Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
There were very few times that Stacey questioned direct instructions from her boss, but this was one of them.
She was still reeling from the fact that all the animosity and hate between the Stouts and the Hubbards originated from a curse made a hundred years ago.
It didn’t matter how many times the idea travelled through her brain, it was still ludicrous.
She didn’t believe for a minute in curses or spells, and if she did, she’d have spent a good deal of time searching for a spell to predict next week’s lottery numbers.
She realised that the boss was trying to invalidate the power of the curse, but she didn’t understand why.
No matter what they uncovered about the past, too much hurt had been caused in the present.
Someone had been shot and killed. You couldn’t come back from that, and these families didn’t even want to.
The boss had said that Lena Hubbard had refused to talk to her son even though she was now on her own. The hatred was so deeply ingrained a sander wouldn’t fetch it out.
They had their victim and they had their shooter, so why were they wasting any more time on it?
Especially after Penn’s group text informing them of the accusation against Daniel Reynolds.
Shouldn’t they all be focussing on proving or disproving that?
It was a pretty good motive if he was guilty.
Maybe Ashley had found out or given him cause to think she was suspicious.
Playing devil’s advocate, perhaps there was a reason she hadn’t told him about the pregnancy.
The boss was on her way to speak to Daniel Reynolds about the accusation, and Penn had gone to speak to Ava’s teachers. Stacey was sure she could have been doing something far more productive than tracing the Stout family tree.
But then she remembered the other rare occasions that she’d felt they were travelling the wrong path.
There wasn’t one time she could remember the boss being wrong, and, to be fair, they should all be wondering why, despite her confession, there was not one shred of evidence to connect Martha Stout to the murder of the man who had lived next door.