I drove straight to the St. George Police Department. Beth had the phone cradled to her ear with a shoulder, tapping on the keyboard while carrying on a conversation that sounded more personal than business. She glanced up but kept to her duties.

“The chief in?”

She held up a finger, said something into the phone about meeting after work, and hung up. She picked the receiver back up and punched a number. “Mr. McClellan is here.”

She placed the receiver in the cradle again. “Go right on in.”

I tapped on the door and walked in. “Well, Mac, it’s been a while,” Chief Merritt said without bothering to stand up or offer a hand. “Have a seat. You come across any more bodies or marijuana lately?” He chuckled at his little joke.

“No, just Brett Barfield’s boat.”

His grin faded. “You found Barfield’s boat? Didn’t know that. Reckon Sheriff Bocephus is keeping things close to the vest these days.”

“Looks that way.” I got right to the point. “How did Brett Barfield manage to beat those two arrests for marijuana possession a while back?”

Merritt rolled his chair back a couple of feet and crossed his arms. “Well, now, I don’t see what business that is of yours.” The corners of his mouth turned down. “Who told you about that?”

“Was he dealing?”

“Whoa, now, we’re stepping into some sticky business here,” he said, face flushing. “Legal stuff. The boy had a big-shot lawyer, and there was a little matter of lack of evidence.” He scooted the chair closer and leaned forward, arms resting on the desktop. “Tell me something, Mac, how come you running around here playing detective all of a sudden?”

“Who said I was?”

“I heard some talk. Not much goes on around here I don’t get wind of, one way or another.”

“Who was the arresting officer?”

“For what?”

“Brett Barfield. Who was the officer that busted him?”

“Look here, McClellan,” he said, his face growing redder, “that’s official police business. It don’t concern you.”

“It’s a matter of public record, Chief. I can go to the courthouse if I need to.”

His jaw tightened. “Sergeant Tom Mayo. Had to let him go a couple of years back.”

I made a mental note of the name. “Why’d you get rid of him?”

“Insubordination and other, shall we say, indiscretions. You ought to know well enough an outfit can’t run properly when you got somebody refusing to be a team player.”

“How about some details, Chief? From what I know it’s not easy to get a civil servant canned.”

Merritt slapped the desktop with an open palm. “Damn it, man, you’re starting to get on my nerves! You come to my town, happen across a body floating in the bay, and now you’re acting like God Almighty himself sticking your nose where it don’t belong!”

I took a deep breath and let it out. “You’re a servant of the people, Chief Merritt. That means you work for me and the other citizens of St. George. I suppose I could go to the city council, or the mayor’s office. There must be minutes of the meeting when this Tom Mayo was terminated.”

The chief rocked back in his chair and held his arms out. “Look, Mayo didn’t always follow orders, okay? And he got caught planting evidence in a suspect’s vehicle. That suit you?”

“Any chance that suspect was Brett Barfield?”

He hesitated a second, chewing on his lower lip. “Could’ve been, but so what?”

“Where can I find Tom Mayo?”

Merritt planted his hands on the desktop and pushed himself up. “No damn idea. He left town after he was fired. Is that all?”

I got up to leave. He didn’t offer a hand, not that I expected him to. “Thanks for the info, Chief.”

“Watch your step, McClellan,” he said as I turned to go. “I let you slide on that marijuana we found on your boat. Next time I might not feel so generous.”

I’d made enemies of the Harpers, the Barfields, and now Ben Merritt. And I wasn’t exactly Bo Pickron’s closest chum, either. Not a bad week’s work for a fledgling undercover officer.

My gut told me Sara Gillman wasn’t spilling all she knew when it came to Maddie Harper and Brett Barfield. I was convinced Brett was dealing, or had been, but to who? With the THC found in Maddie’s body, chances were better than even she’d been involved, too. Being best friends, I wondered if Maddie had slipped Sara an occasional joint or two now and again. Had Barfield been supplying the younger crowd, high school students? Student parking lots are crammed full these days, and most kids seem to have money to burn. Having graduated from Parkersville High, Brett would’ve had plenty of contacts and potential customers.

I couldn’t risk approaching Sara myself, and I didn’t think Kate would be overjoyed at the prospect, but Kate was the best shot I had. Sara looked up to her as a close friend and confidant. If anyone could scrape up any useful info from Sara, it would be Kate. That evening I waited outside Gillman’s for Kate to lock up. I got out of the truck and approached her as she dropped the keys in her purse.

“You’re out of your dang mind!” she said, after I’d told her my suspicions about Maddie’s involvement.

There were a few vehicles still parked in Gillman’s lot, probably fishermen out late or down by the docks tending to their boats. I suggested we continue the conversation in my truck.

“There’s something I haven’t told you,” I said when we’d settled in the cab. “The autopsy found evidence of marijuana in Maddie’s body.”

Kate’s eyes grew wide; she frowned and looked away. “I don’t believe it, Mac, not Maddie.”

