As he and Haley whipped out their cell phones, Devin found herself looking around the room. She’d known Beth and Brent most of her life, and Gayle for a long time, too, but differently, since she was older than they were. Theo was a newbie, but he’d worked for Beth for quite a while now.
His friends, she thought. It had to be one of his friends. They’d all been there when Melissa Wilson was killed, plus they’d known her, and that connection had to mean something.
As people took their food and moved to sit comfortably around the parlor, Vince and Sam Hall wound up in conversation, their shared profession providing an easy link. After his initial bout of anger, Brent seemed to be happy to relax and have a good time. At one point she noticed Rocky deep in conversation with Gayle.
She took a seat on the sofa near them and started eavesdropping. They were talking about the area.
“I love how this state is always changing,” Gayle said. “Immigrants are always arriving, and most people welcome them. Of course, people do like to tease that Bostonians can be a bit snobby, but you can’t really blame them, since a lot of them can trace their roots back to the earliest days of the colony.”
“Me for one,” Rocky said. “On my mother’s side.”
“Me, too,” Beth said, walking over in time to catch the end of the conversation. “Gayle and Brent, too. Theo, you came from the Midwest, right?”
Theo laughed. “Most recently, yup.”
Sitting in the wingback chair across from the sofa, Haley sighed softly. “I guess Jackie is destined to be a snob, because he got a double dose. Both Jack and I can trace our families back to when this area was first settled.”
“Vince’s family goes way back,” Jack noted, lifting his glass in a mock toast.
“Dear God, we’re more inbred than a pack of poodles!” Renee laughed. “And don’t forget Devin.” She turned to Devin and asked, “Didn’t one of your eighteen-million-greats come here with Roger Conant, the founder of Salem?”
“Yes, he did,” Devin said. “Both my parents are from Salem.”
“We’re all probably related to one another somewhere back in the dim mists of time,” Beth said cheerfully.
“It would be fun to find out if any of us really are related,” Vince said. “Except for poor Theo—you’re practically a tourist,” he teased.
“Hey, that’s the way it goes,” Theo said, laughing. “At least I’m not inbred.”
The gathering had grown easy, relaxed—comfortable, Devin thought.
Except that Rocky seemed to think one of the guests was a murderer.
Eventually it was time for everyone to leave. Haley urged Beth and Gayle to stay together, and they agreed that Beth would stay at Gayle’s place, at least for that night. Jack said that the chief and the mayor had decided to put out a news alert warning women not to go anywhere alone at night and to stay away from any wooded areas.
Then everyone was gone but Devin and the Krewe.
For a moment they were all silent.
“Well?” Rocky asked quietly.
“Theo was interesting,” Angela said. “How well do you know him, Devin? There’s something about him—he just makes me feel a little uneasy.”
“He’s worked for Beth for a while. Where he really came from, I don’t know,” Devin said. “I have no idea where he was living when Melissa was killed.”
“Tomorrow,” Rocky said, “we continue the archives. There’s more information out there somewhere. We figure out what this all has to do with our Puritan woman—but we make a new effort, as well. We’ll research Theo’s movements over the last thirteen years.” He turned to Angela. “We have fingerprints?”
She nodded. “I have a glass from everyone here—labeled by name and in a paper bag under the sink.”
Devin stared at her—she’d been picking up all night, and she’d never seen Angela even take the glasses, much less label and hide them.
“You’re good,” she murmured admiringly.
“You learn,” Angela said dryly. “At least now we can find out if one of our guests went to your house and set fire to your lawn.”
“And now we know for sure that most of us did have ancestors here,” Devin said.
“Yes. What we don’t know is where they stood regarding the trials—and whether they had a connection with the Nottingham family.” Rocky smiled grimly and said, “I did learn that Gayle’s family was nearly banished. They pretended to be religious so they weren’t thrown into the wilderness. But, according to her, they were never good Puritans.”
“So...more research,” Jane said.
“Better than finding more bodies,” Rocky countered.
*
Devin couldn’t understand why the evening—which had actually ended up feeling like a real get-together—had left her so wrung out. But once they reached the hotel, she didn’t want to think about it.