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not here to defend himself. He’s innocent until proven guilty. I hope Ethan Trask and his team are trying to keep open minds about the investigation, at least until they find more evidence.”
    I looked from Gram to Reverend McCully and back again. “But aren’t they? When Ethan said he was assigned to investigate the case, he sounded as though he was treating Mama’s murder as an open homicide investigation. He wasn’t just going to dot the i ’s and cross the t ’s.”
    “Perhaps not that open, dear,” said Gram. “But I believe he’ll do the best he can. The town is divided. Some people are convinced Joe Greene couldn’t be the murderer. Others believe there’s no doubt he was. Ethan’s under pressure to find more evidence that Joe killed your mother, or come up with another killer. Neither option will be easy after nineteen years.”
    Mama was dead. Joe Greene was dead. But, clearly, the dead weren’t going to rest in peace. Not yet.
    Yesterday I’d told Evan I wanted to understand what happened to Mama. But maybe I knew enough.
    Now he was going to dig everything up again. Digging unearths dirt and mud. I’d worked hard to wash away that dirt and mud, all those years ago.
    Right that minute, sitting in my funeral clothes in Reverend McCully’s office, all I could think about was how fast I could get out of Haven Harbor.
    How fast I could get away from whatever Ethan Trask might find out. Away from reporters with television cameras and microphones. Away from memories I’d managed to repress while I was in Arizona.
    I never should have come back. I’d made a mistake. Gram had been doing fine without me.
    “Before we go in, Tom, let me tell you some good news,” Gram was saying. “You remember I told you Mainely Needlepoint was having a problem with our agent?”
    “Of course, I remember,” said the reverend. “Jacques Lattimore—that scoundrel should be in jail!”
    “Well, we’ve made a big step toward solving our problem,” she confided, reaching out proudly and touching my arm. “Angie has a lot of experience in private investigations, and she’s volunteered to check him out for us. Once we know more about what we’re dealing with, we’ll be able to go forward.”
    “That’s wonderful, Charlotte,” said Reverend McCully, beaming. “Maybe it was fated that Jenny’s body would be found now, so Angie would come home when you needed her.”
    “It was,” said Gram. “And a blessing.” She smiled at me as though I’d just been named savior of Haven Harbor.
    How much could Ethan find out, anyway? It had all happened so long ago.
    And I didn’t have to stay in Maine forever. I’d stay just long enough to find out about that man—Jacques Lattimore—who wasn’t paying up. I owed that to Gram.
    Then I’d get out of town.

Chapter Six

    From 1887 until 1930 American women fond of needlework of all sorts subscribed to Modern Priscilla, a monthly sixteen-page magazine featuring embroidery, crochet and knitting patterns, recipes, and decorating ideas. During World War I it featured simple patterns for gloves and socks to be sent to soldiers, and ways to stretch household budgets while still supporting the war efforts. Copies of Modern Priscilla may be found today on eBay, at paper and ephemera shows, and in used bookstores.

    Light streamed through the tall glass windows on both sides of the church, and more floral arrangements than I’d expected lined the front. Gram’s friends must have sent them. Sadly, Mama was best remembered not for her life, but for her disappearance and death.
    She would have loved the attention she was getting today.
    Gram and I’d been seated in the front pew, almost on top of the flowers. They smelled sickly sweet, like incense in one of those New Age stores where you can have your palm read and buy crystals and angel ornaments. The kind of place Mama would have laughed about. Although the day I’d taken my First Communion in this church, she’d given