"He saw him fall. He thought he was dead and he said that made him happy." She bit her lip. "He asked me if that was being bad."
"He didn't say anything about cutting the rope?"
"Naw. He didn't do that. He would have told me. Him and me are friends. He told me he took the knife, didn't he?" Then she added, "His mother took it away from him, saying she'd keep it, and stick it in his stepfather if he dared come near them."
"Thanks," Dean said, patting her on the shoulder. Then he added, "I'm glad you're staying here with us. You're a sweet girl."
She smiled, hesitantly, then looked up at him. "Ain't you going to ask how I answered?"
"No, Martha. I don't have any business asking you anything personal...about your friends."
"I'll tell you anyway. I told him it was okay for him to be happy. Shipton was a meanie."
Later, after the visitors had left and Martha was in bed, Dean, Cynthia and Fred remained in the parlor.
"Those two, Ryland and Franny-what a pair! They're certainly different," Cynthia said as she stretched back on the sofa.
"Different ain't all bad," Fred said. "They fit together as nice as hot apple pie and a scoop of cold ice cream."
"They're just what Donnie needs," Dean added. He then related what Martha told him about Donnie.
"Thank God," Cynthia said. "I was praying he wasn't involved in Shipton's fall."
"Except if he wasn't involved, who was?" Fred asked, reaching for his notes. "This whole business is getting curiouser and curiouser."
"And what happened to the transcribed pages?" Cynthia asked. "If Donnie didn't know that Annie hanged herself, how could Edith know? Unless someone else could have transcribed them. And where are the missing notebook pages now?"
"More importantly," Fred asked, "If Edith never knew Annie committed suicide, how did she just happen to hang herself the very same way?"
"Whoa!" Dean said, interrupting him. "Let's look at the givens. Edith had to know about Annie's death-otherwise her carbon copy suicide is just too much of a coincidence. Perhaps Edith transcribed the last few pages herself. By that time there were enough examples of the substitution code to make the job fairly simple. Maybe she read the pages and destroyed them, or someone else took them after Edith had seen them."
"One or the other of the Boston sisters?" Fred suggested.
"Not Effie," Cynthia said. "Why would Effie take the papers? We volunteered to let her see them."
"She was a big fan of the true Annie Quincy," Fred said. "Why would she try to hide her suicide?"