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Dean’s little green Honda stood right by the front door of the museum, so we got in, and he started the engine. Since I was used to riding high on the bus, as Dean sped up, it was like being in a go-cart for me. Dean made three consecutive right turns and a left, and we were back on Main Street, heading west. He seemed in a hurry. When we got to a stop sign and had to wait for a woman with a stroller to complete her long journey through the crosswalk, Dean showed his impatience by drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and shifting in his seat. Once she cleared the curb, Dean hit the accelerator, and I settled back into my seat like I was on an Apollo mission leaving Earth.
“Do you always drive like this?” I asked.
Dean glanced at me, and I snuck a peek at the speedometer. He was already going ten miles over the limit and getting faster.
“You told me you were in a hurry,” he said.
“Not that much. Let me ask you, do you ever do nothing?” I asked.
“Nothing? What do you mean, nothing?”
“Like sitting outside and looking at the moon and stars? Without thinking about anything and letting your mind clear out?”
“No, why?”
“Perhaps it would help you gain some focus. Maybe help you slow down a bit.”
Dean slammed on the brakes, and as the momentum threw me forward in the seat, he turned a corner and stopped in a parking space with a final squeal of the tires. “We’re here.”
I considered walking back as I undid my seatbelt and left the car. Dean seemed to know the way, so I followed him into the building. It was a fairly new structure, two stories, rectangular, with the only splash of color being the United States and New Mexico flags waving in the wind out front. I assumed he’d been there before since Dean bypassed the information desk in front. He took an immediate left and started ascending the stairs to the second floor. Once at the top, he turned left again and followed the hallway to the end. At last, we stopped at the door to the mayor’s office.
Dean held the door open for me and we stepped into the outer office. There was a receptionist’s desk there, and although there was a steaming cup of coffee on it, there wasn’t a person in sight. Dean took that as an invitation to go farther in. He stepped around the desk, rapped a knuckle on the inner door, peeked his head in, and opened the door wide.
If it surprised Mayor Mary to see us, she didn’t show it. We walked into the room and stopped right in front of her desk. The mayor, who was reading a document, looked up at us over her glasses, exhaled, turned the document upside-down, and sat back in her large leather chair.
The mayor took off her reading glasses and dropped them on the desk. “What do you people want?”
I wanted to speak, but it was Dean who took the lead. Without asking or an invitation, he settled into the visitor’s chair in front of her desk. “The sheriff arrested Sam Henry.”
The mayor looked at him, at me, then back at him. “I already know that. He told me last night.”
“She didn’t do it,” Dean said.
Mayor Mary shrugged her shoulders. “That’s up for the court to decide, not you.”
Dean stood suddenly and pointed his finger at the mayor’s face and started screaming at her. “Look, Mary, we’re all tired of you and your crap. I know you were involved, not Sam. You were the one who brought that weasel Stier to town, and you were the one who was looking to get rich while the rest of us suffered. I don’t imagine things were going your way, so you got rid of him, didn’t you? And you set Sam up to take the fall at the same time. Clever, Mary. Brilliant. Now that Stier’s out of the way, I’m sure you’ve already started getting buddy-buddy with his investor friends, haven’t you?”
Dean picked up the mayor’s phone, held the receiver out to her, and lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “You need to get on this phone, call Chief Jennings, and get Sam out of jail. She doesn’t belong there. You do.”
The mayor didn’t make a move, so Dean dropped the receiver. It landed on the desk with a thunk, then bounced and slipped off the side of the desk.
“Listen to me, you ass. I had nothing to do with the deaths of anyone. I didn’t do it myself. I didn’t have it done. You have no evidence to the contrary. Likewise, you have no evidence that I’m doing anything inappropriate regarding the new resort. You have nothing on me.” The mayor leaned over, grabbed the phone’s handset, and put it back on the base.
“We’re done now. You can leave, either on your own, or I can get security to remove you. I’m happy either way.”
Dean glared at her, and she glared right back. It was a contest of iron wills, and Dean broke first. Without a word, he got up, brushed past me, and left the office.
Mayor Mary looked at me. “Well?”
I gathered all the information I needed to. “I’ll be leaving, I suppose. Have a nice day.”
I left the office and retraced my steps back to the stairs and took them to the first floor. I assumed Dean would wait for me in the lobby, but he didn’t. When I stepped outside, he wasn’t there, either. I made my way to the parking lot, scanned all the spaces, and noticed his little green Honda was gone. Damn. There went my ride. I thought that was for the best.
