Chapter 13
“Lou, I’m so sorry I didn’t call you back. The restaurant has been totally mobbed,” I said into my cell at around ten that morning.
I stood in a quiet corner of the store away from the hubbub of the restaurant tables, but it was a lot quieter now, with fewer than half of them occupied. I didn’t want even a single eavesdropper. Buck had come in to search Gregory’s room. I’d hurried up and let him into the room half an hour ago, and he was still up there. We hadn’t had a chance to really talk, but I’d told him I knew about Gregory’s death, and that Oscar was on the case.
“It’s all right.” Lou’s voice shook. “I didn’t really have time to talk until now, anyway. They kept me up at the resort site for a while, and then I had to go to the police station to give them my statement. It took all this time.”
“Do you want to come over and hang? A number of people are still here, but it’s not crazy busy like it was before. I’ll feed you.”
Because she exercised so much, Lou had an appetite and a capacity for food much like Corrine’s or Buck’s, even though she wasn’t really tall like them.
“Thanks, but I’m going to take a Lyft home and chill alone. If I can get one that’ll take my bike.” She sniffed. “Sorry.”
“No apologizing.” Lou was a scholar and an athlete, and normally she gave off an uber-competent air. But she had feelings like anybody else. “I know you liked him, and I know how tough it is to find a body. Are you okay to talk a little now?”
“Sure.”
“Is it true that the police think he was murdered?” I asked softly. “That’s what everybody seems to think.”
“Then everybody is right. Robbie, I saw finger marks in the skin of his neck.” Her voice broke. “He didn’t deserve to die.”
Strangled. “Of course not. Poor Gregory. And poor you, my friend.”
She sniffed again. “You know that lady you were talking to the day we went to the lake? The one who lives near the resort site?”
“Her name is Yolene Wiley. What about her?”
“It was kind of creepy. She kept hanging around this morning, even after Buck told her to go home. I saw her peeking around a tree about ten minutes later. It gave me the shivers. Who wants to stalk a murder victim?”
“She told me she has a financial stake in the resort. Maybe she was simply curious about what happened.”
“Or maybe she killed Gregory, so the project can go forward. She really creeped me out.”
Except Gregory hadn’t been the gating factor on the project. The planning board was, as far as I knew. Why would Gregory be the target of violence? It was like somebody had panicked. What if the killer was now going to target each of the other protesters? Protesters who had Adele as their leader. I shivered involuntarily even as I realized that was quite a leap in logic.
I really needed to find out who was on the planning board and talk to one of them, see what the deal was. If the resort was close to approval, Adele’s group wouldn’t be at risk.
“Go home and rest, Lou. And give me a call if you want to get together later, okay?”
She thanked me and disconnected. Me, I blew out a breath and headed outside. If ever I’d needed to inhale some fresh air, it was now. But once I reached the front porch, I almost wished I’d stayed inside. The heat must have risen thirty degrees in the past two hours, and the humidity had kept pace. Who needed skin moisturizer when you had ninety-five percent moisture saturation in the air itself?
I headed back into my business. I cleared Danna for her break and told Turner he could go next. I bused a half dozen tables, scraped the grill, and mixed up a quadruple batch of muffins, since we were almost out. I’d just slid the muffin pans into the oven when Buck came clattering down the interior stairs from the B&B rooms. He didn’t quite disappear behind the cookware shelves between him and me, because his head stuck up above. He caught my eye and waved, then emerged, hat in hand.
“Any chance of a late breakfast, Robbie?” he asked.
“Of course. It’s only ten o’clock, Buck. You know we serve breakfast all day until we close.”
“Whew. I’m running on fumes, here.”
That I doubted, but I wouldn’t say so to him.
He dusted off his hands. “Oscar made us promise to be extra thorough up there in the deceased’s room.”
“Did you find anything of interest?”
“Maybe.” Buck shrugged. “Not that I can divulge. You know how it is.”
“Yes, I do.” Except that, on occasion Buck had shared information with me in the hope of getting my opinion on it. “You can go ahead and sit anywhere you want.”
He checked the Specials board. “Still got some of them there muffins?”
“We will as soon as the timer goes off, which is in”—I leaned down to check—“five minutes.”
“I’ll take a couple of those, then, with extra butter. Plus three eggs, strangled . . .” His voice trailed off, and he crunched his head down into his shoulders. “Dang it all, I am so sorry, Robbie. I had no call to go and say that, what with the current situation.”
“It’s okay. My mom and I used to say strangled eggs for scrambled, too. I knew what you meant.”
“Me and the wife always said that to our kids, too. They loved it. But saying strangled eggs don’t happen to be appropriate today.”
It wouldn’t hurt to confirm what Lou had told me. “So, Gregory was strangled?”
He glanced around and lowered his voice to a murmur. “He was. With somebody’s bare hands. Or maybe gloved hands. But you could see the finger impressions as clear as day.”
“Wow. That seems like a crime of passion, doesn’t it? I mean, if you planned a murder, wouldn’t you go for a method that left less up to chance? Or required less direct contact with the victim?”
“Could be. You’d have to ask Oscar that.”
Or not. I doubted the detective would be very forthcoming with me on any topic. “We’ve never really talked about your children, Buck.”
He beamed. “I know. I don’t mention them much. We like to keep their lives private. Especially considering the line of work I’m in. Wouldn’t want no disgruntled ex-con coming after them.”
Yikes. “Good point.”
“Anywho, the wife and I got married and started our family real young, so the kids are all growed up and launched now. I’m real proud of both of them.”
He and his wife must have started young. He didn’t look anything beyond his forties, although I supposed he could be nearing the far edge of the decade.
“You’ll have to show me pictures some time when you’re not hunting down a killer.” I needed to get back to work. “So, three strangled eggs, two muffins, and a couple biscuits with gravy?”
“Yup. That’d be fine. And a coffee when you can.”
I started to go, but he stopped me.
“And Robbie? Don’t go around telling nobody about the means of death, all right? We got to keep it on the down low. And I know you can keep a secret.”
“Girl Scout’s honor, Buck.” Somebody clearly forgot to caution Lou.