“Maybe he really is mobbed up,” I said. “Maybe they’re paying him to get rid of the evidence for a massive fraud perpetuated by . . .” I thought fast. “. . . by the costume industry. All these years we’ve thought of clowns as friendly creatures, but Sabatini’s has been storing proof of a dastardly plot to take over the country.”

Marina nodded. “I knew there was something off about clowns.”

It was Friday night, the kids were with Richard, and Marina and I were seated at her kitchen table, scrutinizing Rynwood Shredding’s client list. Rachel had hemmed and hawed when I’d first asked for a copy, but my argument that I could target downtown businesses better if I understood the client base convinced her. Which was good, because I didn’t have a backup plan and would have had to keep repeating argument number one over and over until I wore her down.

“Mr. Sabatini goes on the list.” Marina picked up her purple felt pen and wrote on a pink piece of paper.

Letting her write the names with the pen and paper of her choosing was the only way she’d agreed to tonight’s list-making endeavors.

“I thought we were looking for a PTA connection, someone who knew about the meeting,” I said. “Joe isn’t married and he doesn’t have any children.”

“Not that we know about,” Marina said darkly.

“If you’re not going to be serious I’m going to take my lists and go home.” And a dark, lonely house it would be with the kids at Richard’s.

“Promise?” Marina clasped her hands together.

“Yes.”

“Well, phooey.” She sighed heavily, then brightened and scribbled on the pink paper.

I tried, unsuccessfully, to read her loopy handwriting upside down. “What’s that?”

“Oh, just a name we should consider.”

She was shooting for a casual, innocent tone. It didn’t work. Marina was often casual, but she was rarely innocent. Matter of fact, the only time she’d been completely innocent was the Saturday night my house had been toilet-papered. Sunday morning I woke up to rain and soggy toilet paper over shrubbery, around porch columns, and even over the roof of the house.

I’d immediately called Marina, but she’d claimed zero knowledge. It took a few days of detective work to figure out that my house had been mistaken for the home of the high school starting quarterback.

“Let me see.” I pulled the list around. “What? Marina Neff, you take Claudia’s name off right now.”

“Don’t be such a spoilsport.” Marina snatched back the pen I’d taken from her. “It’s my list and I can leave her on if I want to.”

“Fine. I’ll make my own.”

“No, you won’t. You said I could be list maker tonight.” She wielded her purple pen like a tiny sword. “Back, back, back. Down, down, down.”

“I thought this was a team effort.”

“And I’m the captain.”

“Okay, Captain Marina, sir, why would Claudia kill Sam?”

“That’s easy,” she said. “Because . . . well, because . . .” She perked up. “Because she was jealous of Sam’s perfect life. Hers is so drab and unhappy in comparison that she couldn’t take it any longer.”

“And how about the police saying that the murder would have taken a man’s strength?”

“Hmm.” She pinched her nose as she considered the question. “Claudia and her sidekick Tina did it together. Each one held—”

“Tina went home that night right after the meeting.”

Marina looked at me. “You are making that up.”

“Nope. And I’m not going to say how I know, so don’t bother asking.” Marina heard the steel in my voice and didn’t push. The only reason I knew anything about Tina was that she and the Helmstetters shared a backyard. The afternoon Rachel cried on my shoulder she’d sobbed that she knew something was wrong when she saw Tina letting the dog out and then Sam didn’t come home. And didn’t come home. And didn’t come home.

“Oh, all right.” Marina crossed off Claudia’s name. “If she’s off, who are we going to put on?”

I tapped the client list. “Remember these?”

She scrunched up her face. “Yah, but that looks like, you know, work. Say, what are you doing this weekend? Got a hot date with that pretty boy?”

I took the pages Rachel had printed out, kept half, and handed the other half to Marina. “We can work separately or we can work together. Which will it be?”

“Slave driver,” she muttered.

Which might be true, but I knew that wasn’t her real problem. She didn’t want to look at these names—almost all of whom were people we knew—and try to link them to a murder. It was a silly game to play around with Claudia and Tina; it would be deeply ugly to seriously consider that someone we knew ended Sam’s life.

“If we do not hang together,” Marina said in dark tones, “we shall surely hang separately.”

“That’s Thomas Paine, not Shakespeare.”

“Whatever.”

“Ready?”

“. . . I guess so.”

We exchanged a long glance full of trepidation and fear.

Then we got to work.

“You’re right.” Lois laid a hand on his thin shoulder. “It shouldn’t. I’m in complete agreement. Let’s write a letter to the governor. Heck, we’ll write letters to the entire state legislature and get them to sponsor a bill against this abomination. We’ll start a grassroots movement, spur the entire populace into participating, and get immediate action. If we push hard enough we can get a law passed before Christmas.”

Paoze didn’t rise to her bait. “It should not be,” he said stubbornly, still staring.

I laughed. “Oh, come on. You’ve seen snow before.”

“Not so early.” He was almost pouting. “Never November.”