“I saw the autopsy report. Pickron showed it to me in his office. There was enough THC in her hair and tissue samples to show she was using not long before she died.”

“But . . . the baby.”

I tried the high road for Kate’s sake. “Maddie probably quit the stuff when she found out she was pregnant, but there was still enough in her system to show she’d been using.”

Kate looked down and shook her head. “You think you know someone, and you don’t really know them at all.”

I reached over and placed my hand on her arm. “It doesn’t make Maddie a bad person; she was young, experimenting, kids do stuff.”

Kate looked at me and forced a smile. “I guess we weren’t exactly little angels all the time ourselves, huh?”

I told Kate about my run-in with Ben Merritt, and how he’d fired Sergeant Tom Mayo for “planting” evidence in Brett’s vehicle when he’d busted him for possession. “I need to find this Mayo and hear his side of the story,” I said. “I think the guy was set up and took the fall to get Brett off the hook.”

Kate sighed and shut her eyes for a second. “But why on earth would Chief Merritt do such a thing?”

I knew Kate wasn’t going to like what I had to say. “Because he’s on the mayor’s payroll, and I’m not just talking about Merritt’s salary as police chief. George Harper paid him to keep Brett out of trouble.”

Kate pursed her lips and blew out a quick breath. “You’re really fishing now, Mac. That’s ridiculous. The Harpers can’t stand the Barfields. Give me one good reason why the mayor would bribe Chief Merritt to help Brett Barfield.”

“Because George Harper is Brett Barfield’s biological father.”

Kate’s jaw dropped open, and she glared at me as though I’d slapped her.

“Come on,” I said, cranking the engine, “let’s go for a little ride.”

I turned west onto 98 and drove the few blocks to Canal Park, which is just inside the western edge of the city limits. I turned around, backtracked a half-block east, and parked on the shoulder of the highway.

“Take a look at that billboard,” I said, pointing to the Harper Realty sign just ahead with Friendly George’s grinning mug.

“It’s Mayor Harper. So what?”

“So, this.” I reached over, opened the glove box, and handed Kate the photo of Brett from the newspaper.

“You’ve met Nora Barfield. Take a real good look, Kate. What’s that saying? ‘It takes two to tango’?”

After Kate recovered from her shock we drove to The Green Parrot and got our favorite table on the beachside deck. We ordered fried grouper sandwich platters and a pitcher of beer, and talked over our upcoming plans while we ate.

It took some convincing, but Kate agreed to gently prod Sara Gillman to find out just what she or her friends knew, if anything, about Brett and Maddie’s involvement with marijuana. Kate admitted she’d tried pot herself a few times back in school and decided to gain Sara’s trust with that approach.

My gut had been telling me for some time that all those camping trips to the Grand Gator Bay Wilderness Area weren’t for pleasure only. I reminded Kate that Sara had gone there with Brett and Maddie at least twice.

“Find out if Sara knows anything about Brett growing pot somewhere up there. Tell her it could help us discover who’s responsible for what happened to Maddie.”

Kate dipped a French fry into ketchup. “Just what are you going to be doing while I’m grilling Sara, Mister Big-Shot Detective?”

“See if I can locate Tom Mayo,” I said. “Then I’m going for a hike.”

Next morning I spent a fruitless couple of hours asking around town if anyone knew Sergeant Tom Mayo and where he might have moved after leaving St. George. A few business owners remembered him, and most had only good things to say about the man, but nobody knew where he’d relocated. Then I remembered an obvious source I’d overlooked.

I drove to the campground and stopped at the office. Jerry Meadows was sitting on the porch shucking fresh corn from the big garden he and Donna grew out back.

“Sure, I remember Tom,” he said, plucking silk from an ear. “Fine young feller; kept a sharp eye on the place for us. Always felt he was done wrong when they fired him.”

“Do you remember where he moved to?”

He dropped the shucked ear into a tub and rubbed his stubbled chin. “Let’s see, little place just outside of Dothan . . . Headland! That’s it, Headland, Alabama, few miles up Highway 431 north of Dothan. Said he had a uncle or some other kin there might could get him on the force.”

I thanked Jerry and drove to my trailer with a bag of fresh corn he insisted I take. I grabbed my laptop, got online, and typed whitepages.com in the URL block. When the site came up I filled out the required fields and hit “enter.” In a few seconds I had a listing for a Thomas Alfred Mayo of Headland, Alabama.

I dialed the area code and phone number. After a couple of rings a woman answered. I made sure I had the correct Tom Mayo’s residence, then gave Mrs. Mayo my name and said I was looking into the case her husband had been fired over.

I’ll spare the tears and most of the details I listened to, but Tom Mayo was killed in a single-vehicle accident not two months after leaving St. George. The brakes had failed on the family’s new car, and to avoid crashing into a stopped school bus Tom opted for a deep ditch, flipped over several times, and died instantly.

So much for getting Sergeant Tom Mayo’s side of the story.