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Jackson’s question, Dawson realized that he, along with most everyone else in the courtroom, including the accused, was leaning forward in anticipation of her answer.
    She cleared her throat delicately. “That was the day Mrs. Strong and Jeremy went missing.”

Chapter 3
    J ackson asked her to describe that day.
    “It started out like any other weekday. I dropped the boys off at their preschool at Saint Thomas Episcopal Church and went to work.”
    “You work at the Collier War Museum?”
    “I’m a curator. I specialize in the Civil War.”
    “It’s a full-time job?”
    “Yes, but the museum allows me a lot of flexibility, which, as a single parent, I require.”
    “On that day of May third, did anything out of the ordinary happen to alert you to what was coming?”
    “Nothing. Not until I got a call from the school. It came shortly after one o’clock in the afternoon. The museum director, George Metcalf, and I were in his office.”
    *  *  *
     
    “Because, George, it’s crap.”
    “Humor him, Amelia. Humor me.”
    “It has no value. Either on the open market or to the museum.”
    “That may be.”
    “Not ‘may be.’ Is.”
    “Okay. It’s little more than a trinket. The Confederate Army handed out hundreds—”
    “Thousands.”
    “Thousands of them. But the medal is valuable to Patterson Knox. It came down through his family from his great-great-great-grand something or another, and he’s named after that particular ancestor. I don’t need to remind you—”
    “But you’re about to.”
    “—that Patterson Knox contributed over one hundred thousand dollars to us last year. Mrs. Knox is—”
    “On our board of directors. I’m not stupid, George. I get it. It’s just that you and I approach these issues from different directions. As a curator, it’s my job to protect the integrity of the museum.”
    “That’s my priority, too.”
    “Yes, but as director you must also pander to people who keep our doors open. It galls me to display junk in order to ensure that a large donor continues donating.”
    “I hear you. But—”
    “Never mind. I recognize a dead end when I run into one. I don’t concede defeat, but I acknowledge the futility of further argument, which I believe you had won even before it commenced. However, I had to give it my best shot.”
    “I would expect nothing less from you. Put Mr. Knox’s medal in a corner somewhere.”
    “With a spotlighted brass plaque extolling his and Mrs. Knox’s generosity?”
    “It doesn’t have to be a large one.”
    *  *  *
     
    Continuing her testimony, she said, “We’d just concluded our meeting when my cell phone rang. I recognized the school’s number and answered immediately. It was Mrs. Abernathy, the headmistress. She was extremely upset.”
    “Why?”
    “A man had come to the school, barged his way into her office—”
    “Objection. Hearsay.”
    Lem Jackson countered. The judge ruled in his favor and Amelia was asked to continue.
    “The man demanded to know if Jeremy had been to the school that day. He hadn’t, but Mrs. Abernathy had difficulty convincing him of that. Finally he left, but only after she threatened to call the police.”
    Jackson reminded the jury that Mrs. Abernathy earlier had testified to the same, and that she had identified Willard Strong as the irate man. He then asked Amelia if it had been her ex-husband’s habit to visit Hunter and Grant at the school.
    “No. To my knowledge he’d never gone there, not even on visitation days. Our divorce had become final. Given the incident at the birthday party, his visits with the boys were supervised. He resented that, bitterly, and hoped to have the restriction revoked. But in the meantime, he was adhering to it.”
    “Did this call from the school’s headmistress alarm you, Ms. Nolan?”
    “To put it mildly. When she described the man to me, I recognized him as Willard Strong. My knee-jerk reaction was to go immediately to the school. But Mrs.