Death Before Facebook

more than most people. For instance, you knew Geoff as a little boy. What was he like?”
    “You’re mistaken. I didn’t know him then.”
    “Wasn’t he there when you covered Leighton’s murder? He couldn’t have had a memory of it if he wasn’t.”
    “I see. You know about that, do you?” His brows knit together and his own voice grew cold. “Of course he was there. But he was just a baby, clinging to his mother’s skirts. I didn’t have any impression of him.”
    “You were Marguerite’s friend. Weren’t you an odd choice to cover that story?”
    “Not at all. I’d covered Leighton Kavanagh before—that is, I tried. I worked on a story about police corruption that didn’t pan out.”
    “Marguerite didn’t know about it?”
    “Oh, she knew. She certainly knew. But she didn’t seem to care a lot. I don’t know much about that, to tell you the truth. She never talked about it.”
    “What did she talk about?”
    “Music. Politics. The war and Lyndon Johnson. In those days”—he looked at her like she was a pet dog—“we had a lot of angst.”
    “So she was angst-ridden.”
    “Marguerite?” He seemed surprised. “Maybe she was. I just thought we all were, but thinking back on it, she had a certain—I don’t know—preoccupation about her. Almost a melancholy, like she was perennially worried.” He paused, apparently unsure whether to say what was on his mind.
    Skip waited.
    “Maybe that’s what made her so attractive.”
    “Why would that make a woman attractive?” It wasn’t on the point, but she had to know.
    “You think you could make her happy.”
    “Leighton wasn’t doing that?”
    “Well, they seemed to have precious little in common. I didn’t know Marguerite well, you understand—we saw each other in clubs, and now and then for lunch. Well, for lunch once or twice when we first met.” He smiled ruefully. “But that didn’t go anywhere. When I met Honey—the woman I married—I took her along to hear Marguerite sing, and they got to be friends; then
they
had lunch together. But we never had Marguerite over to dinner or anything.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because we’d have had to have Leighton, of course.”
    “It sounds as if you had a crush on Marguerite.”
    “Oh, God, a bad one. She was the most beautiful, quicksilver, compelling woman I ever saw in my life.” He moved his shoulders heavily, shrugging off his regret. “But she was married, and besides that she wasn’t interested.”
    “Meaning she
was
interested in someone.”
    “Marguerite was… well, she was a flirt.”
    “Was she having an affair?’
    “With Mike Kavanagh, you mean?’ His voice had a sudden nasty edge. “Not that I know of. I barely knew the man existed until she married him.”
    “Even though you investigated Leighton.”
    “Mike was clean. At least his name never came up in the kickback stories.”
    “Do you see Marguerite now?”
    “Oh, God, no! The last time I saw her was probably the night Leighton died. She leaned on me that night—cried on me like I was her daddy. And after that she never returned any of Honey’s calls, or mine. Honey said it must be because she was depressed.” He looked depressed himself.
    “When Geoff showed up on the TOWN, it must have been quite a shock.”
    “It’s pretty hard to shock somebody as old as I am.”
    “When he started posting about his memories, why didn’t you mention you’d been there that night?”
    “Because it’s nobody’s business but Geoff’s. I E-mailed him, of course.”
    “So you had a private correspondence with him.”
    “I had that long before the Confession topic ever came up. You’ve got to remember, we’re all pretty close on the TOWN.”
    Now it’s “we,”
thought Skip.
When it suits him, it’s “they.”
    “Would you mind showing me?”
    “Your own letters aren’t in your file—they just get sent as if they were on paper. And I never save my mail, so I don’t have the stuff he sent me.”
    “Did he confide anything to you—anything that might help me?”
    Pearce, whose eyes had strayed to his neglected computer screen, snapped back to her, suddenly alert, “I think he did. Do you know about the stolen items?”
    “Yes. Leighton’s revolver and a ring. Citrine, I think.”
    “Marguerite has the ring.”
    “Wait a minute—you mean she lied when she reported it stolen?”
    “Now that I couldn’t tell you. But it would seem not from what Geoff said—which is that it simply