Beth had called Katie that afternoon after the funeral, and they’d arranged to meet again at the Purple Parrot at six thirty.

Katie arrived just after six. She found a table with two chairs in a corner by the window and sat down with relief. She stared, unseeing, out at the street. She felt she was missing something. The same instinct that sometimes told her to order an unusual test or ask an odd question in a patient interview was asserting itself at the back of her mind. Katie decided to put aside her suspicions of Nick for the moment. Even though she felt he was up to something, she wasn’t convinced he had a reason to kill Ellen. If they had been having an affair, why would he kill her? And Cecily might have wanted Ellen gone, but her grief at the memorial had seemed genuine. And then there was Christopher. What if he had suspected an affair? His grief also appeared genuine, but had he been at the house that evening, as Mrs. Peabody suggested?

She took out her notebook and flipped to her evolving notes on Ellen. The first two items on her list of possible motives had to do with what Ellen might have known. Maybe Katie had been distracted by Nick’s odd behavior, and Ellen’s murderer had a secret they were trying to protect. She turned to a blank page and wrote, “What did Ellen know?” The rest was as blank as Katie’s mind at the moment. But Beth might have some insight. So far, without knowing what Ellen had discovered, it was hard to imagine who would have wanted to do her any harm.

Beth came through the door and glanced around. Katie waved her over. Beth walked to where Katie sat, dumped her bag on the ground, and sank down into the other chair. Katie noticed her eyes were red and swollen.

“I’m so sorry about your mom,” Katie said. “We don’t have to talk about all this now.”

Beth shook her head. “No, I’m fine. I just had an argument with Todd. I couldn’t believe he would start a brawl at my mother’s funeral. I was so mad at both of them. It’s fine now. Dan knows exactly how to push Todd’s buttons.”

“Yes, that was quite something. Is Todd okay?”

Beth nodded. “He’s fine. Just a bloody nose, and he’ll have a nice black eye tomorrow.”

“You said you needed to talk?”

Beth had the heightened energy of someone with big news. Katie was spared having to decide how much to tell her as Beth relayed the news of the autopsy report and the associated likelihood that this had not been an accident.

“I don’t know if this makes me more or less upset, but at least I know she didn’t kill herself. I just don’t think I could have ever accepted that.”

“I know how you feel, but this has taken on a more serious tone,” Katie murmured. They had both lowered their voices. “It means there’s someone out there who wanted to harm your mother, possibly based on what she’d discovered in her research. It may be dangerous.”

“I need to know what happened,” Beth said, “and frankly, I’m not impressed with the Baxter Police Department so far. They never treated it like anything but suicide, so now they have no evidence or even a weak lead to go on. Sometimes having lived in a big city makes it very difficult to live in a small one.”

She pushed her dark hair out of her eyes. In that moment, Katie saw the resemblance to Ellen. They were both small, with fine features and thick dark hair, though Ellen had worn hers longer. Katie was always amazed to watch family members and to see the mannerisms that immediately marked them as relatives.

“I’m sure John feels terrible about the way things were handled,” Katie said. “It’s not something they deal with very much in Baxter. Not that that excuses it. Whoever did this counted on the scene looking enough like a suicide to appease the police.”

“Which means it was carefully planned by someone dangerous enough to kill,” Beth said. “Todd doesn’t want me to pursue this. He thinks I should just let it go.” Beth sighed and worried her engagement ring. “In fact, I think he expects you to talk me out of it.”

“I’d really like to help, Beth. Especially if you don’t feel you can talk to Todd about it. Whoever did this needs to be caught.”

“I could use the help, if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.” Katie smiled at her. “But we’d better order before all the pot pies are gone.”

They got up to place their order at the counter. One of the local high school kids was working that evening, but the Peterson ladies were never far off. The place ran like clockwork, and any servers who were less than completely solicitous were quickly let go.

They went back to their table with mugs of tea and made plans. Beth had obtained her mother’s appointment book and laptop by telling Christopher that she needed to get a sweater from Ellen’s closet.

“I thought he was going to follow me up the stairs, but fortunately he got a phone call, and I went up alone. She kept them in her closet, way at the back. I’m not sure he even knew they were there. My mom could be quirky about that kind of thing.” She patted her oversized bag. “I put everything in here and slipped out before he had finished with his call.”

