“So it seems to me,” Letty observes, sipping her tea, “the real mystery isn’t who killed Harrison Squire— it’s who was Harrison Squire? And whom did he come to that party to kill?”

“Whomever he wanted to kill doesn’t change the fact that Harrison was my good friend. And I’m determined to find his murderer. Aren’t there any leads you can give me, Letty? Any ideas at all about how I should start this investigation?”

She sets her teacup down. “I’m sorry to have to be the one to say it, my dear, but you probably won’t be able to find a killer amongst two hundred suspects. Not without police resources.”

I wilt a little at her words. I was afraid of that…

“But,” she says, and I look up hopefully, “at the very least you want to be sure those in your immediate vicinity aren’t killers, yes? Especially those in your own family.”

My own family? I hadn’t even considered such a possibility. And yet, there is wisdom in her words.

There were a lot of strange things about that day, now I think of it. Ben’s conversation with Jackson, his friend’s crude appeal for the money my brother ‘owed him.’ Louise’s disappearance just as we were meant to be toasting her and William St. James. And Will Senior’s disappearance at the same time. Ben’s too. They were all missing about the time of the murder. And all of them acting strangely.

“You can’t investigate everyone who was at the party. But you can investigate those in your own home. As far as I’m concerned,” Letty lifts a brow of silent judgment, “they are the most suspicious anyway.”

I think she might be right about that. But since she brought up my family, that reminds me of another question I had for her.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you. That thing you do, where you tell people’s types just by looking at them. I never asked you about Mother and Father.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Well,” I shift uncomfortably. “Do you think they could be murderers?”

“You’ll permit me to speak frankly?”

“Absolutely.”

“Your mother is half addled. With so much alcohol in her system combined with the drugs, she’d be more than capable of committing a murder, though whether or not she’d remember it the next morning is another story. As for your father…”

“Mother thinks he’s having an affair with his secretary,” I volunteer.

“What, with Edith Appletree?” Letty shakes her head. “Impossible.”

“But they’re always together.”

“That’s because they work together. But Edith would never have an affair with a married man. She may be pretty and even ambitious, but she’s far too proud of her ability to consider stooping to such a thing just to gain a career advancement. And your father, he’s not the cheating type.”

“But he is, though!”

Letty raises a questioning eyebrow and I feel my face color. “I mean, the rumors. About his mistress. My birth mother...”

She snorts through both nostrils rather like a horse. She considers me longer, then shakes her head vehemently. “No, I just can’t see it. Duane Porter would never cheat on his wife. He’s just not the type to be swayed by passion.” 

Is he not? Then how does she explain my existence? Am I really Duane and Marcella Porter’s legitimate daughter? Are these alien looks of mine just a throwback to some great great grandfather no one’s ever heard of? I consider a mental picture of my parents’ profiles doubtfully. I’ve never seen any of myself in either of them. 

“Letty, can I ask you…one more question?”

“Sure, Honey.”

“You’ve got such clear insight into everyone else. But I was wondering… What about me? What sort of person am I?”

“You?”

“Maybe it sounds pathetic but I… I really don’t know myself sometimes. Who I am or where I’m going… What I’m meant to do with my life…”

“That’s a tricky one,” she muses, studying me intently for a solid ten seconds. “Really, it’s difficult to say how you’ll end up; you’re still growing.”

“Still growing?” I laugh uncomfortably. “But I’m twenty-six.”

Letty’s warm eyes crinkle and she smiles at me very gently. “Yes, Dear. But you’ve yet to fully come into your own. Or do you disagree with my assessment?”

I consider her words with a faint pang. “No,” I answer softly. “I think you’re right.”

She nods thoughtfully, and pats my forearm with an absent, motherly sort of gesture. “Don’t count yourself out yet. We all work these things out at our own pace. Right now you can’t picture where you’ll end up or how, but you’ll get there alright. And when you do, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the way your life’s turned out.”

“You think so?”

She smiles at me again. “Good people always are, Dear.”

Letty’s given me a good deal to think about. I thank her for her time and leave the River home with my head even more full of jumbled up puzzle pieces than before.

Outside beneath the shade of fast darkening clouds Sam waits by the car with a cigarette in his mouth. When he sees me coming he drops it in the driveway and rubs it out before hurrying to get the door for me. I thank him absently and fall into the car seat, staring out the window with my chin cupped in my hand as we roll down the driveway.

“Did you get any good information?”

At the sound of his voice, I look up, startled. I meet his greenish brown gaze in the rear view mirror. 

“I’m not sure…”

“What’d she say?”

“She said I’m immature.”

I hear Sam smirk faintly at this and I bristle. “You agree with her, don’t you?”

“Never said I did.”

“But you didn’t deny it, either.”

He smirks again, not cruelly, and strangely I find I don’t mind so much that he’s laughing at me. It’s almost nice in a way. It’s how I’d imagine a friend might laugh at me. Not that I’ve ever really had someone like that.

“There was something else she said…”

“It’s bothering you,” he guesses, and I can’t deny it.

“I wonder… Do you think I resemble my parents, Sam?”

His eyes widen at my question and he glances at me again in the mirror. Then he looks back to the road.

“I don’t know that it’s my place to say, Miss…”

So he sees it too. Everyone sees it. And yet they act like nothing’s wrong. Like everything about this cowbird’s circumstance is perfectly ordinary.

Letty said the real question wasn’t who killed Harrison, but who was Harrison. Now I’m beginning to think that’s not the question I need to ask myself right now, either.

The real question is—who am I?