“Walk was good,” I say ignoring that of course Elaine already knows about my drive with Gabriel. “We ran into Frank Quinn at the school. He was leaving flowers for his sister.” Elaine’s presence is mildly inconvenient, but it won’t stop me from asking my burning questions. “He said you found her body, back in the day. Thinks we must be cursed.”

Maura barks a laugh. “He said that, did he? Frank’s always loved sensational conspiracy theories. But, oh, Cecelia…” She grasps my shoulder with her hand, squeezes reassuringly. “That’s why I hate what’s happened to you. I know what it’s like. The way it haunts you.”

“That’s why you wrote the book?”

“They say write what you know,” Maura replies darkly.

“Frank also said you told the cops about the pervy janitor. And his sister is Grace, the administrative assistant at Seaview High.”

“Lordy loo, Celia, are you on a tear. Yes, I told the sheriff about Joe, but Grace has never held that against me. Her brother did something truly awful in the name of passion, and she understands he’s paying for it.”

“That’s the Joe she mentioned my first week?”

“Oh, yes, he’s rotting in a prison about three hours’ drive from here.”

“Sometimes I take Grace down there for visitation day. Poor dear.” Elaine gets lost momentarily in her own saintly pity before turning on me with some interest. “But why are you interested in Caroline Quinn and Joe Bedecki?”

“Cecelia’s been bit by the amateur-detective bug, fancies herself a protagonist from one of my novels,” Maura answers. “If she’s asking about Caroline and Joe, it’s because she’s connected it to Natalie’s death. She’s got a murder board started in my office and everything. Your favorite politician’s on it, in fact.”

“Oh, is he?” Elaine singsongs. “God, wouldn’t that be juicy as shit if the mayor killed his own child?”

Maura catches my confusion.

“Managed retreat would see Elaine’s Hotel Seaview sold off and demolished to make way for the sea,” Maura says.

“Fuckers,” Elaine spits. “I finally outlive my brothers to run the place, and they want to tear it down. So we get a little basement flooding once in a while. It’s fine.”

I think about Gabriel and me coming through a stream in the middle of the street last night.

“What’s on your murder board about Mayor Fuckerino?” Elaine inquires of me gleefully.

“He got into a screaming argument with Natalie before she died. That’s all I know.”