“If he was the one who bought it Friday, I’d worry about what my dad and his brothers were up to,” Randall said. “None of us had anything against that Tyler woman, though.”
“If Evan Briggs turns out to be the killer, none of you will mind much, I imagine.”
“Hard to see how it could be him,” Randall said. His tone sounded casual, but I detected a faint note of eager curiosity, as if he’d love to know what dirt I had on Evan Briggs but would rather chew off an arm than ask.
“He was seen leaving here shortly after the afternoon croquet games began,” I said. “Drove off somewhere. What if he parked somewhere nearby, hoofed it over to your uncle Fred’s pasture, and killed Ms. Tyler?”
Randall shook his head.
“Don’t think so,” he said. “I happen to know where he went.”
“Where?”
He frowned slightly and studied a knothole in a nearby board with intense interest.
“Well, if it’s a guilty family secret,” I said.
He snorted slightly.
“There’s some of us think Briggs is trying to pull a fast one, so we keep an eye on the bastard. When his car pulled out, Vern said, ‘I bet he’s going over to see Uncle Fred.’ So we watched where he was going and, sure enough, when he got down the road a piece, he turned into Fred’s lane.”
He jerked his head in the direction of the tiny, distant farmhouse. Yes, if you knew where the road was, and happened to want to keep an eye on Evan Briggs, you could track him pretty well from up here.
“He stayed there the whole time?”
Randall nodded.
“Damn long time,” he said, leaning to spit over the side of the roof, as if the idea of spending prolonged time in Evan Briggs’s company left a bad taste in his mouth. “Some of us were for going over there and seeing what was up, but about the time Vern and I were getting ready to do it, we saw Briggs’s car head back.”
“No chance he could have come back and walked down to the murder scene in time to be the killer?” I asked.
“No,” Randall said. “It was just about then your dad came up to give us the news that someone had been killed. He didn’t tell us who, though, and I remember Duane saying, kind of hopeful like, that maybe Briggs had finally killed himself, driving around with one hand on his cell phone and the other on his Palm Pilot. Couple minutes later, Briggs drove up.”
“Thus cruelly dashing your hopes,” I said. “Damn.”
Not to mention my own hopes. Frustrating that my efforts to track Briggs’s whereabouts on the day of the murder had succeeded not in implicating him but in giving him a reasonably good alibi.
Randall nodded as if he understood.
“So if Briggs didn’t do it, who did?” I said, just to see what he’d say.
Randall frowned.
“I couldn’t say,” he said. “If I were Chief Burke, I’d take a lot closer look at people who think they can get away with anything in this town.”
He turned and began to climb down the ladder.
“By the way,” I said.
He stopped and looked back up at me.
“The name Toad Bottom mean anything to you?”
“Toad Bottom? Why? Where’d you hear that name?”
I pondered the expression on his face. Not guilt or anxiety. More like keen interest, with a hint of amusement.
“I heard someone call Caerphilly that,” I said. “Wondered why.”
“It’s someone who knows his history, then,” Randall said. “That’s what the town used to be called. Before the Pruitts waltzed in and took over. Wasn’t fancy enough for them, so they got the town council to change the name.”
“Many people know about it?”
“Not unless they’ve been digging pretty far back in the town history,” Randall said.
Or talking to the Shiffleys. Which I was beginning to think might not be all that different. Was there a way to tap the Shiffleys’ historical knowledge without letting them know I was doing it to fight the mall project? I’d have to work on that. Maybe sic Joss on them.
“Thanks,” I said.
Randall nodded and climbed down. I followed, much more slowly, though. Randall was nice enough to steady the ladder for me. Although midway down, I suddenly felt a twinge of anxiety. If Randall was the murderer, what a perfect way to get rid of someone who was inconveniently nosy.
Nonsense, I told myself. He wouldn’t try to commit a murder here in plain sight of everyone down in the yard, would he?
Not if he were sensible. Still, I breathed a lot more easily when my feet were back on a solid floor.
“You sure you want that widow’s walk?” Randall asked. “You really don’t seem to like heights.”