May felt cold shivers lance down her spine. She didn't have the time! She was absolutely sure this was going to involve an excessive amount of time.
"You know, there are so many beautiful venues in that part of the world.Ourpart of the world," Kerry continued. "There are so many lovely, special places. I have a long, long list all written down."
"What are you thinking?" May asked, her voice rising in pitch.
Kerry chuckled. "I know what you're thinking. Yes, I'm sure your days are also fairly full, but I need to know about the best venues. This isn’t something that can wait. After all, they tend to get booked up way in advance. So, I was wondering if you would take a look, not just for me, but for yourself too. After all, you want to enjoy this wedding, right?" Confidence resounded from her voice.
"Wait," May stuttered out.
"What we need to do is reduce the numbers down from the longlist to the shortlist," Kerry continued.
We? May didn't see any 'we' in this endeavor, which Kerry was trying to plant squarely on her shoulders.
"Look, I - " she began.
And then May ran out of courage to stand up to her older sister.
"I have to go. My boss is waiting to talk to me," she muttered, and killed the call, her face flaming from the lie. She hated lying. Why had she even said that? Why hadn't she been brave enough to tell the truth?
As she rushed back to her car, May reminded herself that if she didn't find the courage to stand up to Kerry, this would only get more difficult with every new demand that arrived. In fact, she was already heading for disaster.
*
Back in the car, she and Owen wasted no time. They logged into the case documents, and looked up the list of partygoers which Sheriff Jack had compiled.
"I guess we go alphabetically," May said. She didn't know what else to do.
"Let's hope we can get all of them to talk to us," Owen said. "I mean, it's going to be a lot of work to get a detailed statement from all of them. There must have been close to fifty people there when I arrived. And that's excluding the possibility that the killer ran away as soon as he'd killed."
May sighed. That was a major stumbling block and one that had been haunting her thoughts, too.
"He could have done that. So we also need to ask if they noticed anyone who left suddenly."
"What are the chances we're going to get anyone to talk to us?" Owen pointed out. "The parents are going to start being very protective. I get the idea this is going to turn into a sort of competition. That someone else's kid must take the fall. Especially when we start asking about drugs."
"I think it's going to be really hard," May said. "I guess we'll have to try it and see how we get on."
"Shall we do her first?" Owen asked, pointing to the first name on the list, Amy Sanders.
May looked at the address which Sheriff Jack had jotted down.
"We need to decide," she said. "What are we going to do? Calls or visits? We don’t have time to visit everyone, but a visit might be more effective."
Owen frowned.
"Perhaps we can make sense of this list. Let's drop by the first few who are closest, and on the way, and call those who are furthest away."
May thought that was a great idea.
"So we call Amy Sanders, while we head to Paul Maher, who is the closest."
Nodding, Owen dialed Amy's home number. A woman answered.
"I'm looking for Amy Sanders," Owen said.
"I'm sorry, she is asleep. And I am not speaking to any more of you. You journalists are like vultures!"
The phone was slammed down, disconnecting so brusquely that May winced.