“Getting back to the case,” I said. “Did you ever manage to track down Louise? The mayor’s secretary?”
“The one you suspect of helping Mr. Blair get his hands on that copy of the contract?” He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his forehead. I wasn’t sure if he found my question interesting, or if he just welcomed the excuse to take a break.
“I’m not sure I really suspect her,” I said. “She sounded sincere when she said that no matter how much she hated her boss, she wouldn’t do that to him. But maybe she fooled me, and even if it wasn’t her, she might have a good idea who else would have had access.”
He nodded.
“That thought had occurred to me as well,” he said. “And I have been trying to reach Ms. Dietz all day. Without success.”
My stomach did a somersault at hearing that.
“Maybe she’s making a run for it,” I suggested. “Or—what if she knows too much and someone decided they needed to get rid of her, too.”
“Annoying as it is not to be able to reach her, I think it’s a little early to jump to that conclusion,” the chief said. He put his handkerchief away and squatted to pick up another plant. “Maybe she just likes to spend her Sundays doing something other than sitting indoors by her telephone.”
“Yes, but don’t you think it’s a little odd that she apparently cleared off her desk and turned in her keys?”
He put the plant down again and turned to me with a frown.
“You’re sure of that?”
“That’s her desk in the mayor’s anteroom,” I said. “He was complaining before you arrived that he’d left her a message to come in and she hadn’t shown up. I think he assumes she’s in on the evacuation, and maybe she is. But according to him, her desk was cleared off by eleven last night. And I don’t even think the Fight or Flight Committee had made its decision by that time, much less sent out the word. She must have come down here straight from the meeting.”
“Maybe she thought she saw which way the wind was blowing and decided to waste no time,” he said.
“Maybe,” I said. “But last night when she left the barn, she didn’t look like someone who was making a bold decision to risk her job on a principle. She just looked miserable and scared. Maybe she made a run for it. Or maybe whoever killed Parker didn’t give her the chance.”
The chief studied me for a few moments with a faint frown on his face. Then he pulled out his cell phone and hit a few keys.
“It’s me,” he said. “Can you get the word out to all our officers that I want to talk to Ms. Louise Dietz?… That’s right.… No, just wanted for questioning. For now … Thanks. No, I’m down at the town—I’m down at the county courthouse. I should be back soon.”
He hung up, stuffed the phone into his pocket, and went back to loading the neatly labeled plants. But I thought I could see a little more haste in his manner.
“County courthouse,” I said. “I like that better than town hall.”
“It’s what we should have been calling it all along,” he said. “Blasted Pruitts!”
About ten seconds after we finished loading the last plant, the smallest and most elderly of the garden ladies trotted back down the sidewalk, beaming with delight.
“Finished so soon?” she trilled. “Wonderful!”
The chief and I watched as she dug into a straw purse, fished out an enormous cluster of keys, and hopped nimbly into the high cab of the truck.
“Thanks again!” she called as she drove off, shifting the truck’s gears as effortlessly as if she drove it every day. For all I knew she did.
“I’d better get back to the station,” the chief said. “Thanks for the information on Ms. Dietz.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “The way voter sentiment is running right now, the mayor will probably be recalled long before he has a chance to appoint a puppet.”
“Yes. I understand they already have a couple hundred signatures on the recall petitions,” he said. “And frankly, even if the mayor does hire a puppet in spite of the DA’s efforts, I’ll still be investigating the assault on your grandfather, which definitely happened in the county, not the town. We’ll manage.”
“You bet we will, Chief,” I said.
“Deputy Sheriff, you mean.”
I tried it on for size.
“No,” I said. “You’ll always be the chief to me.”
He smiled, nodded, and left.
Chapter 22
I decided to make my own escape before the garden club ladies returned with more backbreaking work. I headed for the police station parking lot to collect my car.