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kind to most of us. So one of the twins turns out to be a real looker, the other one’s an ugly duckling. The story is, the kid decided she couldn’t live up to the Foley reputation and figured they’d be better off without her.  She hung herself in her bedroom.”
    Mary shook her head. “Oh, that’s awful,” she said. “What happened to the rest of the family?”
    Jerry scratched his head for a moment, displacing some of the thin strands of his comb-over. “The other twin, I think her name was Faith, was shipped off to some expensive boarding school in Europe somewhere,” he said. “She didn’t even make it to the funeral. The mom had some kind of breakdown at the funeral.  She was never the same.  I think she ended up going to some live-in facility.  You know, the kind where they serve you your meds in cut crystal glasses.”
    Mary nodded. “And the dad?”
    “He still has his offices here in town,” he said. “The surviving twin got her law degree too and she works with him.  She’s quite a looker.  Does a lot of work with teenage suicides.”
    “That’s nice of her,” she said.
    Jerry shrugged. “Some people, who ain’t so nice as you, say that she caused her sister’s death.  Said she used to like to tease her and make her look bad.  So, could be she’s nice, could be she’s guilty.”
    “Do you think some people are right?” she asked.
    Rubbing the back of his neck, he stared off across his office for a moment. “Funny thing, actually, more woo-woo creepy than funny.”
    “What?”
    “A couple years after her death, one of the girls who used to hang out with the sister killed herself,” he said, “on the same date as the first suicide.”
    Sitting forward on her chair, Mary pulled out a pad of paper and a pen. “That is weird,” she said. “What was her name?”
    “Mandy…something,” he replied. “I’ll look it up and send it to you.”
    “Thanks, I’d really appreciate it.”
    “Yeah, yeah,” he replied absently, not concentrating on Mary’s response. “There was something else.  Something I should tell you.”
    She waited.
    Finally, he turned back to her. “Something’s niggling in the back of my mind,” he said. “But I can’t put my finger on it.  I’ll let it percolate for a little while and it’ll come to me. I’ll send you an e-mail when it does.”
    Mary stood up. “Thanks, Jerry,” she said. “Once again, you’re a fount of information.”
    “Yeah, just remember, you owe me, O’Reilly,” he replied as she walked out of his office.
     

Chapter Nine
    Mary was just on time to her appointment.  The house looked even more impressive in person than the virtual online tour had shown.  She parked her car at the top of the circular drive and walked up the narrow pathway to the house. The door opened before she had a chance to knock.
    “Mary O’Reilly?” the young woman asked.
    Mary nodded. “Yes, I’m Mary,” she replied.
    “You don’t look like…I was expecting, something, someone different,” she said.
    Mary smiled. “A turban around my head and a flowing caftan?” she asked.
    The woman smiled slightly and nodded. “Something like that, I suppose. Please come in, I’m Faye Vyas.”
    Yes, it certainly was fancy , Mary thought as she entered the foyer.
    Decorated in muted shades of peach, from nearly white to nearly brown, everything in the home suggested the influence of a skilled interior designer.  The highlight of the foyer was a large sweeping staircase of polished wood that smelled slightly of lemon polish.  It was a nice touch and Mary looked around for a plug-in air freshener, because she knew the woman next to her had never held a polishing rag in her professionally manicured hand.
    Unopened boxes sat alongside the staircase and, as she looked through the open doorways from the hall, Mary could see a large number of unopened boxes throughout the house.
    “Did you just move in?” Mary asked.
    Faye, following Mary’s gaze,