“I guess everyone involved will just have to deal with it, won’t they? The next time you talk to Ross, tell him I said hi. Is he coming home for Memorial Day?”

Wallaby shrugged. “He never tells us until the night before. Probably not, since he’s got himself a new girlfriend.”

The reporter looked at his watch. Who should he tackle next? Pete, Boomer, or the Hollister twins? He opted for Amy for one reason only. He didn’t like her. He’d asked her to the junior prom, and she’d refused. Even now, all these years later, he could still cringe at her biting refusal. She’d put her hands on her hips and stared at him. Then she’d burst out laughing and said she’d rather stay home than go with him. She hadn’t stayed home, but she didn’t have a date that year either. Her twin brother had taken her. Larry had taken Emily Jackson and actually had a good time.

It was his turn now.

Payback time.

She was home. That was good, Denville thought, when he pulled alongside Amy’s van twenty minutes later. Notepad in hand, his recorder turned on, he exited his car and walked up the walkway to Amy’s small front porch. He rang the bell and waited.

And waited. He rang the bell a second time.

“All right! All right! I’m coming!” The voice came from the second floor. She sounded like a herd of elephants as she bounded down the steps.

Amy Chambers peered through the screen door. “What do you want? If it’s about your taxes, go to Arnie’s office.”

“Nope. I want to talk to you, Amy. The paper is doing a story on the old Jeff King case. I want some comments from you.”

“Well, guess what, Larry Denville, I don’t want to talk to you, and I sure don’t have any comments. I wasn’t there that day, and I have nothing to say. Go bother someone else. I’m busy. Isn’t there something interesting going on in this town that you can report on? No one wants to read about all that old crap.”

“Crap?” Larry scribbled the word in his notebook. “I guess I can quote you on the fact that you think Jeff King’s death was, or is, crap.”

“I didn’t mean it that way, and you know it. I meant this circus you’ve been conducting. First it was all those articles in the paper, the film of the famous movie star, then the thing at the pond, and now another article. What are you trying to do? And no, Jeff’s death was not crap. It was a tragic accident. Everyone said so, even the police. Your own paper said it was a tragic accident.”

“Says who? They just said what the town wanted them to say. I spoke to Chief Wallaby, and he told me something they never put in the paper. That day they found a foil wrapper from a roll of film. It’s still in the evidence bag at the police lockup. Back then they didn’t have the new methods we have today to retrieve fingerprints. What was on there was smudged, but they did preserve it nonetheless. Don’t you watch that television show CSI? Forensics these days is amazing.”