“They had just made mixed marriage legal. There had been a big case. Lots of stories in the newspapers. And when it was settled, my friend asked me to marry him. We used to take the trolley to Oaks Park, and that’s where he asked me. On the carousel.”

Archie’s mouth felt dry. “What was his name?”

“I’m sure he’s dead now, Detective. It was a hundred years ago.”

“We still need his name,” Susan said.

“Hughes. August Albert Hughes.”

“I think there’s something you should know,” Archie said.

Chapter 66

CHAPTER

66

The picnic table at Oaks Park was crooked, lifted by floodwater and resettled at a slight angle. The grassy area under the elms was a field of mud. Across the river, the west side looked scarred where the river had carved away at its bank. But the clouds had cleared. The sky was blue. And the wooden top of the picnic table felt warm in the sun.

Archie watched his son and daughter play nearby, laughing as the mud sucked at their sneakers.

Ben looked up and waved, and Archie waved back at him.

It had been weeks since Archie had seen them. It had been too easy to make excuses.

He had let Susan do the talking, watching his children as she rattled off Gloria Larson’s story to August Hughes. Hughes sat quietly next to her on the picnic table bench until she was done.

“I didn’t kill Elroy McBee,” August Hughes said finally when she was done. “I figured he drowned, like everybody else. I figured it broke Gloria’s heart. That she still loved him.”

Susan’s brow furrowed and she glanced at Archie. “That’s why you never tried to see Gloria again,” she said.

“I didn’t kill him,” Hughes said again. “So who did?”

They both waited for Archie to say something.

“She said she threw the gun down the sewer,” Archie said. “Some of the sewer system is still there. When they built the golf course they reused it for irrigation. I’ve got people looking for it.”

“And if you find it?”

“It will have your fingerprints on it,” Archie said. “Or it won’t.”

It was a bluff. The odds of them finding the gun were next to none, the odds of there being any prints after sixty years were even slimmer.

But Hughes didn’t back down. “Will you tell her I didn’t do it?” he asked.

Susan looked up, behind Archie, toward the parking lot. “Tell her yourself.”

Archie turned and saw Gloria Larson and her daughter stepping out of a car. Another car pulled up beside it and Debbie got out and waved at him. He stood up. His kids ran to their mother.

“I have to go,” Archie said to Susan. “I’ve got something across the river.”

“The hearing, right?” Susan said.

“Today’s the day.”