Chief Heedles had come out of the house, talking with the bearded man we’d pegged as the medical examiner. They shook hands briskly, and the man went back to his car. The chief looked around, spotted us, and headed our way.
“Evening,” she said, nodding to Stanley. Then she turned to me. “Is there anyone who has a complete list of who’s been at your camp?”
“Do you mean the people who have been camping there?” I asked. “Or everyone who was out there tonight?”
“Half my town’s been out here tonight.” The chief sounded just a little bitter that so many of her citizens were complicating her life. “But I know who lives here. Need to find out who else is around.”
“Right,” I said. “The best source would be a woman named Sherry Smith, who makes sure everyone who shows up signs a photo release, so the film crew doesn’t have to worry about bystanders wandering into their shots. I can’t swear that her list will be one hundred percent accurate, but she’s pretty diligent.”
“Were they filming tonight?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” I said. “If they did, Sherry will probably be lying down with a cold compress over her head, because there’s no way even she could have gotten releases from everyone who showed up last night.”
“She gets releases from the locals as well?”
“If they hang around camp long enough for her to spot them, yes,” I said. “Anyone who appears on camera, even in the background of a shot, they like to have a release, just in case.”
She looked at her watch.
“I know it’s late,” she began. “And people in the camp have probably gone to sleep…”
“But you have a murder to investigate,” I said. “And you want to talk to Sherry and the film crew and maybe some of the other people on Sherry’s list. I’ll meet you back at camp, by the mess tent. Or where the mess tent used to be—I’m not sure they managed to get it set up again.”
“Can you give me a ride there?” Stanley said. “I hoofed it over the fields to get here, and it’s been a long day.”
Stanley and I got into my car. The chief was already waiting for us in hers, so we led the way.
We rode in silence for half a minute or so. Then, as we approached the turnoff for camp, Stanley spoke up.
“Is there any chance that the killer went thataway?” He was pointing along the road that continued past the entrance to Camp Emu, and then, a half a mile farther on, led into the neighboring county.
“I don’t even know that he or she left by this road,” I said. “Whoever did it could be hiding in the woods. Or out in Camp Emu. Or he could have gone back to town.”
“Understood,” he said. “But did you pass any other cars on your way out here from town?”
I thought for a moment.
“No,” I said. “Not a single car. I remember thinking how peaceful it was. And the candle booby trap couldn’t have been burning all that long.”
“Good,” Stanley said. “So if the killer fled by car, he had to have gone thataway. Into the adjacent county.”
“Why is that good?” I asked. “Chief Heedles won’t have jurisdiction there.”
“But the State Police would,” he said. “I might be able to use this. To get Heedles to involve the State Police. Or, if they hear about it, they might step in whether she likes it or not.”
I nodded. I realized that I no longer distrusted Chief Heedles. She seemed well-meaning and honest, and not as biased as Miss Annabel seemed to think her. But at the same time I didn’t have much confidence in her ability to solve what was, for Riverton, a veritable crime wave. And she didn’t seem like the kind of person who found it easy to ask for help. That was one of my failings, and I’d gotten pretty good at spotting others who shared it.
“Maybe it’s just as well I hadn’t yet spent a lot of time investigating all the brigade members,” Stanley said, as I parked my car in a space as close as I could find to Michael’s and my tent. “Since Heedles will be doing it.”
“Did you find out anything interesting so far?” I asked.
“Not really,” he said. “You’ve got one volunteer who has a criminal record, but I checked him out pretty thoroughly.”
“What did he do?” I asked.
“Chained himself to a tree as part of an environmental protest,” Stanley said. “A very peaceful protest, as far as I could tell, but he and his fellow protestors happened to come up before a very unsympathetic judge.”
“Still, we should keep an eye on him,” I said. “Which one was it?”