Still Lake - Anne Stuart [26]
She was planning on making another peach pie, a dire mistake since she’d end up eating most of it, but she couldn’t let all those wonderful peaches go to waste. Marty had left her dishes in the sink, as usual, and she was lying down by the lake, courting skin cancer at an early age. Sophie just shook her head and put the dishes in the dishwasher, then reached for the earthenware crock she kept her flour in when she noticed the yellowed newspaper on the counter.
At first she thought it was some kind of flyer, but as she looked closer she realized it was an actual copy of the Northeast Kingdom Gazette from long ago. Twenty years ago, in fact. And the headline read “Murder in the Kingdom.”
Sophie’s appetite for peach pie vanished. She poured herself a cup of coffee, shuddering slightly at its strength, and picked up the newspaper with careful hands. Tucking it under her arm, she went out onto the side porch, setting her coffee down on the windowsill behind her and curling up on the hanging glider. It was a beautiful day—a soft breeze was blowing across the lake, bringing with it the scent of pine resin and cool water, and the sun was bright overhead. Sophie stared down at the newspaper, at the grainy pictures, and started to read.
The account was relatively straightforward, devoid of conjecture and sensationalism, which wasn’t surprising, considering the reporters and owners of the paper had lived in Colby for generations and knew all of the families involved. It was one thing to splash murder pictures all over the front page when you didn’t know the helpless victims, another when they were your neighbors and friends.
There was a photo of the killer. Alleged killer, as they referred to him, and in fact, he might still be alleged since apparently he’d gotten off years later. Thomas Ingram Griffin looked like almost any drifter from twenty years ago. Long hair and beard, dazed but defiant expression on his face. The photo was faded from age, and it hadn’t been the best of quality in the first place, but for some reason he looked vaguely familiar. Sophie shrugged. The man would look completely different twenty years later. He’d be clean shaven, clean cut, probably forty pounds heavier. If he was even still alive.
The three victims had been found over a two-day period. Alice Calderwood had been strangled and dumped by the side of North Road, Valette King had been stabbed to death—her killer had used his knife with savage fury. Her body had been left in a cornfield. And Lorelei Johnson had been found floating in Still Lake, near the cattails by the old Niles place, her throat cut.
Only Lorelei had a connection to Thomas Griffin. The paper didn’t come right out and say it, but clearly they’d been lovers. And it didn’t sound as if any of the three victims had been overly circumspect in their personal lives. The hinting was delicate, due to the sensibilities of the girls’ grieving parents, but it was fairly clear that the three girls had been wild ones.
But then, wasn’t everyone when they were in their late teens, early twenties? Sophie thought. Everyone except her, of course. She’d never had the chance to be particularly wild and wicked—she’d been too busy working, too busy trying to look out for her mother and her baby sister. Gracey’s lifestyle had been a warning note, and she’d been too busy in college to think about boys, much to her mother’s dismay. And when she’d graduated, ready to start making a full life, there was Marty on her doorstep, orphaned and miserable, and Sophie had ignored any passing hormonal flutterings to