“You can say that again,” Jo said, earning a slight smile from Bev.
“We never got the evidence because Dupont was dead when we got there,” Sam said.
“Seems like Thorne would have good motive to kill him,” Bev said. She seemed to consider this hunch carefully. And Jo’s confidence grew. She got the impression that Bev was sharp, and she didn’t seem to be pushing the investigation in any one direction. She was taking the information at face value. Maybe Sam was right and things wouldn’t be so bad.
“One possibility is that someone left the gun to frame someone else,” Jo said.
“Who?” Bev asked.
“Possibly us,” Sam said. “My contact, Jesse, told us that the rumor was that the head of drug distribution was some sort of municipal employee. He specifically mentioned it could be a cop.”
“And you think Thorne is arranging to frame you to get you out of the way.”
Sam nodded.
“Lucky I can tell the difference between planted evidence and real evidence,” Bev said.
Somehow, Bev’s words didn’t make Jo feel better. It would be great if she wasn’t fooled by anything that Thorne had planted, but that also meant she might be able to smell a rat about some of the things that Sam and she had done.
“So, you have two other officers working on this, but one is only part-time.” Bev looked around the squad room at the three desks.
“That’s correct,” Sam said.
“That’s not much manpower. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of extra manpower myself. But we’ll try to do what we can. That Jamison is no prize to deal with, either, but the murder of a mayor is serious. If your hunch about Thorne is correct, this is a big case. It needs to be done right.”
“I agree,” Sam said, “especially if one of us is being framed.”
Bev pursed her lips and nodded solemnly just as the door to the lobby opened and Wyatt entered.
Sam introduced Wyatt to Bev.
“Did you settle things down with Rita and Nettie?” Sam asked Wyatt before turning to Bev and explaining, “Bit of a local dispute this morning. Still have to handle those too.”
Bev nodded as if she was all too familiar with having to juggle petty disputes and bigger investigations.
“I got things settled.” Wyatt held up a loaf-shaped package wrapped in pink cellophane. “Rita sent you a fruitcake.”
Sam took the fruitcake, a frown on his face. He looked down at Lucy. Lucy sniffed the air, disinterested, apparently deciding she wasn’t a fan of fruitcake. She turned and trotted to her plush dog bed and flopped down.
“I might have gotten a tip on the Dupont case from Rita,” Wyatt said.
“Really?”
“She said she was walking Bitsy down the access road to the mill. I guess there’s a path that intersects with it in the woods near her house. She can see the access road from the path. Anyway, she said she saw an SUV racing out of there right after she heard the police sirens.”
Jo’s gut clenched. An SUV? That would have been Mick’s.
Bev’s interest was piqued. ”What kind of SUV? Could she identify it?”
“She just said it was a black SUV. With roof racks.” Wyatt grimaced. “I tried to get her to be more specific, but she said she can’t see that well and she doesn’t know the makes.”
Bev looked at Sam. “We should have her in. Maybe we can show her photos of black SUVs to help her identify the model. I want to interview her.”
“Yes, we should do that,” Sam said. “But Rita’s elderly and a local. I want to be there because she’ll get nervous. I don’t want her to be afraid.”
“I understand that. I have locals in my county too.” Bev pressed her lips together and looked out the window. “But one thing’s odd. If the killer drove away in an SUV, how could he leave a fingerprint while running through the woods?”
“And why would Rita have seen the SUV after hearing the sirens?” Wyatt turned to Sam and Jo. “Dupont had already been dead for a while when you got to the mill, right? I assume the killer would have been long gone.”
“Would seem that way,” Sam said. “But maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was in there, doing something, and we scared him off. John did say it looked as if someone had gone through Dupont’s pockets. If this was Thorne’s doing, he might have instructed the killer to look for incriminating evidence.”
“We called it in right away, so the timeline would make sense,” Jo added.
“Didn’t you hear a vehicle driving off?” Bev asked.
Jo exchanged a glance with Sam. “No. Well, tell the truth, it was kind of loud with all the pigeons flapping around in there. And we didn’t see an SUV, but if it was parked down the road in the woods, we wouldn’t have seen it, and the sound of the engine would have been barely audible inside the mill.” Great, now she was thinking up lies off the cuff and telling them to the county sheriff.
Wyatt glanced at the corkboard. “So the SUV that Rita saw could be the killer’s?”
“Most likely.” Bev looked at Sam. “Is there any other reason someone would be out there? Another building or someone’s home?”
“There’re walking trails out there. Someone could have parked to use the trails and just happened to be leaving at that time,” Sam said.
“Either way, it would be good to find this person. If not the killer, they might have seen something.”
“I’ll do a search of all the black SUVs in the area,” Wyatt said.
“Good idea. I’ll shoot back to my office and follow up with the lab on the gun. See if they found anything else,” Bev said.
“Jo and I will check out the lead we got from Jesse,” Sam said. “And I’ll get Reese to call Rita to see if she can come in later this afternoon.”
“Let me know what time, and I’ll swing by and sit in.” Bev glanced at the package wrapped in pink cellophane on Sam’s desk, her nose wrinkling. “Let’s just hope she doesn’t bring more fruitcake.”
Chapter Ten
Kevin arrived home from the morning shift to find a note from his contact under the mat at his back door. Damn, he was hoping the contact might have lost interest, because he hadn’t heard from him in a while. No such luck.
He brought the note inside and fixed a cup of tea. His hands shook as he opened it. What would they want now? With the ongoing investigation of the mayor’s murder, Kevin didn’t have a good feeling about what the contact was going to ask him to do.
The words were scrawled, as if someone was trying to hide their handwriting. But the message was clear. Steer the investigation toward Sam Mason’s cabin. Critical evidence under the doghouse.
Kevin burned the note and then sat contemplating what to do. Someone was trying to frame Sam. Now he knew for sure that Sam and Jo weren’t doing anything wrong. His contact had been the one working for the wrong side all along. Probably working for Thorne.
There was no way Kevin would let Sam go down for this murder. For once in his life, he had to go out on a limb and do something. He had to make up for the information he’d passed along this past year.
Kevin had an idea, but he’d have to be careful. It would mean crossing Thorne, which might result in Kevin ending up dead in a pool of blood just like Dupont. But if he played his cards right, maybe he could pull it off.
He was in a good position because he could pass information that would put off discovering whatever was under the dog house back to his contact. He could make it seem as though he was setting things up so the evidence stuck. Meanwhile, he had an idea of how he could get both him and Sam out of this and possibly get something they could use against Thorne.
He got in his car and drove to the woods near Sam’s cabin. He knew Sam was at work and no one was home, but he didn’t want his car seen at Sam’s house. He parked on another street and took a trail through the woods that brought him near the back of Sam’s property.