All Night Long

the car. “You haven’t answered my question. Where are you headed?”
    A glint of amusement danced in her amber eyes. “You know, that attitude might work very well in the military. But you may want to rethink it when you’re dealing with a paying guest.”
    “Only two ways to do things, Miss Stenson, the Marine way or the other way.”
    “For the record, I choose option number two, the other way,” she said. “However, in deference to the fact that you will be my guest at dinner tonight, 1 will be gracious and answer your question. I’m going shopping at the Dunsley Market.”
    “Shopping?”
    “You know, for food and stuff to serve you and your brother?”
    “Right. Shopping.”
    She smiled a little too sweetly. “Care to see my list?”
    “Does it include lime gelatin and red kidney beans?”
    “Nope.”
    “Guess I don’t have to worry, in that case,” he said.
    “There’s always room to worry, Mr. Danner.”
    She floored the accelerator. He jerked his fingers off the roof a split second before the compact sho way down the lane.
    There was a short silence.
    “Boy, howdy” Jason said. “You know, you could lose a hand that way.”

Nine
    Irene stood at the produce counter of the Dunsley Market, examining the limited selection of lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes, and pretended not to notice the curious, covert glances of the other shoppers.
    It wasn’t the first time she had been in the middle of a news story here, she thought.
    But this tim round she was an adult, not an emotionally shattered teen.
    What’s more, after five years of covering the Glaston Cove city council meetings, selecting the Recipe Exchange recipe and profiling local entrepreneurs such as the proprietor of Glaston Cove Seaweed Harvesting, Inc., she was starting to feel like a for-real investigative journalist.
    She replayed the conversation she’d conducted with Adeline a short time before.
    “Damnit, Irene, you haven’t given me anything I can use beyond the vague hints about an ongoing investigation, which, I might add, doesn’t seem to be happening, anyway.”
    “What do you mean? I’m investigating.”
    “But if the local cops aren’t doing zip squat—”
    “There’s more to this, Addy I can feel it.”
    “I know.” Adeline exhaled heavily on the other end of the line. “This old reporter’s gut is churning, too, and I don’t think it’s the chili I had at lunch. Too many coincidences here. But promise me you’ll be careful. In my considerable experience, politics, sex and dead people make for a real bad mix.”
    “I’ll be careful.”
    “By the way, Gail and Jenny said they overnighted a week’s worth of underwear, pants and shirts. You should have them in the morning. Said to tell you they stuck with basic black so you wouldn’t have to worry about mixing and matching.
    Everything sort of goes together.”
    “Tell them I said thanks.”
    The rattle of a shopping cart stopping nearby jerked her out of her reverie.
    “Why, if it isn’t Irene Stenson. I heard you were back in town.”
    The speaker had one of those harsh, irritating voices that somehow always manages to rise above the background noise. Irene recognized it instantly although it had been seventeen years since she had last heard Betty Johnson’s uniquely grating tones. A searing memory set her heart pounding.
    She stood with Aunt Helen in the shadow-drenched vestibule of the Drakenham
Mortuary and looked at the crowd in the parking lot. The pouring rain had done
[_nothing to dampen the _]
    curiosity of the residents of Dunsley.
    “Vultures,” she whispered.
    “Everyone in town knew your parents and they know you.” Helen gripped Irene’s
[_hand. “It was inevitable that they would all come to the service.” _]
    Ben Drakenham, the funeral director, had not been pleased with Helen’s choice of
cremation for Hugh and Elizabeth Stenson. Irene knew that was because it cost
considerably less than the full casket-and-burial arrangement that he preferred to
sell.
    Her elderly great-aunt had made the decision for reasons other than price,
however.
    “Headstones in the local cemetery will be lead weight, drawing you back to this
time and place, Irene. Tour parents would not have wanted that. They would want
you to feel free to get on with your life.”
    She had accepted her aunt’s wisdom, but privately she wondered if Helen had
made the right choice. Headstones might have served as touchstones, providing
her with some tangible