Beverly began shutting the door and I cried, “Wait!”

Without thinking about it, I also stuck my foot in between the door and the doorframe. I knew this was a strange and rather rude thing to do, but I had to speak to Beverly for just a moment longer. I was now certain that the article I had read had been wrong about Beverly DeSantos. Who would keep a large portrait of someone they hated hanging in their home?

“Someone is sabotaging your grandfather’s exhibit,” I said quickly. I couldn’t be sure how much time Beverly would give me to explain myself. “I’m not a reporter, I’m an amateur detective. I can figure out who is behind all this. But only if you help me.”

My voice had lost all the fake cheeriness I had been using when I spoke earlier, and I knew this new approach was risky. But Beverly had seemed to see through all my attempts at covering up what I was really doing there, and telling her the truth seemed like the best option.

Beverly didn’t say anything. Instead she just looked down at where my foot was blocking her door and then back up at my face. Her eyes were narrowed behind her thick curtain of bangs, and she looked as if she was deeply suspicious of me.

“You don’t think I’m sabotaging the exhibit?” she asked me. She said it in a very neutral tone of voice, the way you might ask someone about the weather.

I shook my head. I was almost certain Beverly had nothing to do with what was going on. But I hoped she could help me find the real culprit.

Beverly leaned back from the doorway, and for a moment I thought she was going to try and shut the door again, whether my foot was in the way or not. But instead she swung the door wide open and gestured me inside.

“Thank you,” I said, giving her a tentative smile as I stepped inside.

From the outside, Beverly’s house had looked as though it would be a dark and cold space. I assumed that there would be curtains drawn over all the windows in the entire house, and that those tall hedges would block out most of the sunlight. But as I stepped inside, I could see that that wasn’t actually the case. The curtains were much more sheer than I would have guessed, and they let in a soft, hazy kind of light. I guessed they both illuminated and protected the photographs on Beverly’s walls. Everything was much more cozy and welcoming than I had anticipated.

I had also been right about the photographs on the walls. They all appeared to be of Beverly, and Christopher DeSantos, and other people who I assumed were their various family members. Above Beverly’s fireplace was the largest photograph of them all, the image I had seen of Beverly and her grandfather laughing together.

Looking around, I felt silly for how nervous I had been walking up to this house. I no longer felt nervous at all. If anything, I just felt bad for Beverly and the way everyone in this town treated her.