“Don’t you think Christopher would be just as interested in finding out what happened as you are?” Katie asked.

“I don’t know,” Beth said. “I know he and my mom had a couple of big arguments in those last few weeks. It really bothered her because they’d never argued before. She wouldn’t go into detail but said she’d discovered something about Christopher’s family, and they didn’t agree on what should be done about it.”

Katie frowned. Was she too quick to discount Christopher just because he was emotional at the funeral? “You don’t think Christopher could have killed your mother, do you?”

“No.” Beth hesitated. “No, I can’t imagine him hurting my mom. But I don’t know what was wrong between them, and I don’t want to confide in him before I have the whole picture.” Beth leaned forward, her elbows on the table, and rested her chin in her hands. “I’ve known him for three years. He’s always been wonderful to me and my mother, but I don’t trust him with this.”

“What’s Dan like, other than short-tempered?” Katie asked. “I hadn’t met him until today at the memorial.”

Beth sat back and crossed her arms. “I think Christopher would prefer he didn’t have a son sometimes. Dan has been nothing but trouble since I’ve known him. There was some issue with the restaurants. Todd told me that Christopher suspected Dan was embezzling money from the Riley’s he was running in New York. I think Dan got into gambling . . .” Beth trailed off.

“Are they on better terms now?”

“I guess so.” She shrugged. “Christopher sent him out to Chicago to open a new restaurant and to get him away from New York. I’m not sure how things are going out there now.” Beth sipped her tea.

Katie waited and stirred sugar into her mug.

“But Christopher put Todd in charge of the finances, which is partly what Dan was mad about,” Beth said. “He thinks Todd convinced Christopher to do that in order to take over more of the business. Todd doesn’t even want the extra responsibility, especially since he has to deal with Dan all the time.”

“Maybe your mother found out something about him . . .”

“I guess it’s possible . . .”

“Could Dan have harmed your mother?”

“I hope not, but I think he’s capable of anything.”

The food arrived, and they both fell silent for a time, enjoying the homemade chicken potpies and soft crusty bread.

“What did you find in your mother’s book?” Katie asked. She nodded toward Beth’s bag sitting on the extra chair.

“I’ll show you.” Beth pulled the book out of her bag and flipped it open. “She had the usual hair appointment, and she saw you the week before she died. She also had a couple of phone numbers written down. One is the historical society office. The other is a lawyer’s office in Ann Arbor.”

“Did you speak to them yet?”

“I have an appointment with the lawyer tomorrow afternoon. I don’t know how much he will be able to tell me. There’s probably some sort of confidentiality clause.”

“I suppose. I guess it depends on what it was about and whether your mother was a client. Did her laptop have anything useful on it?”

“I was only able to access her web browser. I knew her password to open the desktop, but all the files are locked with a different password. I scanned through her e-mails for the past month or so and didn’t find anything that seemed relevant. She was visiting a lot of sites that discussed the genetics of color-blindness.”

“Was she interested in genetics?”

Beth shook her head. “Not that I know of. Todd is color-blind. I told her about a funny interaction we had while shopping when he was trying to help me pick out clothes. That was about a month ago.”

“Maybe she was just looking to see what the chances of a color-blind grandchild would be.”

Beth blushed and shook her head. “Maybe. I wish I could get into the rest of the files. It’s unusual for her to lock them with a password like that.”

“Even client files?” Katie knew how easy it was to get into trouble with privacy laws. Maybe Ellen had been extra careful.

“It’s possible, but everything is locked.”

“Don’t you think you should turn it over to the police?” Katie asked.

“Maybe, but then it will sit in some stranger’s in-box,” Beth said. “I feel weird turning over my mom’s personal computer when we don’t even know what’s on it.”

“If you feel comfortable letting me take the computer, I know someone who can probably get into the password-protected files.”

Beth’s face lit up. “You do? That would be great. I didn’t want to take it to one of those computer repair places. Not knowing what’s in there makes me nervous. Your person will keep it confidential?”

Katie nodded. “I’d trust him with my life.”

Beth slid the laptop across the table.