"What are you doing?" I asked, and I didn't sound polite.

"What is it, Marv?" Sandy called from the top of the stairs. She froze when she saw us. Her large brown eyes, magnified many times by her outsize brown-framed glasses, were wide and shocked.

"What are you two doing?" I said again, with even more of an edge to my voice now. Someone had already helped himself to searching the contents of Poppy's closet and her bedroom. Now Poppy's mom and dad were ransacking the house under the guise of parental love. I was very unhappy with them. I was also angry that people I'd always respected were making a mockery of that respect by their behavior.

The Wynns appeared to be groping for an answer to my abrupt question.

"We, ah, we were looking for something. We asked John David if he'd mind."

"You told John David you were looking for an heirloom Mrs. Wynn's mom had left her," I said bluntly. ‘You've been here for hours, searching this house, as far as I can see. And I'm sure whatever precious heirloom it was, Poppy wouldn't have taped it to the bottom of a drawer, or stuffed it into a book!"

The Wynns didn't seem to be able to come up with a response. Finally, Marvin said, "Who is this man with you?"

"I'm Bryan Pascoe, John David's attorney."

Sandy Wynn came farther down the stairs, the first time she'd moved since she'd called to her husband. She exchanged glances with Marvin.

"Surely you didn't need to bring a lawyer" Marvin said in his best ministerial voice. "After all, we're family here."

He could not have said anything more calculated to make my neck crawl.

"We are not family," I said clearly. "Please explain yourselves."

"Listen, missy," Sandy said. "We are thirty years older than you are, and you will treat us with some respect."

"When you deserve it."

Sandy's face sagged on its bones, making her look much older in an instant. "We were just looking for some old family things," she insisted. "We haven't found them. Since you're in such a snit, missy, we'll just leave." She said this as if it was a big threat. "We'll stop by your house and get our bags and go home. You'll excuse me, under the circumstances, if I don't write a thank-you note."

"It's very late for you to start home," Bryan said, sounding irritatingly reasonable. "Why don't you check into the motel here in town, instead, and start back in the morning?"

"No, young man," Marvin Wynn said. "I'm not too old to drive at night, and we want to get out of this town. The day I retired from my job here was one of the best days of my life."

I'd learned, years ago, that being a pastor is a job—a difficult and stressful one at that—but nonetheless, I found it shocking to hear the former Reverend Wynn speak in such a vicious way.

Bryan didn't respond, which was a relief. I didn't want to hear any more discussion. I just wanted the absence of the Wynns. I nudged an open book with my foot. The house was in a terrible state now. I sighed, already guessing whose task it would be to set it to rights.

Sandy and Marvin took some time getting their coats; with Bryan and me standing there, there was little opportunity for them to take anything. I hated being so suspicious, but I knew I had to be alert. This situation was completely fishy. Sandy had seemed so broken up on Monday night, but now I knew she'd already been in Lawrenceton that morning. Marvin, too, had appeared grief-stricken and miserable, at least to my eyes. And yet here they were, trashing their daughter's home.

Finally, they were at the door. Swaddled in all their winter gear (pretty much not necessary, for the night was in the fifties), the older couple looked harmless and beneficent with their silver hair and glasses.

Sandy opened her mouth to say something else insulting, but I preempted her. "What were you doing out at the Grabbit Kwik getting gas Monday morning? Have you told the police about your little trip to Lawrenceton before Poppy's body was found?"

"We never came here Monday morning," Marvin said with dignity. "I went to get my annual physical, and Sandy went to do some comparison shopping for a new stove."

"Good cover story," I said to Sandy. "Something you could spend a long time doing, with no tangible results."

If Sandy had looked tense before, she looked beleaguered now. But her lips stayed pressed together. I couldn't have wiggled one bit of truth between them.

"Key," I said tersely, holding out my hand. Sandy fished in her pocket and dropped the key on my palm, which closed around it instantly. But then I had a thought, and I opened my palm to compare this key to the one John David had loaned me. They matched.

The Wynns gave us twin glares as they left.

I sat down on the stairs when the door shut behind them. This had shaken me more than I'd realized. I was actually surprised at how much the week's events were depleting my normal energy. I'd had several of these shaky spells. Bryan sat by me. He put his arm around me, which I could have done without, but it was okay. It didn't feel sexual, not until his fingers started playing with my hair, that is.

"Do you want to call John David from here?"

"Would you?" I was just plain being weak.

"Sure," he said, but he didn't move. "What do you think they were looking for?" he asked after a moment or two.

"I don't know. Something small. And the person who was searching Poppy's closet was looking for something small, too. Something that could be hidden in a book, or a shoe box."

"Jewelry?"

"That would fit. Or documents."

"What kind of documents? She left a will. Poppy and John David both made wills when Poppy found out she was pregnant."

"John David tell you that?"

"Yes. But it wasn't the first thing he said. He didn't come out with it until I asked him that specifically."

I thought Bryan was telling me that in his opinion, John David hadn't been thinking of his possible financial gain from Poppy's death. I had never considered the fact that Poppy might have some money stashed away, and I couldn't imagine where such a stash could have come from. Her dad was a minister, so his pay had been low, and he and his wife were still very much alive. If Poppy had ever gotten any substantial inheritance from another relative, I'd never heard of it. And Poppy had worked for a few years, but working for a few years as a teacher and living off the proceeds were almost a guarantee you didn't have a lot left over. "What lawyer drew up the wills?" I asked.

"Bubba Sewell."

"Hmm. You know what I wonder? I wonder if Poppy gave Bubba a key during the course of their affair."

"I hope I don't have to ask him that in court." Bryan's hand kept combing through my hair. I moved a little farther from him, and his hand dropped into his lap.

"I can ask him." Especially after our confrontation the day before (or had it been Monday?), Bubba and I were quite ready to be rude to each other. My mind moved on ahead. "Do you think ... do you suppose... that Poppy gave a key to each of her, um, men friends?"

"There'd be quite a few around, if that's the case." Bryan looked thoughtful.

"Yes." I had a lot of unpleasant thoughts circling in my tired brain. "But Bubba ..."

"Yes?"

Suddenly, I didn't want to continue. "Nothing," I said. "While I check out the house, why don't you call John David and let him know what happened? Then we can go. I really appreciate your doing this."

"This is just the kind of thing a good lawyer does for his clients," Bryan said with a wide, sharklike smile.

"There must be a lot I don't know about good lawyers." I smiled back. I went up the stairs. The closet, of course, was still in disarray. This time, even John David's clothes and ties and coats and sweaters had been gone through. What the hell were people looking for? I was assuming that two different people (or groups of people) had gone through the house. The first intruder, the one who'd confined the search to Poppy's half of the closet, had had a specific idea of where the object—whatever it was—had been stashed. In contrast, the Wynns had used a shotgun approach.