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Though I didn&039;t know it until I left work, that afternoon had been a busy one for the news media, as well as the police

Mamie&039;s death had not aroused e news in Lawrenceton The box of candy had rated a couple of paragraphs on an inside page locally, and had failed to register at all in the city But the e and off-beat e and off-beat e of political assassination Benjamin may have been a local butcher who very obviously desired attention of any kind in the worst way, but he did deserve the title "caers for the city papers enjoyed a couple of days of unprecedented i at my place, she&039;d been asked by the police to keep the Julia Wallace speculations out of the paper An account of the Julia Wallace murder would have little appeal for twentieth-century American newspaper readers, the police told Sally and her boss And it would hinder their investigation Sally was on an inside track with the Wrighta club member and actually present when the body was found, so she was furious to see her exclusive knowledge stay exclusive But her boss, Macon Turner, agreed with the local police chief that it should be withheld for "a few days" It was froether later; he&039;d been wooing ained ascendancy, and we&039;d becorue murder; the minute she&039;d learned from her police sources that there had been paper scattered on the surface of the bathwater, and that Pettigrue had been placed in the tub after death, she h the assassinations of radicals and easily ca of Jean-Paul Marat in revolutionary France Corday had gained entrance to Marat&039;s house by pretending she would give him a list of traitors in her province Then she killed Marat while he sat in the bath to alleviate a skin disease

After Sally had thought it through, she exploded into Macon Turner&039;s office and deest story of her career Turner, a friend of the police chief, hesitated a fatal couple of days Then the Buckleys were slaughtered, and Sally, instantly drawing the obvious conclusion, prepared her story with full disclosure of the "parallel" theory, as it becaest, best story that had coht the Lawrenceton Sentinel By chance, the two stringers were not acquainted with any Real Murdersabout Mahtat my apartment For example, LeMaster Cane toldthat the murders in Lawrenceton were too much like old murders for it to be coincidental But as a blackimplicated to come forward He&039;d already found by that time, too, that his hammer - with initials burned into the haft - was ured it had been used to kill Mahtered, the state lab phoned the local police to say that though the report was in the mail, they wanted Arthur and Lynn to know that as in the candy my mother had received was a product called "Ratkill" Ifthe taste in time to spit it out, she would have been very sick If by soh for her to eat three chocolates, sheodor and flavor by design, to prevent just such a thing happening; so the poisoning atteett found the open box of Ratkill in Arthur&039;s car The officer who had taken the telephone e from the state crime lab to relay to the detectives was a man named Paul Allison, and he was the brother of the man Sally&039;d been married to years before He was a friend of Sally&039;s, and he didn&039;t care for Arthur Paul Allison was standing in the police station parking lot when Lynn, reaching in Arthur&039;s car to retrieve her forgotten notebook, found an open box of Ratkill under it Lynn assuotten a sample for some reason, and lifted it up where Paul Allison could see it, before she sensed so and instinctively tried to conceal it After Paul Allison had seen the Ratkill, there was no possible way to conceal its finding, and Arthur had a lot of explaining to do; so did Lynn, who had been riding with Arthur off and on

Paul Allison decided to do his own explaining - to Sally He called her an hour later, and her full story was in print the nextSally&039;s story created a sensation, which it fully deserved Sally Allison, otten the story she&039;d hankered for all her life, and she went for it, no holds barred

The stringers had not known about the "parallel theory," but they did know so in Lawrenceton, which normally had a very low murder rate

When the Buckleys were killed, one of the stringers was listening to her police band scanner While the police cars converged on the Buckley house, she was loading her caas station to fill up her car, then drove slowly up Parson until she spotted the house In front of the house was slu with her arm around that tall, lovely worinore the heave of my stomach, because Lizanne smelled of vomit

Her picture of us appeared on the front page of the Metro/State section of the evening city paper Her sources in the police department had not been silent in the meantime, and the caption read: "Elizabeth Buckley sits stunned on the steps of her parents&039; ho coarden, who discovered the body of Mrs Gerald Wright Friday night"

So that afternoon while I worked in a daze at the library, newspeople atching my apartment and my mother&039;s office It didn&039;t occur to anyone that I " Lizanne Of course, the paper was not yet out and I had not yet seen the picture, but by the ti work, a television news creas parked in otten early wind of the story, and since Lizanne was incommunicado in the hospital and Arthur and Lynn were embroiled in the Ratkill discovery at the police station, ets

That is, until the news crew spotted Robin, as arriving home from the university The news read of his stepping in for the stricken writer who&039;d had the heart attack The camera was trained on him in a flash, and the news interviewed, handled it well He was agreeable, without giving theht on the news Unfortunately, they weren&039;t looking hard enough at Robin to prevent one of theht think it my duty to talk to the police, but I didn&039;t have to talk to these people One of theot hesitantly out ofinto est, hottest bath on record, he held it out to , I didn&039;t knohat, because I was so appalled at seeing the picture of poor Lizanne I couldn&039;t listen I felt surrounded, and I was, though the three nified to thirty I was just worn out and couldn&039;t deal with it

"I don&039;t want to say anything," I said nervously, and I could tell the ca The newsman was a looker with a beautiful smile, and I wanted hi I felt I was teetering dangerously on the brink of hysteria

Robin decided to rescue me He loomed up behind them, and motioned me to just walk between them I wondered for a moment if they&039;d let ht for Robin He wrapped his arm around me and we turned our backs on the news tea still (the mystery novelist and his librarian landlady have adjacent apartuts I swivelled to face the cas to my mother and I am her representative here," I said ominously "You do not have ainst the law" I said that like it was a ic charm And indeed, it seemed to be For they did pile in their van, and left! I was incredibly pleased withlike a fond daddy

"Go get &039;ely