Dulcie glanced over at her. “You can’t still expect the end of the murder story? Jolene, if the killer is writing it, then he knows what we’ve been up to. You don’t still think he—”

“The killer will finish because he wants me to know why he killed Laura,” Jolene said.

Dulcie was shaking her head. “Why is he going to confess? We are no closer to finding out who killed Laura than when we both arrived in town. The killer has no reason to give himself—or herself—up. Not after twenty-four years. There isn’t going to be any more short story. You have to face the fact that we may never know the truth.”

Russell looked up as Dulcie made her way to his table at Northern Lights restaurant. When he’d called earlier to see if she would have dinner with him, she’d sounded discouraged. Now as she walked toward the table, he could see it in her face.

“Bad day?” he asked as he rose to help her with her chair.

There were dark circles under her eyes and she looked as if she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders.

“I feel as if I’m beating my head against a wall.” She filled him in on the talk with Midge Atkinson and Ronda Horton Carpenter as well as what Jolene had found out.

“I think Ronda Carpenter is in major denial but after meeting her husband, Ben, I can’t imagine how my mother could have been in love with him.”

“Nina Mae said he changed after the loss of his baby,” Russell reminded her. “If he and your mother were truly in love, her death must have changed him as well.”

“Of course there is always the chance that Midge is lying, and John was the man my mother was in love with and Ben was the man who got dumped.”

“I see why you feel like you’re beating your head against a wall,” Russell said.

“That’s just it. We have no idea who is lying and who is telling the truth. On top of that, Ben’s son, Mace, is one of Jolene’s students and Jolene has been going out with Ben’s stepson, Tinker. What a tangled mess.”

“Small-town Montana,” Russell said.

“Do you think Tinker knows who Jolene really is?”

Russell shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry about it, though. Didn’t he try to protect her when they were kids?”

“Yes.” She rubbed her temples. “Give me some good news. What did you find out about my mother’s locket?”

Russell wished he had good news. “The locket wasn’t on the body, according to the coroner’s report.”

“Are you telling me the killer took it?”

“Or it was misplaced during the investigation. I’m sorry. Shane got the DNA reports back.” Russell nodded. “You and Jolene are sisters.”

“Does Jolene—”