All Night Long

relief, the door opened, interrupting Irene in mid-tirade. Maxine breezed into the room.
    “Hi, everyone.” She peeled off her coat. “I saw a truck in front of Cabin Number Ten. New guests?”
    “Pair of honeymooners all the way from Kirbyville,” Luke said.
    “Really?” Maxine looked thrilled. “We haven’t had any newlyweds here in the whole time I’ve worke t the lodge. You know, this could be a market niche that we’ve been overlooking.”
    “Luke gave them the honeymoon suite,” Irene said.
    Maxine frowned. “We haven’t got one.”
    “We do now,” Luke said. “Cabin Number Ten.”
    Maxine glowed with enthusiasm. “I know what I’ll do, I’ll make up a little basket of amenities for them.”
    “I’d skip the doughnuts if I were you,” Luke said.

Eighteen
    Connie Watson glared through the screen door. She was a large, big-boned woman with suspicious eyes. She gripped a dish towel in one work-roughened hand.
    Everything about her from her expression to her body language suggested that she had long ago given up expecting anything good out of life.
    “I remember you, Irene,” she said. She flicked a quick, uneasy glance at Luke. “And I know who yo re, Mr. Danner. What do you two want?”
    This wasn’t going to be easy, Irene thought. Her hunch this morning had been right.
    If she had called ahead, Connie would have found an excuse not to be home.
    “I want to ask you a few questions about Pamela,” she said, keeping her voice as calm and soothing as possible. “I was her friend at one time, remember?”
    “Course I remember.” Connie wiped her hands on the dish towel. She made no move to open the screen door. “I heard you two found Pamela the other night.
    Heard you burned down the Webb house, too.”
    “Someone else set fire to the house,” Luke said. “We just happened to be in the neighborhood at the time.”
    “That’s not what folks are saying,” Connie muttered.
    “It’s the truth,” Irene said. “For heaven’s sake, Connie, do you really think I’d burn down a house?”
    “Heard you’ve been acting a little strange about Pamela’s death. Someone told me you’ve got what they call an
unhealthy fixation
about it, or something like that.”
    Luke looked at her through the screen. “Who told you that?”
    Connie jerked and took a small step back. Then she reached out and hastily locked the screen door. “Doesn’t matter. Word’s going around town, that’s all.”
    Irene frowned at Luke, silently willing him to shut up. He certainly had a talent for giving orders and intimidating people, but at the moment she needed cooperation from Connie.
    Luke raised his brows and shrugged a little, letting her know he had received her message.
    She turned back to Connie. “Shortly before she died, Pamela sent me an e-mail telling me that sh anted to meet me here in Dunsley. Do you have any idea what she planned to tell me?”
    “No.”
    “Did she indicate that she was worried or upset?”
    “No.”
    “Did you see her the day she died?”
    “No.”
    This was not going well, Irene thought. She could feel Luke patching her, waiting for her to set him loose so that he could use his own, less polite style of interrogation.
    She scrolled back through her memory to come up with a new angle.
    “Connie, I realize that you feel you owe the Webb family your loyalty, and I agree with you. But yo lso owe something to my family don’t you?”
    Connie crushed the dish towel in one fist. She took another step back. “Maybe I owed something to your pa, but he’s dead, God rest his soul.”
    “Death doesn’t cancel all debts,” Irene said quietly. “My father is gone, but I’m still here. For the sake of his memory; will you please tell me whatever you can about Pamela’s last days here in Dunsley?”
    Connie’s face crumpled. She gave a vast sigh of weary surrender. “Promise me you won’t tell him alked to you.”
    “Do you mean Chief McPherson?” Luke asked.
    Connie blinked several times, alarmed. “You can’t tell him, either. He’d likely go straight to—” She broke off suddenly “Never mind.” She switched her attention back to Irene. “Look, I don’t really know anything, and that’s the honest truth.”

    “Just tell me what you do know,” Irene said.
    “Well, four days before you found her dead, I got a call from Pamela asking me to get the house ready for her. Nothing strange about that. She didn’t use the place often, but when she did,