When she nodded that she was, Andrew turned back to Roger. “You bring up a point that’s always bothered me, Roger. Althea Moon was five feet two, tops, and I doubt she weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet. Is it likely that she was strong enough to inflict the kinds of head injuries the girls sustained?”

“Only Darcy, the younger of the two, sustained a head injury,” Roger explained gravely. “Blunt force trauma to the left temporal and parietal areas. Subdural hematoma. Gruesome stuff. But the ME couldn’t be certain as to her definitive cause of death. There appeared to be some pulmonary hemorrhaging, which is sometimes seen in drowning victims. Hard to say, though, after so much time in the pond. Heather was strangled. Crushed trachea, two broken cervical vertebrae. Lungs looked clear, which means she was dead when she went in.”

Lizzy couldn’t help feeling a grudging respect for Roger Coleman. Eight years had passed since the Gilman girls were murdered and he still remembered their names, referring to them as Darcy and Heather, rather than mere faceless victims.

Andrew had fallen silent, his brows pinched, as if trying to work out something in his head. “Was there a time lag between the two deaths?” he asked finally.

Roger shrugged. “The level of decomposition was similar for both girls, but that has more to do with how long they were in the water than with actual time of death. It’s likely they died in close succession, but we can’t know for certain. There’s a lot we can’t know for certain.”