Wilmut Snee had lived all his life in Berlin, and came from stock that could say the same for more than a century behind him, his father, his grandfather, and at least his great-grandfather…He was no genealogist, but he knew this mostly since he lived in the same house the family had occupied for generations, had built themselves. This is to say, his roots ran deep in this town.
He knew all about the Meadows business. It had become the talk of the diner he visited every morning. He sipped at his coffee and they all sat about, saying much the same thing about it, each day, the way these things tend to go. What a sordid affair. None of them had been too shocked about it. Meadows and her whole family had lived such desperate lives already, had been the subject of gossip since before Kate Meadows had ever been born. The poor girl had always been doomed to a bad end. Magnets for trouble.
Truth was, Wilmut might’ve helped prevent all this, years ago, if only he’d had the courage. Tommy Bishop’s dad had worked under him at the bait shop for years, until the day he’d had to be fired. Nothing could be proven, and maybe it was just a case of looking for a scapegoat, but it had fallen to Tommy’s old man, and that had been the start of its own desperate spiral, had set Tommy on the wrong foot before he was even born, destined to be the source of cautious advice the likes of Kate would just ignore.
No, Wilmut didn’t know Tommy Bishop himself, but he knew the type, and as these things tend to go, he assumed he knew the man, and never so much as bothered to find out if there was a difference. That’s how these things go.
Of course he’d killed Kate. Everyone knew that. Anyone who said any different was crazy. That’s what they said at the diner.
Wilmut was content in such conclusions.
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