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kind of person Colonial Williamsburg wanted caretaking an important property.
    Cynthia's heels clicked down the steps. “I'll check in with Bill on my way out. Helen Medina will be by sometime today to put together a news release. There's not much we can say until Bill has some more information about the body, but I'll see if I can hurry him along."
    "Excuse me?” Amanda asked. “News release?"
    "The body in the back garden. Our visitors will be thrilled."
    Amanda saw little plastic skeletons for sale in the Gift Shoppe. “Ah, yeah, sure."
    "It was nice seeing you again, Amanda.” Cynthia extended her hand, probably, Amanda thought, expecting her to kneel and kiss her wedding ring.
    Amanda spread her skirts in a low curtsey. “I have the honor to remain, Madame, your most humble and obedient servant."
    "You've learned your lines so well,” murmured Cynthia, radiating graciousness. “Come along, Officer, let's go view the body. I've always found forensics procedures fascinating, haven't you?” She swept out of the door, leaving behind her a whiff of expensive fragrance. The policeman followed.
    Wayne stood awkwardly by the sideboard. “Bye, Mother.... “The door shut. He turned to Amanda. “You were being sarcastic, weren't you?"
    "Moi?" she replied with a grin.
    Laughing, Wayne advanced toward her, arms outstretched. “How about a morning kiss from my little girl?"
    "So that our guests may discover us in an unseemly moment? Fie, Papa, fie.” She slipped out the door, turned the sign around to “Hall Open” and assumed her pose on the stone steps.
    Wayne took a magisterial stance beside Amanda, but his voice was uncertain. “Not that I really think of you as a daughter, you know."
    Here we go again. “I've noticed."
    "I mean—have you thought any more about that movie? The new Brad Pitt flick is opening this weekend...."
    She'd thought about a movie. Theatres were air-conditioned, for one thing. And Melrose didn't have either cable or a VCR. But Wayne was not relationship material. “I'd enjoy taking in a movie,” she told him, “as long as it wasn't a date. Just friends, know what I mean?"
    "Yeah, I get it.” His face fell. He probably heard that one a lot.
    Amanda scanned the landscape. No visitors were strolling up the gravel paths or across the glistening green of the grass. A couple of gardeners planted marigolds by the ticket office. A boat glided down the river. Birds sang. The sun shone pitilessly in a blue sky.
    "I didn't have too many friends when I was growing up,” Wayne said. “Melrose is kind of isolated, at least when you're an only child like I was. Like I am."
    Amanda had never thought of her younger brother and sister as valuable socializing agents before. “When did you move into town?"
    "When I got my driver's license. Mother wanted me to be closer to the high school so I wouldn't have to drive so much. And since my father had just passed away she wanted to be closer to her friends."
    "The place was getting to be a maintenance problem, wasn't it?"
    "It was getting pretty shabby. Which bothered Mother a lot more than it did me. I'd build forts with wood from the old stable and dig dungeons in the cellar and do chemical experiments with blackberries and paint flakes and stuff. I never blew anything up, though.” He shook his head sadly.
    Amanda smiled. “I grew up in a brand new split-level. Our cellar was partly a rec room and partly my dad's workshop. Melrose's cellar must have been really spooky before it was cleaned out."
    "Oh yeah. I used to scare the heck out of myself down there, imagining that old furnace was some kind of monster."
    "I would have imagined bodies buried beneath the floor. All these old houses need at least one good ghost story."
    "We're falling down on the job, aren't we? You'd think at least one self-respecting spook would be hanging around here, but no."
    "You never heard mysterious footsteps or had cold spots in the hallway when you were a kid?"
    "People