“Vigilante?” Marina chuckled. “Isn’t that a great word? The exact definition is ‘a self-appointed—’ ” “I know what ‘vigilante’ means.” “Bookish Beth.” She rolled a pencil toward me. It bounced across her kitchen table and came to rest against my yellow pad of paper. “Can’t you just see it?” she asked. “You and me and all the other people who want to see justice done, banding together for the maintenance of order. Maybe we should get uniforms. A dark green would be just the ticket.” People, whispered a voice in my brain. What people do is important; what people think is important; what people feel is important. Our job was figuring out which particular people were significant to Agnes, and then we could work on motivations. And motivations are the origins of actions. Find the motivation, find the killer. “Or a mustache.” Marina’s cheeks were flushing a pale shade of pink. “Don’t you just love those handlebar types?” She twisted the ends of her imaginary mustache.
