“We’ve all heard that you found the poor girl. I imagine you came for closure.”

“Something like that,” I say.

I watch the rain glisten on the grass, and I think about how Frank must feel. Fifty-two years ago, his sister was killed at this pool. Every year, for fifty-two years, he’s put flowers on that spot.

Did he ask for forgiveness every time? The question pushes up my throat before I can stop myself.

“Why the message on the card?”

Sadness clouds Frank’s eyes, tugs down on his mouth. “I was her brother. It was my job to protect her. And I was there. Too preoccupied with someone’s illicit flask to notice her go off.”

“With Joe Bedecki?” I prod.

Frank turns hard, no longer warm and fuzzy.

“Morgan says you don’t think he did it.”

Frank’s mouth twists sourly. “Doesn’t matter what I think, does it? No one’s ever listened to me.”

“The evidence was pretty clear,” Ben says, defensiveness in his tone.

“Were you there, boy?” Frank snaps. But then he exhales, long and sorrowful, as though he is more tired than he is angry. He turns to me, calmer now. “Why are you on about it?”

“If you don’t think they caught the real killer, then that means he may still be here, in Seaview.”

He shakes his head. “Sure. But they’d be as old as I am. Older, since I reckon it wasn’t a fellow fifteen-year-old that strangled my sister. It takes a lot to kill a person. I certainly don’t have it in me.”

Frank is right, but still. The original murder niggles at me, like there’s something there, but I can’t yet see it. The superfan angle is DOA, with Chris ruled out and Reama with an alibi. Still, someone’s copied the book, or the original killing, for a reason. Misdirection, I guess. But why?

We huddle close to the wall as the rain intensifies, half the parking lot now rendered a lake. But Frank doesn’t make a move for his car as I expect. He eyes Ben.

“I’d offer a ride,” Frank says, “but I’m going in the opposite direction. I reckon a gentleman might dash off back to Maura’s to grab his car so he might save his girlfriend from getting fully soaked.”

Embarrassment licks at my insides, and before I can stammer a protest, Ben tells me he’ll be back in five minutes and takes off in a jog.

“I’m not a damsel in distress,” I tell Frank, annoyed. “I can handle walking home in the rain.”

Frank takes my chastisement in stride. In fact he appears downright amused. “It’d be a shame if you did after I went to all that trouble to get us the opportunity to speak alone.”