Michael Malone - Weebly

Thursday afternoon, seen two of the victims—the dogs
—lying where murder had outrun them. But of the killer,
not a trace was left of that chain of molecules.
And what of the chain of command? Could a jurist
ever wind his way zigzagging like Theseus through the
blind twists of a maze built to protect the vile secrets of
a ruler's lust? Could he unravel a skein of tangled lines
that would lead him from the lair of the monster straight
back into the light of day? How could any thread
possibly be brought out of that cave unbroken? Who
could prove, who could believe, who could think to
imagine a linked chain connecting a luncheon at the
Hotel Occidental in Washington, D.C., with the body of
a sixteen-year-old girl lying in an Argyle, Connecticut,
morgue? Not even the links themselves. Not even the
parents of Joy Strummer, in the maddest extremes of
their grief, would believe that an adjutant general asleep
on an industrialist's sloop in the Potomac was guilty of
the murder of their daughter.
No. The Strummers felt guilty themselves. Lance
Abernathy felt guilty, Polly Hedgerow felt guilty, to
varying degrees every guest at Kate Ransom's pool