Dan nodded. “I’m sorry about Donald, too,” he said.

There was another long period of quiet. Other people might have been tempted to fill it with conversation-to try to steer Angie away from dwelling on what had happened to her and to her family. Instinctively Dan knew better than to try to talk her out of it. After all, the life she had known had been destroyed. Now she was trying to make sense of what was left. He knew that she’d be doing that for the rest of her life-just as he was.

“His arm was broken,” Angie added eventually.

“Excuse me?”

“The bad man,” she said. “His arm.”

“What do you mean, it was broken? Was it in a cast?” Dan asked.

Angie shook her head. “I don’t know about a cast. It was in one of those things around his neck.”

“You mean it was in a sling?”

She nodded.

“And if you saw him again, would you know his face?”

She nodded again. “I would know him,” she said.

“Can you tell me what he looked like?”

“Anglo,” she said. “He didn’t have much hair, and he was carrying a gun.”

Daniel knew at once that he had just gained access to three important pieces of the puzzle, maybe three essential pieces. Solving the shooting wasn’t part of Daniel Pardee’s job description, but regardless of jurisdictional issues, Dan was now in possession of vital information that he intended to pass along to Detective Fellows. Immediately.

“I need to go make a phone call,” he said. “Do you mind waiting here with Bozo?”

“Will you be back?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ll be back.”

“Okay then,” she said. “We’ll wait.”

Sonoita, Arizona

Sunday, June 7, 2009, 9:30 a.m.

73º Fahrenheit

Leaving Diana and Damsel parked in the shade of a towering cottonwood, Brandon stepped up onto the front porch of June Holmes’s Sonoita home and rang the bell. The silver-haired woman who opened the door was dressed in a church-worthy suit with a slim skirt and jacket, along with low heels and hose.

“Mr. Walker?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, fumbling for his identification, but she waved that aside.

“I’m sure that’s not necessary. Please come in.”

Brandon stepped into a darkened living room. The blinds were closed and the curtains drawn. A single lamp burned next to an easy chair. Just inside the door sat a small old-fashioned suitcase, one without rollers. Next to it was a cardboard cat container complete with a vocal and very unhappy cat who was yowling its heart out.

June went to the easy chair where she had evidently been sitting before the doorbell rang. She closed the book that was on a nearby end table. On his way to the sofa, Brandon found it easy to make out the gold-leaf letters on the worn black leather cover- The Book of Mormon.

“Please excuse Miss Kitty,” June said, folding her hands in her lap. “Traveling anywhere makes her nervous.”

In his years as an investigator, Brandon had seen enough body language to recognize that June Holmes was every bit as nervous as her unhappy cat.

“The two of you are going on a trip then?” Brandon asked. Hoping to put June at ease, he tried to keep his voice casual and conversational.

“I suppose so,” June replied. “Miss Kitty isn’t going far. My neighbor up the road has agreed to keep her while I’m gone, but she hates traveling so much that it’s impossible to take her even that far if she isn’t in a crate. Otherwise, she’d disappear the moment I open the door.”

“If you’re on a tight schedule, then,” Brandon said, “perhaps we should get started. As you know, G. T. Farrell is in ill health at the moment and has been since before you sent him that note inviting him to stop by to see you. That’s why I’m here. He’s not in any condition to travel and probably won’t be any time soon.”

“I’m sorry he’s ill,” June said regretfully. “I know he’s been involved in this case from the beginning. It must have been difficult having to pass it along to someone else.”

“Yes,” Brandon agreed. “I’m sure that’s why he held on to it for so long. He thought eventually he’d be well enough to come see you himself. When it became apparent that wouldn’t be possible, he called me.”

“Let’s get to it, then,” June said. She picked up the book and slipped it into a large open purse that sat on the floor next to her chair. “There’s no sense beating about the bush.”

“This is about the murder of Ursula Brinker?” Brandon asked.

June nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I called her Sully back then. That’s what everyone called her.”

“You were friends?”

June nodded again. “We were,” she said. “Good friends. Best friends.”

“Tell me about spring break of 1959,” Brandon said.

June closed her eyes for a moment before she answered. “Five of us drove over to San Diego in Margo Mansfield’s 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air.”

“Who all went?” Brandon asked. He already knew the answer. The five names had been carefully listed in Geet’s notebook.

“Margo, of course,” June said. “She drove. Then there was Sully, Deanna Rogers, Kathy Wallace, and me. We drove over on Friday afternoon after the last classes let out.”

“What did you do once you got there?”

“To San Diego? We checked into our hotel. We had a room that opened right on the beach.”

“One room for all five of you?” Brandon asked.

“It was a big room with two double beds and a roll-away.”

“What happened after you got there?”

“We’d stopped for dinner in Yuma on the way over, so we went for a walk on the beach.”

“Who is ‘we’?”

“All of us, all five. But on the beach Sully and I hung out together-that night and the next day, too. We were sort of… well, you know… acting up. My parents were strict Mormons. I wanted to sow some wild oats while I still had the chance, and I figured being out of town on spring break was the best time to do it. We smoked and we drank-we drank way too much. You know how wild kids can be when they set their minds to it.”

Brandon nodded. He knew exactly how wild kids could be.

“What happened?” he asked.

June sighed, looking embarrassed and uncomfortable. “I thought Sully and I were just friends, but it turned out she wanted to be more than that, and right then so did I. This was the next afternoon, Saturday. We were in the room, changing into our bathing suits, when she came over and kissed me-on the lips. I was bombed out of my gourd on rum and Coke. At the time it didn’t seem like such a bad idea. After all, considering the rum and Coke, going to bed with another girl was just another bit of forbidden fruit. We were on one of the beds, doing it, when one of the other girls walked in on us. I’ve always suspected it was Margo, but I’m not sure. It could have been any one of them.”

“What happened then?”

“I was ready to die of embarrassment. I mean, I knew Sully was different, but I’d never put a name on it before. I don’t think she had, either. I remember she just kept smiling at me, like what had happened between us was our perfect little secret. The thing is, as soon as I sobered up, I knew that wasn’t for me-that it wasn’t what I wanted. But Sully looked so happy-so over the moon-that I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her.”

“And then?” Brandon prompted.

“That evening we had a bonfire on the beach. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and drank lots more booze. At least I had more booze. I don’t know about Sully. She was still out by the fire when I went to bed.” She paused. “That’s not true,” she corrected. “The part about going to bed. First I was sick. Then I passed out.”

“But Sully was still outside.”

June nodded.

“By herself?”

“As far as I know. The last time I remember seeing her, she was sitting there in her bathing suit, looking at the moon on the water. The next thing I knew, it was morning. Someone was outside the room screaming and screaming. That’s when I found out Sully was dead, that she’d been stabbed to death.”