"Robin," I said, hesitating to break into his grief.

He lifted his head and looked down at me. I reached up to rub a tear off his face. "She was so fragile," he said. "She was such a mess."

Not "I loved her," or "What will I do without her?"

I pushed my glasses back on my nose and eyed him doubtfully.

"I'm really sorry, Robin, but the police are here. We need to find somewhere for you to wait, because they're going to want to talk to you."

"Did you say," he began slowly, disregarding what I'd told him, "did you say Celia had been murdered?"

"I'm sorry, yes."

He looked baffled. "But that doesn't make any sense," he said.

It seemed like a strange comment. But just as I opened my mouth to ask him what he'd meant, I heard a familiar voice.

And the day got even worse.

Chapter Six

His round blue eyes went from me, up to Robin, over to Barrett, and back again. "Isn't this fascinating" said Detective Arthur Smith. It was a moment pregnant with emotions, but those emotions were so snarled up it would have been hard to tease them apart.

If I just explain that my history with Arthur is long and complicated, it will spare us all a lot of tedium.

I hadn't seen Arthur (to speak to) in almost two years; of course, in a town the size of Lawrenceton, it would be hard to avoid glimpses of him, and I hadn't particularly been trying to do that.

Arthur was somewhat burlier than he had been in the days when we'd dated, and his hair was a little thinner, it seemed to me. He was still a solid block of a man, with hard blue eyes and curly pale hair. These past few months I'd been so far out of the loop that I realized I didn't even know if Lynn (Arthur's ex) and their little girl were still living in town.

"Who is this?" he asked me, as casually as if we'd had coffee together the hour before. He was pointing at my stepson.

"This is Barrett Bartell, Martin's son. He found her."

Arthur squatted down in front of Barrett. Barrett met his eyes. I could tell Barrett was enough his father's son to dislike Arthur on sight—but Barrett was involved in a murder now, and couldn't afford such an emotion. I squeezed his arm to warn him. Barrett was definitely snapping back into his personality. He yanked away from me, and he didn't do it subtly.

I tried not to feel hurt, but it didn't work. I felt mostly... tired, I guess. I struggled to rise above it. Martin would want me to help Barrett, whether Barrett wanted to be helped or not.

"What brought you to Miss Shaw's trailer this morning?" Arthur said. His voice didn't sound particularly friendly.

"I needed to talk to her about..." And then Barrett stopped in mid-sentence.

"About what?"

He looked like he'd just seen the Ghost of You Better Shut Your Mouth over Arthur's shoulder, and it had shaken its finger at him.

"He was going to talk to Celia about the implications of their having spent the night together," Robin said, his face absolutely expressionless. I had no idea what he was thinking or how he was feeling. Somehow he maintained his composure and straightened his slumped shoulders, his face now in profile to me and once more under guard. It was a "man" thing to do, I thought wryly. But I admired him for holding on to his personality under the pressure of the shock and grief—and anger—he must be feeling. Even if he and Celia were no longer involved, it had to sting that she had so quickly found someone else to fill her bed.

Will Weir stepped over to Robin and put a hand on his shoulder. For a second the two men embraced, and if ever I had seen two miserable people, this was the occasion. Then they let each other go, and I was glad Robin had someone to comfort him, someone who'd known the dead girl well.

"Why are you here?" Arthur asked me. I had the feeling he'd said it more than once.

"Yeah, Mom," Barrett said jeeringly. He'd recovered far more quickly than I'd hoped he would. His defenses were firmly back in place. "You come to check up on me? I thought you'd had enough of us movie people last night."

Martin had put up with a lot from Barrett, but if he'd heard Barrett speak to me this way, he would've knocked his son from here to kingdom come. I knew that as well as I knew my own name; and Barrett knew it, too. I met his eyes to see if there was any shame lurking there. There was, but it wasn't enough.

The guilt-engendered protective feeling I'd had for the young man—which I likened to temporary insanity— dropped right off my shoulders. Inside my head, I informed Martin that his son was just going to have to fend for himself. "And it's about damn time," I muttered, telling Martin a posthumous home truth.

"What?" Arthur looked startled, as well he might.

"I had hoped," I said slowly, "that you would make your father proud." Barrett looked as if I'd kicked him in the jewels. "Surely, Barrett, you're thinking more about this poor, dead young woman than you are about your little personal issues with me." I turned my back on Martin's son. I felt thirty years older than Barrett, rather than ten.

I decided to pretend he wasn't there. "Angel's car wouldn't start, so I brought her to work today," I explained to Arthur, who'd been listening to my exchange with Barrett with great attention. "She wanted me to meet her friend, the pretty woman with all the earrings, over there." I inclined my head in Carolina's direction. "Then, Celia's friend Meredith came to get me, to tell me Celia wanted to apologize for her behavior last night."

"What behavior?" Arthur asked, which was a reasonable question. But I didn't want to talk about my vulnerability to Celia's particular sort of—well, maybe "cruelty" was too severe a word—she'd used me ... I got mad all over again, and lost my train of thought entirely.

"What did Celia Shaw do last night?" Arthur said gently. He had prompted me without being asked, an unpleasant reminder of how well he knew me. He reached out as if he were going to take my hand, and then changed the movement to a hair-smoothing gesture.

I cinched up my pride. "She invited me to dinner so she could observe my mannerisms," I said. I cut my eyes sideways to see if Barrett was going to comment, but he'd turned away.

"How did you find the deceased this morning?" Arthur asked. He'd gotten out his little notebook and the cheap Bic pen he preferred. He was still using the same model.

Didn't make any difference if he lost it, he'd always told me.

"While I was talking to Meredith, I saw Barrett knock at the trailer door, open it, and go in. He came out looking sick." I shrugged, letting him know that was that. "Other people had come up to the trailer earlier and talked to her."

"I'll talk to you later, Roe," he said. "You wait over there." He pointed to one of the folding chairs on the porch of the makeup trailer. I didn't wait for a second offer. I sat in the chair and crossed my legs and took a few deep breaths. I was glad I'd worn a dress, a cool dress. The sun was coming up and the touch of it on my skin was beginning to show that little kiss of ferocity that said the temperature was going to reach the eighties. October is truly unpredictable in the South. I slid out of my sweater.

I got out my own cell phone and called the library to explain why I'd be late. Sam's assistant, Patricia Bledsoe, was at her desk, and as correct as ever. What a pain in the patootie that woman was, I thought absently, and then felt embarrassed at myself. Since when had dressing and speaking correctly, and acting professional, been a pain? "I'll try to be in this afternoon," I told Patricia and snapped my phone shut.

Well, it was a pain. She was a pain. And she was hiding something, my less correct self insisted on muttering to my nicer, more charitable persona. The last thing in the world Patricia Bledsoe would want was her Jerome hanging around on a movie set. That whole conversation had been fishy.