Diana speaks up. “Alicia, you know you can’t place that heavy burden on a young woman. To have the courage and maturity to go to the police or the university administration. She’d be terrified. Be realistic.”

Bowman crosses her arms. “Why did Hoffman kill Sophia in the first place? I mean, say your theory is correct. I can see why he kills Madeline, if she’s coming back to hold his feet to the fire. Madeline threatened everything in his life with any accusation of sexual harassment she would make, even from two years ago. Hoffman could have lost his job. He could have been publicly embarrassed. And that’s not getting into an accusation of murder. So maybe he tried to get Madeline to go away. Maybe he was following her. Maybe he followed her to the cemetery that night. Things didn’t go his way, so he killed her. I can see that happening, as sick as it is. But why kill Sophia? What did she have to do with it?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” I say.

“No,” Bowman says. “Enlighten me.”

“Lance and Zach were friends. If Zach killed Sophia, as a lot of people suspect, then maybe he told Lance those details.”

“So we’re back to blaming everything on Zach again?”

“Why not? He’s the husband.”

“We’ve been investigating him for over two years,” she says. “If we had something to get the guy with, we would.”

“So maybe this is it,” I say.

“But this story implicates Hoffman. Not Zach,” Bowman says.

“Okay, maybe Madeline told Sophia about the harassment and she tried to confront Lance about it. Sophia knew Lance and lived near him. Maybe Sophia stood up for Madeline and paid the price at Lance’s hands.”

Bowman taps the pages again. But her thoughts seem to be on things beyond those words in front of her. She gets a funny look on her face, kind of like she just remembered a good joke.