All Night Long

recall some rumors about her having done some time in rehab.”
    Before Adeline had retired and moved to Glaston Cove to take over the Beacon, she put in thirty year s a reporter with one of the state’s major dailies. Irene was reassured to hear the unmistakable spark of interest and curiosity in her boss’s rough voice.
There was a
story here
, she thought. Adeline sensed it, too.
    “I’ll e-mail you what I’ve got in a few minutes, okay?” Irene said.
    “You’re sure this is an exclusive?”
    “Trust me, at this point the
Beacon
is the only paper in the entire world that knows Pamela Webb is dead.”
    “How did we get lucky?” Adeline asked.
    “I was the one who found the body.”
    Adeline whistled softly. “Okay, that qualifies as an exclusive. You’ll get your byline and you’ll be above the fold. Under most circumstances, the death of a senator’s daughter would be nothing more than a private tragedy. But given that Webb is getting ready to make a run for the White House, this is a bigger story.”
    “One more thing, Addy. Would you ask Jenny or Gail to go to my apartment, pack up some clothe nd overnight them to me?”
    “Why?”
    “Because I’m going to be here in Dunsley for a while.”
    “Thought you hated that town,” Adeline said.
    “I do. I’m hanging around because I’ve got a hunch there’s more to this story.”
    “I can feel lust growing in this old reporter’s heart. What’s going on?”

    “I think Pamela Webb was murdered.”

Five
    Maxine blew in through the lobby door at nine o’clock, moving like the small whirlwind she was. She was an attractive, high-energy woman in her mid-thirties with blue eyes and a cloud of artificially blond hair that always looked as if it had been whipped up by the rotor blades of a helicopter. She controlled the wild hair with a headband. Luke had discovered over the past few months that she had an endless assortment of bands, each in a different color. Today’s was bright pink.
    He found her enthusiasm for her job amusing, inexplicable and mildly exhausting.
    She kicked the door shut and came to a halt, her arms wrapped around a paper sack that bore the log f the Dunsley Market, and fixed him with an accusing glare.
    “I just came from the market. Everyone’s saying that Irene Stenson is back in town and that she’s staying right here at the lodge and that the two of you found Pamela Webb’s body last night.”
    Luke leaned on the desk. “The way gossip moves through this town probably ought to be a classified military secret.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me?” Maxine put the sack down on the table she had selected for the morning coffee and doughnut service. “I work here at the lodge, for heaven’s sake. I should have been the first to know. Instead I had to hear the news from Edith Harper. Do you have any idea how humiliating that was for me?”
    “Irene Stenson phoned in the reservation yesterday morning while you were out running some errands. Checked in late yesterday afternoon after you’d gone home for the day. We didn’t find the body until a quarter to eleven last night. What with one thing and another, there hasn’t been time to bring you up to speed. Sorry about that.”
    Maxine whistled softly and slung her coat over one of the antlers of the coatrack.
    “The whole town is talking. I doubt if there’s been this much excitement since the day Irene left all those years ago.” She frowned in genuine concern. “How is she, by the way? Finding Pamela like that must have been

    dreadful. They were best friends for a summer back in high school, you know.”
    “Just one summer?”
    “Pamela was usually only here during the summers. The rest of the time she was away at some fancy boarding school or skiing in the Alps or something. She and Irene made an odd match, to tell you the truth. They couldn’t have been more different.”
    “Maybe that was the appeal.”
    Maxine pursed her lips, considering the possibility, then shrugged. “Could be.
    Pamela was the classi ild child. She was into drugs and boys, and her daddy the senator gave her everything she wanted. She always had the newest, trendiest clothes, a flashy sports car the day she turned sixteen, you name it.”
    “What about Irene Stenson?”
    “Just the opposite, like I said. The quiet, studious type. Spent most of her free time in the library. Always had her nose buried in a book. Always polite to adults. Never got into trouble. Never had a