Four Blind Mice

John Sampson needed to talk about her husband and his murder. That was why he’d come back, probably the only reason. She made a pitcher of sweetened iced tea, and they went out to the oceanside porch. Might as well be comfortable.
Try not to make an ass out of yourself.
    “Another perfect day in paradise,” he said, and smiled brilliantly. Billie couldn’t keep herself from staring a little at the policeman. He was strong and good-looking, and his smile was dazzling whenever it came. She had the sense that he didn’t smile enough, and wondered why that was. What had happened to him growing up in Washington? And then living and working there? She wanted to know everything about him, and that natural curiosity was something that had been missing since Laurence died.
    Don’t make this into something it isn’t,
she reminded herself.
He’s a policeman on a murder case. That’s all this is. You just have a silly crush on him.
    “Average day in paradise,” she said with a laugh. Then she got serious. “You wanted to talk some more about Laurence. Something else happened, didn’t it? That’s why you’re back here.”
    “No, I came to see you.”
There was that amazing smile of his again.
    Billie took a little swing at the air with her hand. “Sure you did. Anyway — your murder case?”
    He told her about the recent deaths of Robert and Barbara Bennett at West Point, and then the shooting death of Colonel Owen Handler. He shared his and Alex’s theory that three men might be responsible for at least some of the murders. “Everything seems to point back to Vietnam. Something incredible happened, something so bad that it’s probably the root cause of all these murders. Your husband may have been involved in some way. Maybe he didn’t even know it, Billie.”
    “He didn’t like to talk about his experiences over there,” she said, repeating what she’d told him during his first visit. “I always respected that. But then something strange happened. A couple of years ago, he brought home books about the war.
Rumors of War
was one that I remember. He rented the movie
Platoon,
which he’d always insisted he wouldn’t watch. He still didn’t want to talk about the war, though. Not to me anyway.”
    Billie sat back in the navy blue wicker rocker she’d chosen. She stared out at the ocean. Several gulls floated over the tall dunes. Picture pretty. She could see the blurred outline of an ocean liner on the horizon miles away.
    “He always drank, but during those last years, he drank much more. Hard liquor, wine. He wasn’t ever abusive, but I felt he was drifting farther and farther away.
    “One night around dusk he took off down the beach with his fishing pole and a pail for anything he might catch. It was early September, and the bluefish were running. He could have caught them with his pail.
    “I waited for him to come back, but he didn’t. Finally, I went out looking for him. Most of these houses on the beach empty out after Labor Day. That’s the way it is here. I walked south a mile or so. I was getting a little scared.
    “I had brought a flashlight, and as I headed back, I turned it on and worked my way up closer to the dunes and the deserted beach houses. That was how I found him.
    “Laurence was lying in the sand beside his fishing pole and the bucket. He’d finished off a pint of whiskey. Looked like a street bum who’d lost his way and wound up sleeping it off on the beach.
    “I lay down beside him, and held him in my arms. I asked him to please tell me why he was so sad. He
couldn’t
. It broke my heart that he couldn’t tell me. All he said was that ‘you can’t outrun your past.’ It looks like he was right.”

Chapter 76
    THEY TALKED ABOUT Vietnam, and her husband’s army experiences after the war, until Sampson was starting to get a headache. Billie never complained. About four in the afternoon they took a break and watched the high tide coming in. It amazed Sampson that the long stretch of beach could be so empty on such a sunny and blue-skied day.
    “Did you bring a suit?” she asked, and smiled.
    “Actually, I did throw a suit in the car,” Sampson said, returning her smile.
    “Want to take a swim?”
    “Yeah. Be nice.”
    They slipped into their suits and met back on the front porch. She had on a black one-piece. He figured she must do a lot of swimming, or maybe worked out. She was little, but she didn’t look like a young girl. She was probably in her early