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but--" Alex opened her briefcase and took out a manila envelope. "I'm not back to stay, Mr. Minton.
    Actually, I'm acting in an official capacity." She passed the envelope across the desk to the district attorney, who looked
    at it with puzzlement.
    "Official capacity? When Greg called me and asked if I'd help out his top prosecutor, he said something about reopening a case."
    "It's all in there," Alex said, nodding down at the envelope.
    "I suggest that you peruse the contents and thoroughly acquaint yourself with the details. Greg Harper requests the full cooperation and assistance of your office and local law enforcement agencies, Mr. Chastain. He assured me that you would comply with this request for the duration of my investigation." She closed her attache with a decisive snap, stood, and headed for the door.
    "Investigation?" District Attorney Chastain came to his feet. The Mintons did likewise.
    "Are you working with the Racing Commission?" Angus asked. "We were told we'd be carefully scrutinized before they granted us a gambling license, but I thought we had already passed muster."
    "I thought it was all over except for the formalities,"
    Junior said.
    "As far as I know, it is," Alex told them. "My investigation has nothing to do with the Racing Commission, or the granting of your horse-racing license."
    After a moment, when she didn't elaborate, Chastain asked, "Well, then, what does it have to do with, Miss Gaither?"
    Drawing herself up to her full height, she said, "I am reopening a twenty-five-year-old murder case. Greg Harper asked for your help, Mr. Chastain, since the crime was committed in Purcell County."
    She looked into Angus's eyes, then into Junior's. Finally, she stared down hard at the crown of Reede Lambert's hat.
    "Before I'm finished, I'm going to know which one of you killed my mother."

    Two

    Alex peeled off her suit jacket and tossed it onto the motel bed. Her underarms were damp and her knees were ready to buckle. She was nauseated. The scene in the D.A.'s office had shaken her more than she wanted to admit.
    She had left Pat Chastain's office with her head held high and her shoulders back. She hadn't walked too fast, but she hadn't dawdled. She had smiled good-bye to Imogene, who had obviously been eavesdropping through the door because she stared at Alex bug-eyed, her mouth agape.
    Alex's exit line had been well rehearsed, well timed and perfectly executed. The meeting had gone just as she had planned it, but she was vastly relieved that it was over.
    Now, she peeled off one cloying piece of clothing after another. She would love to think that the worst was behind her, but she feared it was yet to come. The three men she had met today wouldn't roll over and play dead. She would have to confront them again, and when she did, they wouldn't be so overjoyed to see her.
    Angus Minton seemed as full of goodwill as Santa Claus, but Alex knew that nobody in Angus's position could be as harmless as he tried to pretend. He was the richest, most powerful man in the county. One didn't achieve that status solely through benign leadership. He would fight to keep what he'd spent a lifetime cultivating.

    Junior was a charmer who knew his way around women.
    The years had been kind to him. He'd changed little from the photographs Alex had seen of him as an adolescent. She also knew that he used his good looks to his advantage. It would be easy for her to like him. It would also be easy to suspect him of murder.
    Reede Lambert was the toughest for her to pigeonhole because her impressions of him were the least specific. Unlike the others, she hadn't been able to look him in the eye. Reede the man looked much harder and stronger than Reede the boy from her grandma's picture box. Her first impression was that he was sullen, unfriendly, and dangerous.
    She was certain that one of these men had killed her mother.
    Celina Gaither had not been murdered by the accused, Buddy Hicks. Her grandmother, Merle Graham, had