The three of us stood in a short row and watched the weather. Yesterday, the scene had been of storefronts, bare-branched trees, and a few evergreen shrubs. Today we couldn’t read the sign on the shoe store across the street and the shrubs were swaddled in white. The few vehicles on the road were inching along cautiously, their drivers reacquainting themselves with winter driving skills.

“What you need is a car,” Lois said.

Paoze used a bicycle to commute from Madison, five miles distant. Rain or shine, heat or cold, he was always on time, and was always dressed more professionally than ninety-nine percent of retail clerks in the country with his dark slacks and white shirts. The boy was a minor miracle.

He did need a car, but cars were expensive. The wages the bookstore could afford might stretch to paying for insurance, gas, and repairs, but a car payment? On top of tuition and fees and room and board? Wasn’t going to happen. His parents couldn’t afford to help him much, and the size of his student loans would be crippling when he graduated. Even worse, as an English major, his prospects of high wages were in the realm of zero.

“Mrs. Kennedy? You are okay?” Paoze asked.

I jerked out of my depressive reverie and realized that I must have sighed. “I’m fine.” I looked out at the white swirling world. “But I have to go out in that and I didn’t bring my boots.”

Lois laughed. “Sucker. I tossed a pair in my trunk on Labor Day. Want to borrow them? All you have to do is go out to my car. It’s in the parking lot way down by the grocery store.”

“You are a cruel, cruel woman. To atone for your sins, I suggest you realphabetize the picture books.” Picture books had been Marcia’s favorite section, and her absence was showing. Task for tomorrow: Convince Yvonne that picture books were the love of her life.

By the time I zipped up my coat, pulled on my mittens, and tightened down my hood, Lois was deep into a conversation with Paoze concerning the pleasures of alphabetizing. I shook my head and left her to it. Paoze might or might not have read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but either way my guess was that he’d be sorting through picture books when I got back.

Outside, I gasped as the wind hit me full in the face. Paoze was right; this shouldn’t be. I put my head down and struggled against the battering gusts. Step after step, snow and more snow insinuated itself between low-slung shoes and socks. I hated wet socks. Why had I believed the weather forecast enough to send the kids out in boots, but not enough to wear them myself?

I walked into the police station and stomped off the snow—twice with each foot, the classic northern tap dance—and asked for Gus.

“Do you have an appointment?” the officer asked. For once I did, and the young man ushered me down the short hall and into Gus’s office. “Do you want me to shut the door, Chief?”

Gus looked at me. I nodded. Without another word, the young man withdrew and the door clicked shut. I pulled off my mittens, untied my hood, and unzipped my coat. “He’s new, isn’t he?” I asked, sitting in the vacant chair.

“Fresh out of the academy. My guess is two years, tops.” The Rynwood Police Department had a tendency to rapid turnover. The city couldn’t afford much of a wage, and after officers gained a year or two of experience, they were off for the bright lights of larger departments with more money, a wider variety of law enforcement opportunities, and room for advancement.

“Well,” I said, opening my purse, “maybe he’ll be the one who stays. Here.” I handed Gus the pink piece of paper.

“What’s this?” He held the paper at arm’s length, squinted, then gave up and patted the piles of papers on his desk until he found his reading glasses. “Does this say Claudia Wolff?”

“Her name is crossed out,” I said quickly. “Don’t pay any attention to that. Marina was joking around.”

Gus made a noncommittal grunt. “Marina. I should have known. Did she put you up to this?”

I assumed the question was rhetorical and didn’t answer.

He read the rest of the names. “Wheeler’s Autos. Stull Systems. Croftman Accounting. Bluegrass Construction.” He let the paper fall to his desk and leaned back. “You said you had something important to tell me.”

I inched forward. “That’s right. Marina and I went through Sam’s client list and those four names are ones who have strong PTA connections. We think—”

Gus put his hands behind his neck and leaned back. “That due to the timing of Sam’s murder, the killer might have a connection to the PTA.”

“Oh. Um . . .” Talk about taking the words out of my mouth. “That’s right. The top salesperson at Wheeler’s Autos is Janis Velona, and her youngest is still at Tarver. Eric Stull owns Stull Systems, and he has two daughters there.” Rosie, Eric’s wife, had hosted a PTA party or two, but I couldn’t remember ever meeting Eric. “Andrew Bieber is—”

“The senior accountant at Croftman Accounting, with two boys and a girl at Tarver,” Gus said. “And Floyd Hirsch, with three girls, is a crew leader at Bluegrass Construction.”

My gaze slid away from Gus’s kind one. Floyd’s wife had been in the PTA for ages, but she’d gone back to college two years ago and I hadn’t seen her since. “I didn’t realize you knew all that.”

“I’m the police chief,” he said. “It’s my job.”

“Oh.” It suddenly seemed very important to play with my snow-soggy mittens. “Um . . .”

