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A SEASON OF STORIES
Terry said her good bye’s and left. While hers had only the name William on the
“Penny let’s load up everything and take it to envelope, this one was hand addressed in a block
my house. We have work to do.” style and had been sent through the mail. It was
postmarked three days before the Halloween
* * * * * * * * * party. Laura pulled the single page out of the
envelope and read it out loud.
“I’ll put the teakettle on, you start sorting the William,
materials.” You need to give me more time. I can’t get my
Penny laid out everything on the kitchen table hands on that much money right now. I can give
and created three stacks: college annuals, frat you $100 at the party. I start a part-time job next
annuals, and letters. “Do you have a notebook week and I will give you all the money I earn.
and pen so I can make a list of all the initials in Please give me a break for old times’ sake.
the ledger? We can compare them against names CJ
in the annuals,” she said with a satisfied look on “That certainly is a motive for murder if I’ve
her face. ever seen one. Is there a CJ on our list?” Penny
“We should make any notations that connect ran her finger down the page.
them to William,” Laura added. “No.”
They worked in silence for the better part of “We missed something. The clue must be
two hours. After Penny made two copies of the here somewhere. Let’s go back and look at all the
ledger names, which were only initials, she passed photos from the historical society then we need
one to Laura and opened Williams’ freshman to go through the annuals page by page.”
year frat annual. She started with the index and Penny stood up and stretched. “Do you have
compared her list of initials to the names. She anything to eat? I’m starving.”
came up with twelve possibilities and tagged Laura looked at her watch. “It’s 12:30. Where
every page where they were listed. did the morning go? I have some casserole from
“Laura, how is it going?” last night I’ll heat it up and we can eat while we
“I finished the frat annuals and found twelve work.”
names that match initials. How many do you Laura once again poured over the photos from
have?” the Historical Society. “Pennnny, I can’t believe I
“I found fifteen. Let’s compare names.” missed this. Look, tell me what you see?” Penny
For the next half hour, they matched names stood up from her chair and walked around the
to annual photos. One set of initials stood out table to lean over Laura’s shoulder.
among all the others. Was it a coincidence that “It’s the devil that you said is not William
this name owed the largest amount of money? talking to Linda. In the background looking the
“I wonder what juicy tidbits we will find in other way is William.”
these letters.” Laura divided the stack between the “There are two vital clues in this picture. If
two of them and took a quick look at the envelopes you look at the molding in the room, you can see
in front of her. All but one had the same loopy that William is at least five inches shorter than
handwriting that they had identified as Linda’s. the other devil. Look at what’s hanging out of
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32 O NE C O MM U NI T Y
ONE COMMUNITY
