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I did, as it turned out. By that point, I’d had a few nights to think about all the risks I’d taken, going to see Meg Lindley like that.

“I’m okay,” I said. “It’s over, and the bad guy’s in jail.”

She studied me for a moment, then reached out and lifted her wine glass from the spot where it had been waiting on the coffee table. “It better be over. I can’t keep driving up here every time you almost die. The gas alone would ruin me.” There was a wobble under her voice, though, and we were both quiet for a moment before she touched her ring finger to the outer edge of her left eye, as if to confirm that her liner was still in place. Then she looked around the parlor again. “So, haunted bar, huh? Please tell me there are actual ghosts. That would at least make the priest thing worth it.”

I reached for a cracker and kept my expression very still.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said.

A few days after that, I told Roz I needed to take an extended lunch break and went to visit Meg. I’d heard from Roz and Marco — who had access to the Sacred Heart grapevine and therefore was a trove of information — that Meg had made her full confession and that Tomás Padilla’s family had been contacted. However, it didn’t sound as if she was going to be arrested; it was a clear case of vehicular manslaughter, not premeditated murder, and the D.A. decided not to pursue charges, given her age and how much time had elapsed.

But she still had to live with the understanding of what she’d done…and the realization that now everyone else in her orbit knew as well.

I picked up some flowers at Trader Joe’s to take over to her house, nothing fancy, just some mums and alstroemeria in warm autumn shades, but I hoped they might help to lift her spirits a little.

The house didn’t look any different from the last time I’d been there — the same autumn wreath hung on the door, and the roses still looked neatly tended — but it felt almost forlorn in some way I couldn’t quite quantify. And when I rang the doorbell, I had to wait so long that I wondered if no one was home. Meg could have had a doctor’s appointment, or could have had someone from the parish driving her around to run errands.

But then the door opened, and she looked out at me. She looked very pale and appeared to have dropped a few pounds, making her seem as if she might blow away in a high wind.

I was a little startled, just because I’d been expecting Diane to answer my knock. “Hi, Meg,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind me dropping in like this.”

“Not at all,” she replied. “Please, come in.”

She opened the door a little wider, and I entered the house. I looked around, and Meg gave me a very tired smile.

“Diane’s not here,” she told me. “She’s been staying with her sister in Cottonwood. A little distance was necessary, I suppose.”

“Is she going to be charged with anything?”

A small lift of Meg’s thin shoulders. “The D.A. hasn’t decided yet, but I don’t think so. Still, she wanted to get away for a while, and I can’t really blame her.” Then her gaze shifted to the bouquet of flowers I held. “Are those for me?”

“Yes,” I said, and sort of thrust them in her direction. “I thought you might want something to cheer you up.”

“They’re lovely. Let me put them in some water.”

“I can do that — ” I began, but she shook her head.

“I may not be thirty anymore, but I can still take care of some flowers. Please, go ahead and sit down while I find a vase.”

Because I knew trying to argue the point further would be rude, I nodded and went to take a seat in the chair closest to the one she seemed to prefer. She disappeared into the kitchen and then came back out with a really lovely orange carnival glass vase, just right for the bouquet I’d brought. After finding a place for it on the mantel amongst a grouping of family photos, she came over and sat down in her favorite chair.

“They do cheer the place up,” she said. “Thank you.”

“I’m glad you like them.” I paused, and asked gently, “How are you doing?”

“As best as I can, I suppose,” she replied. Her afghan was draped over one arm of the chair, but she didn’t seem inclined to place it on her lap, even though the day outside was chilly enough, with clouds that looked like they might want to rain at some point and temperatures that hadn’t gotten out of the low fifties. “Wes’s lawyer is trying to get the charges reduced to second-degree murder, but I’m not sure if he’s going to be successful. It’s hard to argue that a murder wasn’t premeditated when someone was lying in wait to commit it.”

That seemed true enough. Something in Meg’s voice sounded almost resigned, as if she’d already decided there was nothing she could do to change her grandson’s fate at this point. And really, there wasn’t; she could be a character witness, but since she’d also just confessed to a decades-old hit-and-run, she wasn’t exactly in the best place to argue someone else’s good character.

“And my lawyer reached out to the Padilla family,” she went on. “I didn’t speak with them directly, but two of Tomás’s sisters are still alive and with children and grandchildren of their own, and they were relieved to have the mystery solved after so many years.” A pause there, her eyes faraway and sad. “I hate to think I caused them so many years of suffering. But Donald made me drive. I wonder now what would have happened if I’d refused to keep quiet about what had happened and had gone to the police right away.”

Most likely, she would have only gotten a slap on the wrist. She hadn’t been drinking, unlike her husband, and it was only her unfamiliarity with the road and with driving itself that had made her lose control of the vehicle and strike that poor man.

Any thoughts I might have had about knuckling under to her husband like that, I kept to myself. It had been a very different world almost sixty years ago, with a different set of rules.

She looked a little teary, but then she blinked several times, as if forcing those tears back. And when she spoke, her voice sounded steady enough, if curious.

“I’ve been wondering how you found me ever since you came here that night,” she said then. “I know Frank wouldn’t have told you. And I’ve been telling myself that someone in town must have suspected, even if they never talked about it. I hadn’t realized until today that the answer must be your aunt.”