“Leave the police work to the police, Beth.” His words were kind, but firm. Kind of like a mom voice, only in this case Mom was a gray-haired male in a blue uniform who carried a gun. “The sheriff’s department is doing all the right things. I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but please don’t. Besides the fact that you don’t have any authority, you’re not trained, you don’t have any legal resources, and you don’t have backup.”

I hung my head. Evan had said much the same thing. He was right. They were both right. But how could I just leave this alone? How could I stand by and do nothing?

“Remember what happened last time.” Gus sat forward, putting his elbows on the desk. “Oliver and Jenna were almost killed.”

My mouth went weak at the memory. This time it was only the bookstore that was in danger; it was merely their financial future that was at stake. Maybe it would do them good to live on less; it would build character and make them stronger in the long run. “You’re right,” I whispered.

“That’s my girl.” Gus smiled and got up. “Now, you call Marina and tell her to take up macramé instead of investigating murders.”

I stopped dead, my coat’s zipper halfway through its metallic whoosh. “You can’t be serious.”

He laughed and opened his door. “I’d love to see her face if you did say that.”

I flung my hood over my hair. “Pass. I’d like to live long enough to see my grandchildren.”

Gus’s full-throated laughter followed me down the hall, into the lobby, and out into the cold, where the snow was falling harder and the wind was whipping it around even faster.

“Goodness!” I said, but a chilling gust took the word away and carried it off, where, I did not know. Somewhere south, where it would whisper into the ear of some startled soul.

I amused myself with the thought as I walked back to the store, snow muffling all noise that the wind wasn’t drowning out. Who would hear my startled syllables? A minister, maybe, who would search for a parishioner about to take the Lord’s name in vain.

A car drove past, its engine noise nearly inaudible, its windows coated with white.

Or the person who heard my word might be a farmer out tending his cows. He’d jerk upright at the sound of a woman’s voice, startling Bessy, which would cause her to kick out in alarm. Her hoof would catch the farmer on the seat of his pants and he’d be limping for a week thanks to a snowstorm in Wisconsin.

Head down, I started across the street.

Or it might be a woman in Georgia, walking down the street after completing an errand for her children’s bookstore. She’d just picked up a box of doughnuts for her staff, when my word surprised her. She’d almost drop the box, but a handsome stranger would save it from plunging to the sidewalk. She’d invite him in, and a year from now—

Something made me look up. Perhaps an angel tapped me on the shoulder. Perhaps it was pure chance. Whatever the reason, I did look up and saw a vehicle headed straight toward me.

For the merest fraction of a second, I couldn’t—wouldn’t—didn’t—move.

He hadn’t seen me yet, that’s all. He was probably starting to swerve already, and if I moved I might move into his way and wouldn’t that be a stupid way to die; Marina would never tire of teasing me about that one.

Then primal instincts shrieked at me: “Run! Run!”

Adrenaline activated my muscles and I was running. Or at least trying to run. The snow, wet and slippery, provided no traction and my street shoes couldn’t find a grip. My feet wanted to move, but it was like one of those nightmares where you kept running and running and not going anywhere.

These shoes were going to kill me and it was going to be my own stupid fault.

Mad at myself, mad at the weather, mad at the world, I kicked off my shoes and ran stocking-footed through the snow, my toes gripping the thick white slop better than any boot would ever have done. Three lunging, running steps and I was up onto the curb. Two more and I was up and over the shrubbery. One more and I was safe against the wall of the antique mall.

Panting, I watched the back end of a white van fishtail down the street and out of sight.

Panting, I wondered what had just happened.

Panting, I tried not to think about what had almost happened.

Alan barreled out the door. “Beth? Are you okay? That guy headed straight for you!”

“Don’t be silly.” I tried to laugh, but it came out more like a cough. “He just couldn’t see in the snow.”

Alan shook his head vigorously. “I saw the whole thing. He was going slow, but when you started across the street, he speeded up. Gunned the engine, spun the tires, and aimed right at you.”

“Don’t be silly,” I repeated, but even I could hear the doubt in my voice.

“You should go talk to Gus about it,” Alan said.

“Mmm.” He was right; I should. But what could Gus do? The license plate had been snow-covered. The van was white, and if any business name had been painted on the sides, it had been covered by sticky slush. If I went back to Gus now, all I’d get was another scolding.

No, thanks.

“The sooner the better,” Alan said. “They say the first twenty-four hours are the most important for solving a crime.”

But in this case it would be impossible to prove a crime had been committed. Even if we figured out who had been driving the white van, how could you disprove a statement of, “But, Officer, it was snowing so hard I couldn’t see a thing. Sure, I gunned the engine a little. I was breaking through a snowdrift, that’s all. I sure wasn’t trying to hit anyone.”

Alan looked at me, concern in his frown. “Do you want me to go with you? I was a witness.”

Such a sweet man. “No, thank you,” I said. “But I’ll be sure to talk to Gus right away.” Or Sunday at church. Whichever came first.