• • •
After I locked the library down for the evening—Friday was the one winter weeknight we closed at five—I drove the few blocks to meet with Hal and Ash. The late meeting time had suited them both for various reasons, so I’d stopped feeling guilty about canceling our morning appointment and shifted to feeling guilty about driving such a short distance instead of walking. Some days I could pull off being like Aunt Frances and not feel guilty about hardly anything and, even better, not worrying about anything at all, but today wasn’t one of them. “Tomorrow is another day,” I said as I opened the door to the sheriff’s office.
Hal Inwood was in the lobby, tacking an announcement about keeping mailboxes clear of snow to the glass-covered bulletin board. “Yes, unless the world ends in the middle of the night.”
“Aren’t you a ray of sunshine.” I stomped my boots free of snow.
“You should meet my wife.” He shut the glass door and locked it. “Unless you two are already good friends. That would, in many ways, explain quite a bit.”
But Mrs. Hal and I had never met. Which was both odd and not odd. Chilson was a small town, but for transplants, which the Inwoods and I both were, if your paths didn’t cross, you could easily never meet. I grinned. “Tell her to stop by the library. We can exchange all sorts of stories, for hours and hours.”
He gave me a pained look as he let me go in front of him into the interview room. “Fortunately, she’s downstate with grandchildren, and it’s possible that when she returns, I’ll forget to mention your kind invitation.”
Right then and there I made a silent vow to get to know the detective’s wife. “How is the testing going?”
“Of the sugar packet? No results yet, and I believe I mentioned at the time that it would take at least a week.”
“You did,” I said, “but I was thinking maybe January is a slow time at the lab and they could get it through faster than a week.”
“Still the funny one, aren’t you,” Ash said as he came into the room. “None of the labs in the state have slow seasons. All they have are busy and really busy times.”
“The poor things,” I murmured, meaning it. How stressful it must be to always be pushing your staff to the limit.
“Job security.” Ash pulled out the chair next to Hal and sat. “Sorry I’m late, I was finishing up a report.”
“That’s what I like best in a detective-in-training,” Hal said, nodding. “Finishing my work.”
I smiled and didn’t say a word, but I was thinking how far the relationship between Detective Hal Inwood and myself had advanced. Not all that long ago he’d barely tolerated my presence and had clearly considered my suggestions an interference. Now he seemed as if he could be almost likable.
“Now, Ms. Hamilton,” Hal said, focusing on me. “You said you have information to share. Please go right ahead. I’d like to get home at some point tonight.”
“Sure,” I said. “Neil Bennethum has already told you some of this, but I have some thoughts, too.”
I told them about Rowan’s argument with Land, and how Neil was so sure that Land had killed Rowan. The two law enforcement officers across the table had both opened their respective notepads and clicked on their pens, but no notes were taken during my little speech.
“You know all this,” I said.
“Looking into it.” Hal glanced at his watch. “At this point we’re still gathering information.”
Well, almost likable. “Right. How silly of me to think I might tell you something useful.”
Hal sighed. “Ms. Hamilton, please. It’s been a long day. What else do you have?”
I told myself to cut the detective a little slack. He was getting up there in age, and he was serving the people of Tonedagana County for a wage that didn’t anywhere near make up for the hassles he had to endure.
“Assuming,” I said, “that the sugar packet was a vehicle for the poison, there are at least two people who use that particular type of sugar. Stewart Funston, who I saw with the same kind of packet just yesterday, and Hugh Novak. He’s on the waiting list at the place that makes the stuff to get a box as soon as they make any new.”
Hal’s and Ash’s pens scribbled away as I talked. When I stopped, Hal asked, “And their connections to the victim?”
He was taking me seriously—hooray! “Stewart is Rowan’s cousin. A first cousin. And though I’m not sure of the details, Hugh couldn’t stand Rowan. They were on opposite sides of the political spectrum, and he never missed an opportunity to disagree with her publicly.” That’s what Neil had implied. I’d confirmed it with Donna, and she was one of my most trusted local sources.
“There’s a lot of that going around,” Ash said. “If people killed each other because of politics, we’d have a lot more murders at Thanksgiving.”
But people did kill each other over politics, and the look Hal gave Ash was one of fatigued reproach. “Thank you, Ms. Hamilton. We’ll take this information into account as the investigation moves forward.”
It was a statement of dismissal, but I wasn’t ready to move an inch. “And what have you found out? Don’t say you can’t discuss an active investigation. Surely you can tell me who you’ve talked to at the bank. If you don’t tell me, I’ll go the bank and any teller will let me know.”
Hal gave Ash a nod. “Okay,” Ash said. “Technically, this information is public knowledge, but we’d prefer you keep it to yourself.” When I murmured agreement, he went on. “We talked to Sunny Scoles.”
I frowned. “Isn’t she the owner of that new restaurant halfway between here and Charlevoix?” I couldn’t remember the name.
“That’s the one. She opened up there because it was what she could afford, but it was affordable because it’s not a great location. Apparently she’s doing okay, but wants to buy a food truck to expand.”
“Rowan turned her down?”
Hal stirred. “We can’t give out that information.”
I squinted at the men across the table. “But you talked to her so—”
“Can neither confirm nor deny.”
I turned back to Ash. “Sunny Scoles. Anyone else?”
“The last person we talked to was Baxter Tousely.”
“Baxter . . .” The name sounded familiar. Then my mental lightbulb clicked on. “You mean Bax?”
Ash nodded. “That’s what everyone calls him.”
“Is he about twenty-two?” If I recalled correctly, Bax had been in the same high school class as the Bennethum twins. He hadn’t been a fixture in the library, but I remembered Anya and Collier mentioning his name in a way that had made me assume he was one of their friends.
Hal flicked me a glance. “How many men named Baxter do you know, Ms. Hamilton?”
And back to the not-quite-likable side. “Bax is still in Chilson?” If he’d been a friend of Collier and Anya, I would have thought he’d gone off to college.
“Working for the city,” Ash said. “Public works department. But his dream is to have a post-production video service. It can be a good business, I guess, putting together short movie-like bits for everything from big companies to nonprofits to weddings, but to do it right, you need some expensive equipment up front.”
“And Rowan turned him down for the loan.”
Ash smiled. “What I can tell you is that he’s still working for the city and hasn’t been in the best of moods the last few weeks.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me?” I asked.
“No.” Hal stood. “And I’m not sure I’m comfortable with how much we’ve told you already. Good night, Ms. Hamilton. Deputy Wolverson, I’ll see you tomorrow.” He walked out, leaving me with Ash.
I sat back. “Is he getting enough sleep? Eating properly? I worry about the man, especially now that I know his wife is out of town.”
“You’re one to talk about eating right.” Ash stuffed his notebook into his uniform’s shirt pocket. “When was the last time you ate any vegetables?” I opened my mouth, but shut it when he added, “And French fries don’t count.”