CHAPTER 23
“How are we going to figure out who murdered Paul Rivers and Garrett Kelley?” I asked.
“Hey, that’s your job. You’re the brains in this operation.”
“I don’t know where you got that crazy idea. I’m indecisive, irrational, and immature. Just ask my dad.”
“I got that idea from Miss Octavia. She said you were smart.”
“She obviously didn’t know me very well.”
“Did you attend a fancy college?”
I shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Graduate with honors? Speak multiple languages?”
“It sounds more impressive than it is, trust me. I was a military brat, and my dad dragged me all over the world. I had tons of help with languages and classes.”
She placed her hand on her hip. “I can barely speak English. Stop putting yourself down. You are smart. Miss Octavia may not have spent a ton of time with you, but she did her research. She wasn’t someone who tossed out compliments lightly.” She smiled. “Now, she didn’t have anything good to say about your extravagant shoes, but she said you had a good head on your shoulders. All you needed was to be around ‘real people.’”
“Real people as opposed to . . . fake people?”
“Real people who were normal, hardworking folks—not celebrities. She didn’t have anything good to say about them. Except for Frank Sinatra. She loved him.”
“Well, there’s no accounting for taste.” I chuckled but then got serious. “Honestly, I don’t know the first thing about catching a murderer.”
“Me, either, and I’m the sheriff and it’s my job. But Miss Octavia used to say the best detective would be a combination of Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple. She said Sherlock was a genius, but he didn’t know people. Miss Marple knew people, but she needed more technical expertise.”
“You realize both of those people are fictional characters, right?”
“Doesn’t matter. Let’s just talk this through.”
“First, we need Garrett Kelley’s cell phone records. I’ll try the chocolate cake, but I can’t believe this Luke Carter person is just going to turn over someone else’s records in exchange for cake.”
“You haven’t met Luke. He’d sell his grandmother’s soul to the devil for cake.”
“What about the bullet that was removed from Michael’s arm? Any chance you can trace it to a gun owned by Jackson Abernathy or Bradley Ellison?”
She shook her head. “No such luck. We ran it through the ballistics database, but we didn’t get a match.”
“Michael said if the shooter were smart, he’d have tossed the gun into Lake Michigan.”
“That’s what I’d do. It’s a great way to get rid of it.”
One question had been flitting around in my brain. “Who’s the mayor now that Paul Rivers is dead?”
April stopped pacing. “That would be the mayor pro tem, Jackson Abernathy.”
“Interesting. I wonder what Mayor Abernathy will do now that he’s in control.”