Marta Perry - Sound Of Fear

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LEAVING THE LIBRARY behind the next day, Amanda walked toward the café. She’d agreed to meet Trey there for lunch to share the fruits of their efforts. When she’d suggested that they didn’t need to have lunch together to do that, he’d countered with the fact that they’d have lunch in any event, so they may as well eat while they talked.

She hadn’t found an argument to that, at least not without coming out and admitting that she was trying to prevent a repeat of the feelings she’d experienced the previous day at the falls.

Trey, however, seemed friendly in a businesslike way, and his manner reassured her. Once Esther waved them to a table in the corner, he looked around as if something were missing.

“No guard dog today?”

Amanda shook her head. “I thought he’d better stay at the cottage. Somehow I didn’t think he’d be welcome at the library.”

“No, I don’t think so. Mrs. Gifford runs a tight ship. She used to make us kids empty our pockets before we went back to the stacks, just to be sure no sticky candy was going to get on her books.”

She had to smile. “I did think her rather intimidating. To say nothing of curious. She seemed to find a lot of reasons to walk behind me while I was scanning the microfiche.”

“That’s unfortunate, but it’s about what I expected. It won’t be possible to keep your mission a secret very long.”

Trey seemed to take that more seriously than she did. Maybe it was a sign of his mixed loyalties. Or possibly being overly cautious was part of the attorney’s job description.

“I never thought keeping it quiet was a viable option. If I’m going to find answers, people will have to know what the questions are.” A spurt of annoyance went through her. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” His eyebrows lifted, giving his face a momentary look of caricature. “The Winthrop family might well take offense at a stranger bringing up the painful past.” He held up a hand when she would have spoken. “Okay, let’s not go over the same ground again, especially when Esther is heading this way.”

Maybe he was right. She tried to focus on the menu, but ended up ordering the chicken potpie because Esther seemed to expect it. Meanwhile she wrestled with the unpalatable fact that if she made enemies of these people to start with, they were hardly likely to be cooperative.

Once Esther had gone, Trey glanced around the café, and he was apparently satisfied that the other customers were focused on their own meals and conversations. “How did you make out with the newspaper accounts?”

Amanda shrugged off her irritation. “Slim, very slim. Pictures of the falls, an account of the difficulty the volunteers had in bringing her out, a sketchy account of her being spotted by a hiker. And a carefully worded obituary a day later.” She toyed with her spoon. “It allowed me to visualize Melanie a little better, but it was short on helpful facts. I ran across a photo of her,” she said, setting it on the table. “She looked very young, very naive. She was barely eighteen when she died.” That was inexpressibly sad. Amanda glanced at Trey, to find him studying her face. “What? Do you see a resemblance?”

“Not in coloring, so much, but maybe in your features. What do you think?”

“I don’t know.” She’d wanted some confirmation one way or the other in the photo, but she didn’t see it. Certainly no one had ever said she looked like Juliet, and now she knew why. “For an instant I thought she looked familiar, but then it passed. Anyway, a black-and-white newspaper photo hardly gives an idea of how someone looks.”

“True enough. Did the newspaper say anything about where Melanie had been? Or mention her leaving town at all?”

Amanda shook her head. “It said she’d recently returned from a visit to friends in New York. I suppose that was what the family told the reporter.”

“And he’d be unlikely to print anything else, even though the town had been whispering about Melanie’s departure for months.”

“But what was the point, if people already guessed the truth?” She let her exasperation spill over. “What’s the use of trying to manipulate the news, then?”

“Darned if I know, but obviously it was important to the Winthrop family. Pride, I suppose. Things were a little different then in terms of what was acceptable.”

“I guess. It’s difficult to envision how much society has changed in the last thirty years or so.” But this wasn’t getting them anywhere. “What about you?”

“I didn’t have much more luck with the records...”

He cut the words short when Esther arrived with their meals. Beaming, she slid steaming bowls in front of each of them and added a basket of rolls. “There now. You get that inside you, and you’ll have plenty of energy for whatever you have to do today.”

“It smells delicious,” Amanda said. And it looked that way, too.

Esther picked up her tray, gratified. “I hear you’re staying with the Burkhalter family.”

She blinked. “How did you hear about that already? I just moved in yesterday afternoon.”

“Ach, you haven’t run into the Amish grapevine yet, ain’t so? We don’t need telephones for word to spread fast. You’ll be happy there, I know. Sarah will take gut care of you.”

“She’s already brought me a streusel coffee cake, just to be sure I wouldn’t go hungry,” Amanda said. Somehow she doubted that any more gifts would be forthcoming, not if Sarah’s abrupt departure at the mention of Melanie Winthrop meant anything about her future behavior.

“Ach, that’s Sarah all right.” Someone hailed Esther, and she moved off, unhurried.

Trey buttered a roll, watching her. “You looked a little funny when she mentioned Sarah. There’s nothing wrong, is there?”

She wasn’t sure she liked the fact that he could read her expressions so easily. “Something happened that was rather odd. Sarah and I were having a nice conversation, and she asked about what brought me to Echo Falls. I didn’t tell her the whole story, but when I mentioned Melanie Winthrop she just...froze. I don’t know how else to put it. Her whole manner changed. She said she had to do something and rushed away. I didn’t know what to make of it.”

Trey’s forehead furrowed. “That is strange. I’m surprised she even knew about Melanie’s disappearance. She wouldn’t have been much more than in her early teens, I’d guess.”

Shrugging, Amanda scooped up a fragrant spoonful of the chicken broth and noodles. “Teenagers seem to know everything. I don’t suppose it was any different then.”

“Could be.” But he still looked troubled. “It’s odd, all the same. I can’t even guess what would make Sarah act that way. What did you say to her?”

Was he imagining that she’d given Sarah the third degree?

“I told you. I’d barely gotten Melanie Winthrop’s name out before she reacted. I didn’t have time to ask her anything.”

He shook his head, frowning a little. “There has to be a reason, but I’d guess she wouldn’t tell me, even if I asked.”

“I’ll cross her off my list of possible sources of information,” she said. “How did you make out?”

“The court records showed little or nothing. There was an inquest, of course, but it was more a form than anything serious. It brought back the verdict of accidental death and expressed sympathy for the family.”

So they’d been quick to sweep Melanie’s death under the rug, in other words. “What about the postmortem?”

“There wasn’t one.” Trey’s voice flattened, as if in disapproval. “The family was opposed to having it carried out, and according to the coroner, the cause of death was fairly obvious. Head injuries, as you might expect. Reading between the lines, I’d say the decision makers saw no point in going farther. An unfortunate accident or maybe a despairing suicide. They picked accident, issued a few warnings about the dangers of the falls trail and dropped it.”