The chief took the printout and held it at various distances from his eyes, tilting his head up and down, left and right, then up and down again, with an occasional irritated glance in my direction. Was it my fault that the print was so small? He finally gave up, tucked his chin on his chest, pulled his glasses down so he could see over them more easily, and studied the paper.
“And you think this thing is connected with the murder?” he said finally.
“Of course,” I said. “Don’t you see what it is?”
He lifted his eyes from the paper and looked over his glasses at me.
“It’s his list of people he was blackmailing!” I exclaimed.
“What makes you think that?”
“Look at the notations in the far right column,” I said. “Stuff like ‘coughed up’ and ‘caved’ and ‘won’t pay’ - doesn’t that sound like blackmail to you?”
“Maybe,” the chief said, studying the paper again.
“For heaven’s sake, you’re the one who’s so excited about the blackmail note you found in Rob’s office,” I said. “If the guy would try to blackmail one person, why not several? And here’s his whole list of victims.”
“It doesn’t have names,” the chief pointed out.
“Of course not,” I said. “I expect even Ted knew better than to leave evidence of his crime lying around for anyone to find. But I bet if you figure out who these names match, you’ll be a lot closer to convicting the killer.”
I’d said convicting rather than catching because I suspected the chief thought that by arresting Rob he’d already caught his man. He stared at the list a little longer and then reinforced my suspicion.
“You realize your brother’s probably on this list,” he said.
“He may be,” I said. “And ten other people, too.”
“Maybe he’s the Ninja,” the chief mused.
“In his wildest dreams, maybe,” I said. “More like the Space Cadet.”
“One of these columns looks like dates,” he said. “You have any theory on that?”
“No,” I said, trying to peer over his shoulder to see the column in question.
“We’ll look into this, then,” he said, curling the paper so I couldn’t see the contents.
Of course, I had to wait until after he left to pull out my own copy of the paper. Dates? What did he mean, dates?
“Oh, by the way - “
The chief. Standing right in front of the reception desk - I’d been so absorbed in scanning the printout that I hadn’t heard him come back in. I nearly fell out of my chair, and if I were the chief, I’d have been highly suspicious of the way I was acting, and would have demanded to see the paper I was so quick to hide with such a guilty look. Fortunately the chief’s mind wasn’t on the case. He was holding an Affirmation Bear.
“Damned thing turned up down at the station,” he said, slapping it down in the desk.
“I gladly accept new challenges and new situations,” the bear chirped.
The chief scowled and walked out again.
“What’s that?” I looked up to see Frankie standing near the entrance.
“Here,” I said, tossing him the bear. “Whack it in the belly.”
“I am not afraid to show my feelings,” the bear announced when Frankie whacked him.
“Cool - I’ve got to show this to Rico.”
“Be my guest,” I said to his departing back. I turned back to the spreadsheet.
Damn, die chief was right. There was a column that probably contained dates. I hadn’t realized it because I usually separate the month, year, and day with slashes or hyphens, rather than periods, but once he suggested the idea of dates, I realized that’s what they had to be. And they were all this year - within the last three months, in fact.
Of course, I wasn’t sure what good this new insight did, since I still had no idea what he was tracking - the first time he approached his victims? The last time the victims had paid? Their most recent turn to bring doughnuts for staff meeting? No way of telling.
Let’s tackle something else, I thought. Ted’s house, for example. I made a few phone calls to the Caerphilly Courthouse and found out where I could go to find out who owned the house.