In tragic life, God wot

No villain need be! Passions win the plot;

We are betrayed by what is false within.

--George Meredith, Modern Love

For my friend Olive Morgan Blankenbaker, born 1910, and for my mother, Sophie Hansen Stackhouse, 1906-1995, two brave women who lost their only sons much too soon.

They taught me to survive tragedy and loss and how to grow old with grace and dignity.

In 1975 the Friday after Thanksgiving in Yakima was icy and bleak. - A Fever In The Heart

The sounds coming through the bedroom wall in the duplex apartment in suburban Salem, Oregon, were too loud and too disturbing for anyone to sleep through. - The Highway Accident

Marty Sells is the District Attorney of Colombia County, Oregon. - Murder Without A Body

When her life was viewed in terms of worldly goods, Ruth Logg, had everything. - I'll Love You Forever

It was a little after eight A.M. on Monday, the first of May, 1979, when Sam Brand, a farmer who lives in an isolated, wooded rural area near Roy, Washington, heard someone pounding frantically on his front door. - Black Leather

James Ruzicka and Carl Harp were convicted killers of the 1970's - and rapists too - several times over, but they never faced the hangman's noose. - Mirror Images

This is for you, Olive. - A Fever In The Heart

Ironically, he now lives the life that Lori dreamed of. - The Highway Accident

And because of the silent testimony of Vicki Brown's own blood, that just wasn't enough. - Murder Without A Body

Perhaps she knows, however, that those daughters saw their quest through to the end and gave her the only gift they could: justice. - I'll Love You Forever

And he does carry that nightmare for the rest of his days. - Black Leather

And in the end, could not they both have been considered "madmen"? - Mirror Images
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