“Meg!” she exclaimed. “You made it into town! Does this mean Michael’s show is on?”
“With or without an audience,” I said. “Look, could I talk to the chief for a moment?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “He’s not here. He’s out at—out of the station.”
I had to smile. The chief had probably told her off again for talking too much and telling too much police business to civilians.
“I don’t suppose you know where he is,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can take a message.”
“Could you tell him to call me as soon as he can?”
“Can I tell him what it’s about?”
Debbie Anne and I fenced back and forth for a few more rounds, with me trying to find out where the chief was and her trying to find out why I was calling, before we settled for a draw. I gave her Michael’s office number, told her I’d be there for the time being, and signed off.
“He’ll call back,” I said.
“Why didn’t you just tell her why you called?” Rob said.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Maybe because Werzel showed up at the burglary scene almost as soon as we did. What if he has a police radio? A lot of reporters do. Or what if Debbie Anne says something to the wrong person? I hear a lot of stuff leaks out of the police station, and I suspect Debbie Anne’s part of the problem.”
“So what do we do now?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I looked at the phone as I thought it over.
“A watched phone never rings, you know,” Rob said. “We should think of something else.”
“Such as?”
“If Werzel’s the killer why did he do it?”
“How should I know?” I said. “Unless—hang on.”
I turned back to the computer and Googled Emerson Drood.
“What’s that?” Rob asked. He came and perched on the desk so he could look over my shoulder. I felt less stupid about not recognizing Drood’s name when Heather first mentioned it.
“A state politician,” I said. “From somewhere near Charlottesville. He killed himself about ten years ago. If I’m right . . .”
But nothing on the first couple of pages looked promising.
Most were pages that mentioned both Ralph Waldo Emerson and Dickens’s The Mystery of Edwin Drood. A couple of the articles mentioned Emerson Drood’s death, but nothing about the circumstances.
“So far this is not keeping me awake,” Rob said. “Are you sure what you’re looking for is even available online? Not a lot of newspapers were ten years ago, you know.”
“Yeah, and the one I’d really like to see is defunct anyway,” I said. “Let me try something else.”
This time I typed in “Emerson Drood” and “Whispering Pines” and clicked on the most promising of the resulting links.
“What does the Pines have to do with this Drood guy?” Rob asked.
“Maybe everything,” I said, as I scanned down the article. “Aha!”
“Aha what?”
“Fifth paragraph. ‘Drood’s body was found at 1:14 A.M. on the morning of August 5 by the night desk clerk of the Whispering Pines Motel in nearby Caerphilly County.’ ”
“Someone was murdered at the Pines?” Rob said, looking pale again. “What room number?”
“It doesn’t say,” I said. “And the death was ruled a suicide, if that makes you feel any better.”
“Not appreciably, but thanks.”
“I wonder what the clerk was doing, snooping in the rooms in the middle of the night?”
“Looking for small portable valuables, I imagine,” Rob said. “That was one of Doleson’s hobbies. So what does Werzel have to do with this?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But whatever it was, I think Doleson was blackmailing Werzel about it. You heard about the way Doleson was always photographing people who came to the Pines. I bet he had some kind of dirt on Werzel.”
“Like maybe that Werzel killed Drood?”
“Maybe,” I said. “No idea why he would, though. Werzel supposedly got a dramatic last interview with Drood just before the suicide. Seems more plausible that Doleson knew there was something fishy about that interview.”
“What do you mean, fishy?” Rob asked.
“What if Doleson knew that Werzel wasn’t there with Drood long enough to get such a long interview? Maybe Doleson eavesdropped and knew Werzel had faked some of the interview.”
Rob shook his head as if it all sounded rather weak. I agreed with him. Then I had another idea.