It had to be You

she was hoping her husband would get well and go back to taking care of the farm. She’s lost all her workers except one, and he’s threatening to leave because he can’t do everything. The crops should be planted soon or there won’t be anything to grow and sell in the fall.“
    “Maybe this crossed her mind after she’d been at the nursing home,“ Lily speculated.
    “It should have been the first thing she thought of, since she’d already driven away two of her farmhands with her overbearing attitude. The point is, if she did realize she needed him back, she’s no longer a valid suspect.”
    Lily thought for a moment. “So Sean Connor died sometime after Kelly left. Or maybe before he arrived. Or maybe Kelly smothered him.“
    “Yes. Betty’s admitted she just opened the door and looked at him after Kelly left. He might have already been murdered.“
    “But why would Kelly kill him? How could he have known about the will leaving the farm to him and his brother?“
    “Only two ways,“ Howard said. “Either the attorney or the secretary who typed it up blabbed to someone who told him.“
    “And both of them would lie if you asked them.“
    “True,“ Howard admitted. “And there’s no way I could prove it. I’m sick to death of this case. But it’s clear that Sean Connor was murdered, and I can’t just throw my hands up and say I can’t solve it. It’s my responsibility to find out who smothered a nasty old man who was going to die that day anyway.”
    Chapter 18
    So you didn’t get anything helpful when you were in Beacon?“ Lily asked.
    “Not the second time,“ Howard replied, finally starting the car and heading back toward Grace and Favor.
    “When were you there twice, and why?“
    “It’s nothing to do with the Connors,“ Howard explained.
    “How do you know that? They live there. Tell me why you were there twice.”
    Howard almost laughed. “I hardly know where to start. I guess with the lake. It’s the nastiest lake you’ve ever seen or smelled. Somehow a crevasse or long, skinny sinkhole opened up and rain filled it. So it doesn’t have anything but rainwater coming in, and nothing going out except by evaporation. It’s green and stinks.”
    He went on, “There’s a really dotty old woman who lives nearby.“
    “Why would anyone live near it?“
    “God only knows. There’s a theory that she’s dotty because of the smell.“
    “Nobody goes crazy because of a smell, do they?“ Lily asked.
    “They do if it’s mustard gas. And the smell of the lake is nearly as bad, I’d guess. Although I’ve never had a whiff of it.“
    “So how do you know this, and why did you go there?“ Lily asked.
    “Because a young man drowned there sometime last winter. He was preparing to go ice-skating, and somebody shot at him, and he went headfirst and broke through the ice. He recently floated up to the top when the ice melted.“
    “Who was he?“
    “Nobody knows. I don’t mean to be indelicate, but he wasn’t recognizable after a winter in that water. All we know is that he only had one skate on.“
    “Didn’t this crazy woman see it happen?“
    “That’s debatable. She says she called the police because a mysterious hiker told her to. She says she knew that he was a Communist because he had a big stick, long dirty hair, and a red beret.“
    “Howard, are you making this up as you go just to entertain me?“
    “I haven’t got a weird enough imagination to invent this. The crazy woman has a phone line, of all things, because there are a group of men who fish there....““Oh, ick! They must be nasty fish!“
    “Probably. Maybe some of them have turned into evolutionary throwbacks. Maybe that’s why the men fish there,“ Howard said, smiling. “Could be they’re selling them to freak museums.“
    “You’re getting away from the point again. How did you end up going there?“
    “I was helping out a fellow chief of police up there who’s laid up with gout and has a brand-new deputy. So I spent Sunday interviewing people who live in the hills around the stinky lake. Since none of them had seen anything, in desperation I took the new deputy along to interview the woman who lives near the lake. She has about a thousand cats, the logs are chinked with newspaper, and she claimed not to know a thing about it until a bunch of police from nearby towns arrived to remove the body.“
    “But she had reported it? Didn’t you say that?”
    “Yes, there’s a record of