“Hot dog!” Randall exclaimed. “Chief, we’re not paying this man enough.”
“We’re not paying him at all,” the chief said. “He’s on loan from York County, remember?”
“Then remind me to call up my counterpart in Yorktown and recommend they give him a raise. Horace, how long do you think it would take to get that expert down here?”
“We can’t even put in a request until tomorrow,” Horace said.
“I will give Horace a formal, written request to take down with him tomorrow when he conveys the latest batch of evidence,” the chief said. “He will make sure to deliver the evidence before the lab closes, but I think it unlikely that anyone in authority will be available to act on our request until morning.”
“Thursday morning,” Horace said. “They’ll be off Wednesday for the Fourth of July holiday.”
“Even better,” the chief said. “But by Thursday I may be forced to comply with the subpoena. And after that, the game could be up.”
“So we need to figure out who really did it by Fourth of July,” Rob said. “That’s going to be tough.”
“It has to be one of those damned Flying Monkeys,” Randall said. “They’re the only ones with unrestrained access to the courthouse.”
“Don’t forget the civilian staff,” I said. “The ones like Fisher, who have set up local offices for themselves in the courthouse, and the ones from headquarters who come to visit them.”
“The Flying Monkeys or their corporate bosses.” Randall nodded. “They’re the only ones who had motive, means, and opportunity.”
“Means and opportunity I grant you,” the chief said. “But Ms. Brown was an employee of FPF herself. Hard to see what motive one of the guards could have had for killing someone on their own side of this whole mess.”
“But what if she wasn’t on their side?” I said. “What if they found out she was getting ready to spill the beans, and knocked her off before she could do it?”
“Spill what beans?” Randall asked.
“No idea,” I said. “Since obviously they succeeded in knocking her off before she had a chance to spill them. Unless—”
Something occurred to me. I turned the idea over for a few moments to see if it made sense.
Chapter 20
“Unless what?” the chief prodded.
I still wasn’t sure what I remembered was useful, but I’d let the chief decide.
“Suddenly I find myself remembering something Mr. Denton said,” I told him.
“Mr. Denton?” Randall echoed.
“The private investigator.”
“That’s right—I hear you’ve been getting acquainted with that private eye fellow,” Randall said.
“I had lunch in Muriel’s today,” I said. “By way of a change from fish, fried chicken, and barbecue. The PI tried to strike up a conversation with me, and unlike the rest of the town, I didn’t actually run away screaming. Maybe I’m deluded, but I think I’m savvy enough to have a casual conversation with the man without giving away any of the town’s deep dark secrets.”
“So you really did talk to him?” Randall asked.
“We exchanged about a dozen sentences,” I said. “So if that’s getting acquainted, then yeah, we’ve been getting acquainted.”
“It’s more than anyone else has done,” he said.
“Your cousins and some of the choir husbands were playing poker with him beneath the bandstand earlier this evening,” I said. “They might know more about him than I do by now.”
“Good,” he said. “I keep telling people we should charm the fellow. Maybe winning him over to our side’s too much to hope for—man’s got to eat, after all, and we’re not hiring any PIs. But maybe he knows things we’d find useful if we could winkle them out of him, and no way we can do that if everyone in town clams up the second he appears and snarls at him if he talks to them.”
“And have you been setting an example?” I asked. “Chitchatting with him yourself?”
“Far as I can, but I might be the one person he knows better than to trust,” Randall said. “What did he have to say?”
“Is this relevant to the case at hand?” the chief said.
“Maybe,” I said. “He asked if there was anyone in town who didn’t know he was the PI hired by the lender, and I told him no, we pretty much all knew. He didn’t seem surprised.”
Randall nodded.
“We sparred a bit. Then he said something odd.” I paused to recall his exact words. “He said he was beginning to think that this time he might not be playing on the side of the angels.”