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for him.”
    “Was Mark there when you were? Can he vouch for you—what time you got there, when you left?”
    Hollinger snapped his head around, anger flaring in his eyes. “Oh now, hold on. You can’t be thinking I shot Linc and Marie.”
    “You’ve been fighting with Lincoln Kelly for a while now.”
    “About a fence, for God’s sake, a property line. I wouldn’t kill a man over something like that. Much less him and his wife.”
    “People are murdered every day over a lot less,” Tom said. “How much land were you and Linc fighting about? How many feet?”
    Hollinger threw up his arms in exasperation. “Who the hell knows? He kept changing his mind. He’d say six feet one week and twenty the next. Look, I knew the man had Alzheimer’s, and I tried to make allowances. But the survey shows I put this new fence right smack on the property line. The old one was six feet inside the line. I just took back what’s mine.”
    “Does it make any difference?” Brandon asked. “A six-foot strip on one boundary?”
    “Hell, yes, it makes a difference. I’ve been thinking for a while about selling, even before Packard came looking for land to buy. That’s why I wanted a fence right on the property line, so there wouldn’t be any confusion when I found a buyer.”
    “I hear Packard’s already been handing out purchase agreements,” Tom said. “Have they made you a firm offer in writing? One that you like?”
    “You bet I like it. They’ll give me top dollar—a lot more than my acreage is worth, to tell you the truth, but they’ve got it to spend and they want the land. That was just one more reason for Linc to raise hell about the property line. He swore he’d do everything he could to stop me from selling.”
    “Do you expect things to change now that Lincoln and Marie are dead? Will Ronan and Sheila be easier to deal with than their father was?”
    “Aw, God.” Hollinger winced as if he’d forgotten about the killings for a moment and Tom’s question had brought it all back with a jolt. “Who knows what’ll happen? Their kids haven’t lived here since they graduated college. They’re professionals, they’ve got careers. I can’t see either one of them wanting to come back here to live on the land.”
    “So you think they’ll go against their dad’s wishes and sell?” Brandon put in.
    “Now don’t put words in my mouth, son. I don’t have the least idea what they might do. I’ll just have to wait and see.”
    Hollinger lifted a rail and shoved one end into a slot in a post. Tom grabbed the other end and maneuvered it into the opposite post. “Why are you so gung-ho about selling?”
    Straightening, Hollinger flexed his back as if loosening stiff muscles. Sweat rolled down his face, and half-moons of perspiration darkened the armpits of his shirt. He scrubbed the handkerchief over his face again before answering. “I don’t want to live here alone anymore. That’s the plain truth. It’s not the same with Sue Ellen gone. Anyway, I’m almost seventy years old. I want some of that retirement leisure everybody talks about. If I sell to Packard, I’ll be comfortable the rest of my life. More than comfortable.”
    Tom nodded. “Especially if you and Tavia Richardson combine your assets. The two of you together would have quite a nest egg.”
    “I don’t know about that,” Hollinger muttered, avoiding Tom’s eyes.
    Tom was surprised to see a deep flush rise in the man’s cheeks. Was he embarrassed by his relationship with Tavia? They didn’t flaunt it, but they hadn’t hidden it either. Plenty of people knew about it.
    “I guess you realize,” Tom said, “that Joanna’s not going to sell. Packard’s probably going to scuttle the whole project if they can’t get her land.”
    Hollinger waved off Tom’s remark with an impatient gesture. “I’m not going to stand here talking about selling land when Linc and Marie…good God, I still can’t take it in. Shot to death. Who