Free Murder at Barclay Meadow by Wendy Sand Eckel Page B

out. Maybe we could divvy it up—each follow a different lead.”
    I looked from face to face. Maybe I wasn’t as alone as I thought. Not only did they think I was right to look into Megan’s death, they were going to help me. “So we’re a team,” I said. “I can’t believe it.”
    â€œHey,” Jillian said into her phone. “’Sup?”
    Sue glanced over her shoulder. “I don’t think anyone should know what we’re doing.”
    â€œWe don’t need to worry about Jillian,” I said. “She barely listens to your memoirs.”
    â€œSue’s right again,” Glenn said. “This is a very small community. We’ll need a private place to meet.”
    â€œIs there such a thing in Cardigan?” Tony said. “I mean, heck, I went to the Acme the other day and the clerk asked if I was that guy from Wilmington living on his sailboat.”
    â€œWe can form our own private group on Facebook,” Sue said. “No one will be able to read our posts but us.”
    â€œThat’s it.” Glenn slapped his palm on the desk. “My grandchildren keep asking me to get a Facebook account. This will be the push I need. All right, so if we form our own group, no one else can see our conversations?”
    â€œThat’s correct,” Sue said. “I’ll set it up tonight and send you an invitation.” She leaned back in her chair and looked down at her lap. “There’s just one thing.”
    â€œWhat?” I watched her carefully.
    â€œI won’t be logged on as Sue Ling.” She looked up at us, her eyes darting from face to face. “I’ll friend you as Shelby Smith.”
    â€œI didn’t know you could do that,” I said. “Don’t you have to be an authentic person?”
    â€œThere are a lot of things about Facebook people don’t know,” Sue said. “It’s called catfishing. Anyway, if we have a private group we have to pick a name for it.”
    â€œHm…” Glenn rubbed his chin. “To solve a problem you have to explore all possibilities. And as Rosalie said, we don’t know for certain Megan was murdered. So we start with a question as you do in any valid research. All right, so what’s our question?”
    I thought for a moment. “What if Megan Johnston was murdered?”
    â€œThat’s it,” Glenn said. “Our Facebook group will be called the ‘What Ifs.’” He lifted his notepad and a pen from his pocket. “Now, will someone please tell me how to get on Facebook?”

 
    N INE
    My stomach grumbled with hunger as I drove down the lane to my house. Afternoon sunlight peeked in and out of the rows of gnarled cypress trees. My papers and a pack of cinnamon gum were on the passenger seat. I gazed up at the house as it came into view. Built before the Civil War, Barclay Meadow was graced with two-story pillars and floor-to-ceiling, cross-paned windows. The lane ended in a loop that encircled a clump of mature, musky-scented boxwoods my aunt had tended as if they were her grandchildren.
    Charlotte Barclay Gardner, who was ten years older than my mother, inherited Barclay Meadow from a long line of Barclays. As a child, I spent weeks here in the summer. I filled my days running through the fields, reading for hours on the dock, harvesting tomatoes from the garden, and kneading bread dough. She loved this house. It was the child she never had, the husband who died too soon. She ate the food it produced and nurtured the people who worked the fields.
    Raised in Baltimore, Charlotte was the first of the Barclay clan in fifty years to make it a permanent home. But despite her kindness, her generosity to local charities and involvement in the community, she was always considered to be from “away.” That was something else I inherited from her.
    Tyler’s tractor hummed in the distance. Dust billowed behind the