Presumed Guilty by Tess Gerritsen

her relief, everything seemed orderly, just the way things should be. A bill, made out by the Conscientious Cleaners Company, lay on the end table. “Complete cleaning,” read the work order. “Special attention to the master bedroom. Remove stains.” The work order was signed by her neighbor, Mr. Lanzo, bless him. Slowly she made a tour of inspection. She glanced in the kitchen, the bathroom, the spare bedroom. Her bedroom she left for last, because it was the most painful to confront. She stood in the doorway, taking in the neatly made bed, the waxed floor, the spotless area rug. No signs of murder, no signs of death. Just a sunny bedroom with plain farmhouse furniture. She stood there, taking it all in, not budging even when the phone rang in the living room. After a while the ringing stopped.
    She went into the bedroom and sat on the bed. It seemed like a bad dream now, what she’d seen here. She thought, If I just concentrate hard enough, I’ll wake up. I’ll find it was a nightmare. Then she stared down at the floor and saw, by the foot of the bed, a brown stain in the oak planks.
    At once she rose and left the room.
    She walked into the living room just as the phone rang again. Automatically she picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
    “Lizzie Borden took an ax and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one!”
    Miranda dropped the receiver. In horror she backed away, staring at the dangling earpiece. The caller was laughing now. She could hear the giggles, cruel and childlike, emanating from the receiver. She scrambled forward, grabbed the earpiece and slammed it down on the cradle.
    The phone rang again.
    She picked it up.
    “Lizzie Borden took an ax—”
    “Stop it!” she screamed. “Leave me alone!”
    She hung up and again the phone rang.
    This time she didn’t answer it. In tears, she ran out the kitchen door and into the garden. There she sank into a heap on the lawn. Birds chirped overhead. The smell of warm soil and flowers drifted sweetly in the afternoon. She buried her face in the grass and cried.
    Inside, the phone kept on ringing.

Four
    M iranda stood alone and unnoticed outside the cemetery gates. Through the wrought-iron grillwork she could see the mourners grouped about the freshly dug grave. It was a large gathering, as befitted a respected member of the community. Respected, perhaps, she added to herself. But was he beloved? Did any among them, including his wife, truly love him? I thought I did. Once....
    The voice of Reverend Marriner was barely a murmur. Much was lost in the rustle of the lilac branches overhead. She strained to hear the words. “Loving husband...always be missed...cruel tragedy...Lord, forgive...”
    Forgive.
    She whispered the word, as though it were a prayer that could somehow pull her from the jaws of guilt. But who would forgive her?
    Certainly not anyone in that gathering of mourners.
    She recognized almost every face there. Among them were her neighbors, her colleagues from the newspaper, her friends. Make that former friends, she thought with bitterness. Then there were those too lofty to have made her acquaintance, the ones who moved in social circles to which Miranda had never gained entrance.
    She saw the grim but dry-eyed Noah DeBolt, Evelyn’s father. There was Forrest Mayhew, president of the local bank, attired in his regulation gray suit and tie. In a category all to herself was Miss Lila St. John, the local flower and garden nut, looking freeze-dried at the eternal age of seventy-four. And then, of course, there were the Tremains. They formed a tragic tableau, poised beside the open grave. Evelyn stood between her son and Chase Tremain, as though she needed both men to steady her. Her daughter, Cassie, stood apart, almost defiantly so. Her flowered peach dress was in shocking contrast to the background of grays and blacks.
    Yes, Miranda knew them all. And they knew her.
    By all rights she should be