“But this was what, five or six days later? She could have been in Canada by then.”

“Exactly. I thought the bigger head start she had, the safer she’d be.”

Inwardly I was rolling my eyes. “It didn’t bother you that your silence left Foley on the hot seat?”

“He put himself there. I didn’t do anything to him.”

“He’s always maintained she ran off. You could have backed him up.”

“Why would I help him? He beat her up for years and no one ever said a word. She finally got away from him and good for her. He could stew in his own juices as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t going to lift a hand.”

“I’m curious why you’d tell me when you never mentioned it before. Reporters must have asked.”

“I wasn’t under any obligation to them. For one thing, I don’t like journalists. What do they call themselves… ‘investigative reporters.’ Oh, please. Like they think they’ll get a Pulitzer out of the deal. They’re rude, and half the time they treated me like I was on the witness stand. All they cared about was selling papers and promoting themselves.”

“What about the sheriff’s department? You didn’t think to go back and set the record straight?”

“No way. By then they’d made such a federal case of it I was scared to say a word. I’m willing to admit it now because I’m fond of Daisy and I’m glad she’s doing this.”

I thought about it briefly, wondering how this fit in with what I knew. “Something else came up today. Winston Smith told me he saw her car out on New Cut Road that night. This was sometime before the fireworks ended because he could hear ‘em in the distance. He didn’t see Violet or the dog, but he knew the Bel Air. I can’t understand why she wasn’t gone by then if she’d left the house at six fifteen.”

Liza shook her head. “I can’t help you there. How does that fit in?”

“I have no idea.”

“So why didn’t he bring it up before? You talk about me keeping quiet. He could have said something years ago.”

“He did. He mentioned it to Kathy and she shrugged it off. It was one of those occasions where the longer he kept quiet, the harder it was for him to speak up. If she’d given him any encouragement, he might have passed the information on.”

Liza’s expression held a tinge of distaste. “I’m not sure how much credence you can give him. He and Kathy are having a hard time. He’d probably say anything to make her look bad.”

“Maybe so, but the point is it shores up Foley’s claim.”

“I never said Foley killed her. Just the opposite.”