Bob Owens, the senior board member, said, “Two murders are way worse than one. It makes it clear that something is going on. Right now, as far as Flowers knows, Conley was shot by some crazy, out looking to kill somebody.”
“That’s true,” said Jennifer Houser. “I think we should hold in reserve the whole idea of killing Buster. It’s too drastic a measure, for what we know right now.”
Jennifer Gedney asked, “What if something happened to Flowers?”
“Another possibility,” Kerns said. “The rumor around town is that he came here to investigate some dognappings, and the victims are telling him that the dognappers live up Orly’s Creek. If he was to get shot, the BCA would send somebody else down, and maybe a whole bunch of people, but if there was something that pointed at the dognappers . . .”
“Like what?” Owens asked. “I can’t think of what it would be.”
“Maybe because you only had one second to think about it,” Kerns suggested. “With a little more time, we could come up with something. He hangs out with Johnson Johnson. Maybe Johnson could get an anonymous tip about the dogs that takes them out somewhere, looking for dogs, and Flowers gets killed. That links it to the dogs, and not to Conley.”
“So moved,” said Jennifer Gedney.
“I’m sorry, but that sounds way, way too complicated. We have to have something better than that,” said Jennifer Houser. “But I’ve got a question for Jen Three. If we voted to kill Buster . . . would that be a problem?”
“Well, yes,” Jennifer Gedney said. “Not an emotional problem, or anything like that, it’s just that I think it would only focus attention. I’d vote against killing him because it seems too extreme right now. Later? Maybe not.”
Laughton grinned and said, “The marriage is maybe not as solid as it could be?”
“Just looking at him makes me tired,” Jennifer Gedney said. “All those wrenches. And he’s covered with oil most of the time.”
“All right,” said Henry Hetfield, the superintendent of schools, looking down over his steel-rimmed glasses. “We’ve got a lot on our plates right now. Here is what I’d suggest: we table the motions to kill Buster and Flowers, with the understanding that they could be brought back before the board if Buster gets too shaky—Jen Three, you’ll have to monitor that—or Flowers gets too close. But we also instruct Randy to do what he can to monitor Flowers, and to make plans to remove one or both of them if the situation worsens.”
Jennifer Barns said, “So moved.”
“I think we have two motions already on the floor,” Owens said.
“Oh, fuck that,” Jennifer Barns said. “Let’s have a show of hands on Henry’s proposal. All in favor, raise your hands.”
All nine hands went up.
“So that’s settled,” she said. “We watch and wait, but Randy is ready to move if we need to. My personal view is, we don’t have much to fear at the moment.”
“As long as Flowers doesn’t find out about the story that Clancy was working on,” Jennifer Gedney said.
“If we even get a sniff of that . . .” She looked at Kerns, who nodded.
Vike Laughton spoke up: “Flowers originally came here to investigate dogs, and he thinks they might be up Orly’s Creek. I have heard, and I’d suspect a couple more of you have, that those people are cooking some meth up there. Anybody else hear that?”
Jennifer Barns said, “Where’d you hear that?”