“This was recorded seven years ago. You don’t have to read too far between the lines to know what he’s talking about.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Ruby replied. But she did.

“Gordon Brink tried to bribe Sandra Thoreau to quit the mine,” Darrell continued, with a snake’s patience. “When that didn’t work, he had a backup plan. In other words, he was going to make sure something bad happened to Sandra. And the men who were going to carry it out for him were Kip Wells and Racer Moritz.”

Ruby’s lips puckered nervously. “What does that have to do with me?”

“Brink wasn’t local. He didn’t find Kip and Racer on his own. He needed someone who knew the area, who could make an introduction. We both know that the person who helped him was Ajax.”

Ruby didn’t deny it. Or confirm it. She did what guilty people do and tried to wriggle out from the truth. “I don’t see how you expect to prove that after all this time. Not with Ajax gone.”

“I talked to the sheriff of Mittel County today,” Darrell retorted. “Seven years ago, he called Ajax to tell him that Kip and Racer had reached out to Norm. So Ajax knew. He checked Norm’s trailer. He found the two of them hunkered down in the forest. Ajax could have brought a team of deputies out there and arrested them, but he had other plans for Kip and Racer, right? Those plans involved Gordon Brink.”

Listening to Darrell made me think about how things might have been different. Fate hinges on the smallest of accidents.

If a deputy hadn’t overheard Norm talking to Kip and Racer on the courthouse pay phone, there would have been no hint of where they were hiding. Ajax never would have checked Norm’s trailer, and Gordon Brink never would have met Kip and Racer. The rest of the dominoes wouldn’t have fallen. There would have been no Ursulina murders.

All the other ripples, the ones that came later, never would have happened, either. I wouldn’t have joined the sheriff’s department or visited that lake where Tom Ginn was stranded. There would be no you, Shelby.

So maybe some things are simply meant to be.

Maybe we can’t escape fate. One way or another, it has its way with us.

Ruby reflected on what to say. Really, she shouldn’t have said anything at all. What we had was nothing but suspicion and conjecture, but I could see that with Ajax gone, Ruby was tired of concealing her husband’s crimes. She wanted the weight lifted from her shoulders.

“Am I at risk myself?” she asked. “Are you going to arrest me for the murders?”

“Were you involved in any of them?”

“No.”

“Was Ajax?”

“No.”

“Do you know who killed them?”