Denny groped his jacket pocket and brought out a cartridge. He loaded it into the open gun and closed it.
She was a second or two understanding what he had done. ‘‘He doesn’t need you, Denny. He’s one of them.’’
‘‘You’re crazy,’’ he said.
He edged her aside, when she tried to block his way to the door. ‘‘It’s Mary needs me, don’t you understand?’’
‘‘No, I don’t understand and I never will. You can’t have the gun, Denny. It’s mine. I want it back.’’
She tried to take it from him, but he was by far the stronger. She tried to twist it free.
The explosion rocked the house. Smoke and debris clouded the air. She knew she was losing consciousness, but now she couldn’t let go of the gun. It was frozen in her hands. And her hands were wet with blood, her sleeves, her breast saturated. She could taste it. So much blood.
Then nothing.
When the girl, Lainie, got home from Denny’s funeral, she put the Mass card in the box of clippings she was saving from the Hope Valley News. It didn’t belong there, and yet it did. It would always carry her remembrance of the lone high voice from the choir loft singing the ‘‘Dies Irae,’’ Day of Wrath, and the single sob it brought from her aunt Mary.
For as long as she lived, Norah would say that she had killed Denny-in spite of the coroner’s finding that his death was most probably caused by a bullet fired from the cellar doorway an instant before or an instant after the gun in her and Denny’s hands exploded.
Mary swore she had seen Spillane when she started over at the sound of gunfire. So she, too, bore willing guilt. But it was Donel who could beat his breast the hardest.
Norah had been right. Spillane was a low-level member of the Chicago gang Donel had been in business with for years. He had thought he was breaking away from them that fall. ‘‘The boss’’ thought so, too. He suspected at first that Donel was tying in with another gang and using Mary’s place for storage. Spillane investigated even the well. Donel no more than Mary doubted his claim to be a federal agent.
When the news of the construction business came out-Hope County Construction-‘‘the boss’’ wanted a part of it. Donel refused. As he told Mary, he was clean. He thought he was, but Spillane caught up with him before he reached the door of the lawyer’s office that morning. The boss expected him to postpone the contract signing and expand the partnership. The boss promised he would get well paid, whichever way he played it. Donel told him to go to hell.
Why Denny and not Mary if Spillane was his killer? It was probably the boss’s decision. Denny was Michael O’Hearn’s nephew, and Michael had been killed-in the line of duty-in an exchange of gunfire that also killed a young and promising member of the gang those many years before.
Spillane was never found, dead or alive.
About the Authors
P. M. Carlson
P. M. Carlson taught psychology and statistics at Cornell University before deciding that mystery writing was more fun. Her novels have been nominated for the Edgar, the Macavity, and the Anthony. Two Bridget Mooney short stories were finalists for the Agatha. Her latest novel, featuring Deputy Sheriff Marty Hopkins, is Crossfire (Severn House). She was president of Sisters in Crime in 1992-93.
Barbara D’Amato
Barbara D’Amato has won the Carl Sandburg Award for Fiction, the Agatha twice, the Anthony twice, the first Mary Higgins Clark Award, the Macavity, and others. She is a former president of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime (1994-95). She and her husband have written several musical comedies, which were produced in Chicago, London, and Toronto.
Dorothy Salisbury Davis
Dorothy Salisbury Davis was born in Chicago in 1916. Author of twenty novels, thirty-some short stories; Grand Master, Mystery Writers of America, 1985; Lifetime Achievement Award, Bouchercon, 1989. Member of original board of Sisters in Crime.
Susan Dunlap
Susan Dunlap has written nineteen novels and numerous short stories. Her series feature Berkeley police officer Jill Smith, forensic-pathologist-cum-private-investigator Kiernan O’Shaughnessy, meter reader Vejay Haskell, and, most recently, stunt double Darcy Lott in A Single Eye. Her day jobs have ranged from social work to legal assisting, teaching hatha yoga, and being part of a death penalty defense team. She was president of Sisters in Crime in 1990-91.
Kate Flora
Recovering attorney Kate Flora is the author of seven Thea Kozak mysteries, a suspense novel, and the Joe Burgess police procedural mystery series. Her true crime book, Finding Amy, was a 2007 Edgar nominee. With two other mystery writers, she is a partner in Level Best Books, which publishes anthologies of crime stories by New England writers. She is an MFA candidate in creative writing at Vermont College. She was president of Sisters in Crime in 2002-03.
Linda Grant
Linda Grant is the author of the Catherine Sayler series. Sayler, a San Francisco private investigator, specializes in high-tech crime, taking cases that range from sabotage in a genetics lab (Lethal Genes) to sexual harassment in a software company (A Woman’s Place). Three of her six books have been nominated for Anthony Awards. She was president of Sisters of Crime in 1993-94.
Kate Grilley
Virgin Islands resident Kate Grilley was the president of Sisters in Crime in 2003-04. Kate is the author of the Anthony and Macavity Award-winning Caribbean mystery series featuring amateur sleuth Kelly Ryan. Writing as Kate Borden, she is the author of the Peggy Jean Turner/New England mysteries. In 2006 Kate was the Malice Domestic Toastmaster.
Carolyn Hart
Carolyn Hart is the author of thirty-nine novels. Her newest title is Set Sail For Murder, seventh in the Hennie O series. Coming in 2008 are Death Walked In, eighteenth in the Death on Demand series, and Ghost at Work, first in a new series featuring the late Bailey Ruth Raeburn, an impetuous redheaded ghost who returns to earth to help someone in trouble. Carolyn was president of Sisters in Crime in 1991-92.
Libby Fischer Hellmann
Libby writes the award-winning Chicago-based mystery series featuring documentary producer and single mother Ellie Foreman. There are four novels in the series, starting with the Anthony-nominated An Eye for Murder. Libby was president of Sisters in Crime in 2005-06. Her next release, Easy Innocence, is a stand-alone PI novel set in Chicago.
Sue Henry
A past president of Sisters in Crime (1997-98), Sue Henry lives in Anchorage and has traveled widely in Alaska for the last thirty-three years. Her first mystery, Murder on the Iditarod Trail, featuring sled dog racer Jessie Arnold and state trooper Alex Jensen, won both the Anthony and Macavity for Best First Novel of 1991. Besides the series that followed that book, she now writes a spin-off series featuring Maxie McNabb, another Alaskan character first introduced with Arnold in Dead North. Sue has lived in Alaska for thirty-seven years and, before retiring to focus on writing, was an administrator in the field of adult basic education for both the Alaska State Department of Education and the University of Alaska-Anchorage, where she also taught writing.
Rochelle Krich
Rochelle Krich’s first mystery, Where’s Mommy Now? won the Anthony Award and was filmed as Perfect Alibi. The author of five stand-alones, five Jessie Drake mysteries, and several short stories, Rochelle (www.rochellekrich.com) writes a series featuring LA tabloid journalist Molly Blume (‘‘A sleuth worth her salt,’’ New York Times Book Review). Grave Endings won the Mary Higgins Clark and Left Coast Crime Calavera awards. Rochelle is currently working on Mind Games, a stand-alone. She was president of Sisters in Crime in 2006-07.