Free What the River Knows by Katherine Pritchett

touch with him?”
    “I’m sure she did, but she never mentioned him much.”
    “Do you know where he moved to?”
    “No, I’m afraid I don’t. He didn’t take much math, mostly music and art classes.”
    “Thank you, Ms. Frank.” He stood to leave. “You have given me a lot to go on. I’m very grateful.”
    “Just find her killer, Mr. Aylward.” She rose to see him to the door. “That will be repayment enough for me.”

Chapter 14
    The car he’d heard roll into Ms. Frank’s driveway belonged to a man who was applying some chemical to the shrubbery surrounding the house. Scott assumed it was a handyman or lawn service, but Ms. Frank walked to the man and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “Welcome back, honey.”
    Shocked at this further evidence of humanity from someone he had assumed was celibate, Scott checked his watch while walking to the car from Ms. Frank’s front door. Eleven-thirty. It would be at least three hours before he could talk to Dean. His stomach rumbled; the only thing he grabbed on the way out of town was the department car and some bad coffee. He could catch some lunch and read through all the letters more carefully, make some notes, maybe find someone else who knew what turns Delia’s life had taken since Homedale.
    He backed the car out of Ms. Frank’s driveway, reviewing his lunch options. The grain elevator/gas station/convenience store near the highway would be fast, probably tasteless, and crowded with more people than he cared to have looking over his shoulder while he read. It was too hot to grab food and eat in the park, which only consisted of a single city block, a shelter house, and a tennis court.
    There was Buddy’s at the north end of the two-block main street, a burger and beer joint, with the emphasis on the beer, a cavernous dark room with plywood floors and walls, where covering the bathroom walls with corrugated tin constituted a major upgrade. The burgers were good, but better than the company.
    The third option hadn’t existed when he grew up there. Debbie’s Diner sported blue checked curtains and a neatly painted doorway across the street from the mercantile. He decided to risk the unknown.
    The ceiling fans washed cool air over him the instant he stepped inside. His nagging hunger moved up a notch to raging as he smelled fried chicken, with a hint of apple pie wafting around the room. The only waitress in the place, a dark blonde who could have been anywhere from 28 to 48, nodded at him. “Sit anywhere you like.” She smiled as she followed him to a table in the corner away from the door, but next to a window. “You beat the crowd.”
    He opened the menu as she placed a big glass of ice water on the table for him. “Do you have a really big lunch crowd?”
    “Comes in waves.” She shrugged. “Farmers whose wives work come in early for coffee and breakfast, then the retirees show up and stay till about ten.” She waited while he studied the menu. “Lunch bunch starts trickling in about now and may run till two. Then the after-school crowd hits, and suppertime starts about five-thirty. We close at eight.”
    “You work every shift?” He wavered between the meatloaf and the fried chicken. Though the chicken fried steak sounded good, too.
    “Some days.” She looked up when another customer entered the restaurant. “My sisters and I own and run this place. Be right back.”
    She approached the customer, no one he recognized, but then the town and its inhabitants had changed as much as he had since he left. “Hey, Al.” She poured another glass of water. “What’ll ya have today?”
    “What’s the special, Debbie?” He headed toward a table near Scott, but a row away from the windows.
    “Same as it is every Friday, Al. Meatloaf.”
    “Better give me the chicken fry, then. No one else can make meatloaf like Sarah could.”
    She touched his shoulder as she set his water on the table. “I know, Al.” She turned back toward Scott. “Have