"She said that she planned on blaming her father's death on me. She'd kept hold of the shovel they'd used to dig the grave in the St. Margaret's cemetery. Today she planted it in the back yard to be found, because it still had dirt on it from the cemetery. When we told her that her dad was here and passed out, she hared out here and hit him in the head with that shovel. She figured he was about to break and give her up. After he was dead, she planned to blame his murder on me, and Tabitha's on him."

"Why would you kill Fred Hart?"

"I'm sure she would have thought of something," Tolliver said wearily. "After all, if a man like me kills a man like Fred Hart, I don't think there'd be too many questions. She would have thrown away her bloody clothes. Maybe if she couldn't figure out how to get blood on me that looked natural, she would have shot me, said she'd caught me in the house after I'd killed him. Who would you have believed?"

The police didn't like that. But I thought my brother was telling the truth.

"What Felicia didn't count on was Harper," Tolliver said, kissing me on the cheek. "I was never happier in my life to see anyone, as I was to see you when you popped up by that window."

"You came out here without a gun or nothing?" asked one of the cops.

"I don't like them," I said. "We've never had a gun."

He shrugged, like I was pretty stupid, and maybe I was.

But if I'd had a gun, I would have shot Felicia until I didn't have any bullets left. As it was, she was alive to stand trial for all the things she'd done. I got a lot of satisfaction out of that.

twenty

"YOU look like a cat attacked you," Victor said.

I just stared at him.

"Okay, not funny," he said. "I'm just really nervous."

I started to tell him we were, too, but I decided that wouldn't be a calming statement. And Victor really needed to calm down.

I'd figured it might help Victor take his mind off his family situation and at the same time broaden his horizons a bit, so I'd asked him if he wanted to come to the cemetery to help lay Josiah Poundstone's ghost. I was regretting that idea, at the moment. Victor was a little too excited, though he seemed thrilled that I'd asked him. He'd given me a big hug, which surprised the hell out of me and caused Manfred to raise his eyebrows.