“Is that relevant to the murder?” She frowned as she said it, and glanced in the direction Sherry had gone.
“I have no idea,” I said. “It’s just bugging me because he—well, he didn’t exactly lie about it, but he wasn’t forthcoming, either.”
“I suspect not everyone in Blake’s Brigade is a big fan of mining companies,” the chief said. “Maybe he’s just afraid people will ostracize him.”
“Could be,” I said. “But do you know what a core drilling sample is?”
She shook her head.
“Neither did I, until Mr. Williams showed me one and explained what it was. And he told me he had learned about core drilling on another one of Grandfather’s previous expeditions.”
“Which could be true,” the chief said. “You don’t know what he did for this mining company. Maybe he never went out in the field.”
“Maybe,” I said. “And I don’t know what company Williams worked for, and maybe the fact that Theo Weaver was also connected with a mining company is just a wild coincidence. Maybe I’ve just wasted your time with something that has nothing to do with the murder.”
She gazed at me for a few moments.
“I’ll keep it in mind,” she said. “Thank you.”
I stumbled back to our tent and crawled carefully onto my air mattress. Michael and the boys were sound asleep. As tired as I was, I should have followed their example immediately. But I kept fretting. Had I just given the chief the clue that would solve the murder? Or distracted her from the real solution? Had I identified the killer—perhaps of my grandmother as well as Theo Weaver? Or fingered an innocent man for a police chief who might be so eager to solve the crime that she’d be all too ready to find him a suspicious character?
I tossed and turned for what seemed like an eternity. When I finally looked at my watch, it was two a.m. The boys would be awake in four hours. Maybe less. I resigned myself to a night without sleep.
And of course, as soon as I gave up trying to catch the sandman, he ambushed me.
Chapter 24
I awoke still tired and already cranky. When I found that Michael had whisked the boys away before they could wake me up, my first reaction was irrational annoyance. Didn’t he think I’d want to see them? What better remedy for a bad morning than a little unconditional toddler love?
Clearly, I needed caffeine.
I threw on my clothes and trudged over to the mess tent. Michael, Natalie, and the boys greeted me with enthusiasm.
So did Chief Heedles, which was much more surprising and a lot less reassuring.
“Just the person I needed to see.” She was sitting at a table at the far end of the mess tent, a setup that seemed designed to give her a chance to have reasonably private conversations. “May I have a moment of your time?”
“As much as you need,” I said. I waved at Michael and the boys and sat down by the chief.
She had a notebook open on the table. She flipped to a new page and picked up her pen.
“You said you stopped to check on Miss Annabel on your way back from town,” she said. “Just what were you doing in town?”
“Chauffeuring Thor Larsen home,” I said. “And maybe I shouldn’t have. He’d spent the previous night lurking in the shrubbery, keeping watch over Miss Annabel and the one emu we caught the first day. And nothing happened that night.”
Heedles nodded.
“But last night you organized patrols,” she said. “With Dr. Rutledge in charge. Why?”
“I guess I was a little spooked. By Thor. And Miss Annabel. Look, there’s something I haven’t told you that probably isn’t related to the murder, but you never know, so here goes. We didn’t just come here for the emus. I didn’t anyway. Cordelia—Ms. Delia, as everyone here calls her—she was my grandmother.”
Heedles looked up from her book with a puzzled frown.
“I was unaware that she and Mr. Mason had children,” she said.
“They didn’t,” I said. “This happened before she and Mr. Mason ever met.”
I gave her the condensed version of the family history.
“Well, I’ll be,” she said, when I’d finished. “Even from beyond the grave, Ms. Delia continues to astonish me.”
“I have no idea if it has anything to do with Mr. Weaver’s murder,” I said. “And if it turns out it doesn’t, I’d appreciate it if you could keep it quiet.”
“I don’t think people nowadays would find it all that shocking,” she said.
“Yes, but Ms. Delia was—and Miss Annabel is—from another generation,” I said. “And it’s not my secret to share.”