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something else by my clueless parents.
    Even though I lived in my own bubble of weirdness much of the time, I still knew who the Parkers were. Several generations ago they started building their wealth in the lumber business, augmented by bootlegging according to local legend. Through the decades they diversified into real estate and construction. A few members of the clan branched out into other lucrative areas such as acting as a fishing guide - the wacky drunk uncle of the generation older than me - serial marriage to doctors, lawyers, and the like - any number of women in the family - and a few wild cards reputed to be dealers of one kind of drug or another. Upscale dealers with country club memberships thanks to their last name, but drug dealers nonetheless. The streak of wildness and defiance that had led the family into the moonshine business could not be tamed with any number of well-bred marriages or pretense to high society.
    From what Ray was telling me it sounded like Britney Parker got plenty of the old DNA.
    He said, “If the case hadn’t been closed before it was even really open, I’d been interviewing no telling how many men about their relationships with her.”
    I grimaced, as much at the hint of disapproval in his tone as the implications. “So she liked to date, so what?”
    Ray gave me a look. “Don’t be like that. That’s not what I’m getting at. But she dated older men.”
    “Did she, now? Well, then. We all know what’s going on with older men and younger women.” I had been nineteen when Ray and I started seeing each other, while he was just shy of thirty.
    He pressed his lips together, brows lowered, a pinched, impatient look in his eyes, as if he couldn’t decide whether to be upset or wave whatever was bothering him away, annoyance in his blue eyes. I used to call that his grumpy teddy bear expression. I suppressed a laugh with a sip of coffee.
    “That’s different,” he said. “I’m not old enough to be your daddy. And I wasn’t married, either.” He wagged a finger at me. “And you were legal when we dated.”
    “Last time I checked twenty-four was legal.”
    “She wasn’t when she first started drinking and carousing. I drove her home more than once, drunk or high or both. They should have sent the girl to rehab.”
    “Why didn’t they?” I’d often wondered how Ray felt about the parts of his job that butted up against certain unpleasant realities, like families too rich and connected for the law to touch them. At nineteen it wasn’t something I’d had the nerve to ask, though.
    It was his turn to grimace. “You know how those people are. They’d rather deny there’s a problem so they ignore it. Or tell themselves if they sent her or Mackie off to rehab, then people would talk. Hell, people talk about them being drunks.”
    Mackenzie Parker, useless middle son of the current patriarch, which would make him Britney’s uncle, was a fishing guide and all around raconteur. About ten years older than Ray if I recalled correctly. He’d hit on me once, good-natured about it when I shot him down. He’d laughed and mumbled something about having better luck if he’d been wearing a uniform. That had been my first clue my secret thing with Ray wasn’t so secret after all.
    I pushed away old memories and said, “So she dated older men, married men. Think one of them could have killed her? Maybe been jealous or maybe they wanted more and she didn’t? Or vice versa?”
    “None of them will talk to me and with it declared an accident, I don’t have the authority to make anybody answer any questions. Not her boyfriends, those bitchy little girls she called friends, or her damn family. I can’t do anything.” Frustration deepened the lines around his eyes and mouth. Like the touch of gray in his hair, those lines showed his age but didn’t do a thing to detract from his handsomeness.
    I pushed my glasses up, blinking away the dark earthy green that spilled from his