I’m sure Stevie had the same image of Haywood and Isabel roaring into Dobbs as I had. “God, no!”

“Well, then? Were you guys with this Lamarr Wrenn or not?”

“Not,” he said reluctantly. “Lamarr was pumped and still mad as hell and he said he was going home. Eric offered to go with him, but he said he needed to be alone. Needed to think.”

“What time was this?” Dwight asked.

Stevie shook his head. “I don’t know. I never looked at my watch till right as we were leaving.”

“You’re sure he left?”

“We didn’t follow him, but he was heading for the entrance when we split up.”

“And you didn’t hear what he was mad at Hartley about?”

“I was around on the back when they got into it. All I heard was what I told you.”

“And where was Eric?”

“Right beside me. It was over as quick as it started. A few words, one punch. That was it, Mr. Dwight. I swear.”

“Who else was with y’all?” Dwight asked.

I didn’t recognize either of the other two names, but Dwight jotted them down on a scrap of paper, then said, “Okay. Thanks, Stevie. We’ll run you back to your dorm.”

“That’s it?”

“Unless you saw or heard something else I ought to know?”

“Nope, that’s it.” His face shone with holy innocence, but I’d seen his palpable relief an instant before.

He immediately turned to Dwight and said, “If you’ll let me out, I’ll walk back to the dorm.”

“Stevie—”

But Dwight had opened the door and stepped out, and Stevie didn’t linger. “‘Night, Deborah. ‘Night, Mr. Dwight,” he called, already halfway across the parking lot.

“Now what do you suppose he thought Eric didn’t tell us?” I asked as we watched Stevie take a shortcut through the inn’s lobby.

“Whatever it was, he’ll probably be on the phone to Shaw in five minutes, getting their stories together.”

CHAPTER 11

SUNDAY EVENING

We stopped for supper at Las Margaritas in Garner, and the waiter, mistaking our relationship, seated us in a secluded booth made romantic by candlelight. I pushed the candle over to the side while Dwight ordered a Dos Equis for himself and a frozen margarita for me. There were years that I couldn’t face them, but I tried one again last spring and it was so refreshing that it’s back in the lineup now. Dwight likes burritos or chiles rellenos. I usually get the taco salad with extra guacamole. (I might not have been tempted had the serpent offered me an apple, but if it’d been an avocado, don’t bet the Garden.)

I was concerned about Stevie, but he’s a basically sensible kid and maybe when he’d had a chance to think about it, he’d realize that murder isn’t a game where you get to decide what to tell and what to withhold, especially when it’s the murder of a cousin. And even though he didn’t yet know Brazos Hartley was a cousin, blood still counts for something in our family.