“Your uncle ran a big-time cocaine operation, between Mexico and the U.S., back in his salad days. My predecessors suspected him, even then, but they couldn’t come up with any proof. When he married Barbara, she thought he was a prosperous businessman. Needless to say, she was not happy when she found out the real source of his money. Scourge on the family name, you know.” He looked down at Barbara’s dead body, and he seemed so detached that I got scared all over again. I was alone in a cemetery with this man, and he’d just shot a woman. So what if he’d flashed a badge? They’re easy to get. “Your dad evidently got the bright idea to tap Clive for enough to buy his own tire store,” he went on. “Barbara didn’t want the scandal, let alone the expense, so she offed him.”

I fought back a swell of nausea. “Isn’t there a statute of limitations on drug running?” I asked. I was in shock, and having a hard time tracking. No choice but to play catch-up.

Joseph nodded. “Yes, but some people connected with the operation turned up dead from very unnatural causes, and that kept the case viable.”

I grappled with that for a few seconds. Then my attention shifted back to Barbara. “Don’t people like her usually hire hit men?”

“That would have been an even bigger risk, for somebody like Mrs. Larimer. Cactus Bend is a small town, and people talk. After we found some random notes and cancelled checks—some of which were your uncle’s—the theory emerged that she’d hired your brother to take the rap. Most likely, once he’d spent what she gave him, he wanted more.”

I heard cars racing up the cemetery road. Blinked in the glare of the oncoming headlights. It was my turn to nod. “She told me Geoff was blackmailing her,” I said. My breath caught as the implications of what Joseph had just said sank in. Clive had written some of the checks. “Are you saying my uncle knew Barbara had killed my parents? He knew it all the time, and covered it up?”

Joseph gave me a pitying look. “We matched several of the blackmail payments to some of Larimer’s private accounts.”

I absorbed that. Shifted emotional gears again. “He’s a senator. Why didn’t the opposition ever dig up any of this stuff?”

“Until he decided to run for governor, Larimer was just another member of just another state legislature. Governors have a habit of running for the presidency, though, so the heat would have been on sooner or later.”

“It’s been twenty-three years since the murders,” I said bitterly. “You sure took your sweet time wrapping this up.”