I checked the map on my phone to make sure I had the directions right and started walking down Main Street. After fifteen minutes, I found myself in front of the police station, and I was happy to discover I was at least headed the right way. I continued down the street, not so much in a hurry anymore since I had run out of people to talk to. My suspect list had neat checkmarks next to every name, cleared completely, and I didn’t know what to do. I’d run out of ideas.
As I walked, I overheard a church bell ring in the distance. Without thinking, I counted the peals in my head. It was noon, and since I had nothing for breakfast, I was hungry.
When I got to the diner, the lunch rush was on. Lisa spotted me, escorted me to the last table in the room, and handed me a menu.
“Want anything to drink, sweetie?” she asked.
I asked for water, and she scurried away to retrieve it while I glanced at the menu.
“I’d go with the meatloaf sandwich. They serve it open-faced with a side of mashed potatoes and gravy.”
I looked over my menu and discovered it was Pastor Tom, offering his advice. “Do you mind if I join you? There’s no other place to sit.”
I used my foot to push a chair out for him. “Go ahead.” As he sat, I returned to the menu. “The meatloaf wouldn’t be too much food? I don’t like being overstuffed.”
“No. They serve it as a half-portion for lunch.”
Lisa returned and dropped off glasses of water for me and the pastor. “Have you decided?”
I looked at the pastor. “I understand the meatloaf sandwich is good. Let’s try that.”
“Same for me,” Pastor Tom said.
Lisa scratched the order on her pad and left us.
I unwrapped a straw, sunk it into the water, and took a drink. The ice water tasted refreshing after the long walk I just took. “What’s on your mind today, Pastor Tom?”
“My conscience, mostly. I saw Sam Henry at the jail today,” the pastor said.
“Why were you there?”
“I go over there three times a week, talk to any inmate who wants to talk. Try to provide some comfort to them.”
“Did you talk to Sam?” I asked. I took another drink. I’d almost drained my glass. Pastor Tom noticed and pushed his untouched one my way.
“Oh, yes.”
“What did she say?”
“That she was innocent, but she feels like she’s going to prison. She’ll be one of those wrongfully convicted people you read about on the Internet. Her words, not mine,” Pastor Tom said.
“Do you believe her? About being innocent?”
“Of murder? Yes, of course. She has fine Christian values.”
That took me aback. “She didn’t mention she attended your church.”
Pastor Tom smiled at me. “No, I didn’t say she was a good Christian. I said she had good Christian values. She doesn’t attend my church, or any other church around town so far as I understand, but I see her at events, bake sales, Christmas programs, that sort of thing. What I meant to say was, she doesn’t need to attend church to prove she’s a good person, because she just is. She’s generous with her time, and her humor. She bakes extra bread for the shelter, gives free cookies to the children, even makes a batch of dog treats once a week for any customers that have pooches. I’ve never seen her say an unkind word to anyone.”
That sounded exactly like the Sam I remembered. “Except Sherman Stier?”
Pastor Tom got up and returned shortly with another glass of ice and a pitcher of water. He refilled my glasses, then poured himself one. Pastor Tom took a sip of water. “Well, that’s a unique situation, isn’t it? She was only fighting to protect what is hers, and we can’t fault her for that, can we?”
I shook my head. After I took another drink, I dabbed my lips with a napkin.
“I can’t wrap my head around this whole thing, Tom. I get Sam didn’t do it, but I was so sure it was someone else from the committee who did. Lisa and Rob don’t have a motive, and Dean Williams has an airtight alibi. Hanson is dead, and although I strongly suspect the mayor is up to some shenanigans, I don’t think it’s murder.”
I looked up at him. “You didn’t kill those men, did you?”
I thought I’d offended him. Instead, he broke into a hearty laugh. “Oh, my, no. It wasn’t me.”
“Sorry, Pastor, I had to ask. But you took some money from him, didn’t you? I was right about that one?”
Pastor Tom frowned, then nodded. “Yes. One hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. In cash. He handed it to me in a brown paper bag, like he was passing me a turkey sandwich.”
“Why did he give you the money?” I asked.
The pastor swirled the straw in his glass as he thought for a moment. “One Saturday night I was working late, preparing the church for Sunday services, when he came in and plopped himself down in the back pew. As I got closer to him, I could tell he was drunk. His eyes were bloodshot, and he smelled like a distillery.”
“What did he want?”
“He wanted to make a confession,” the pastor said.
“A confession? You hear confessions?” I asked.
“Oh yes, all the time. I’m not Catholic, so I don’t have the fancy confessional, or have people do Hail Marys or penance afterward, but I get confessions all the time. Sometimes people can’t hold a secret, and the person they seek to tell is someone in the church. It comes with the position.”
“And then you have to keep their secrets?”
“Oh yes. And I keep secrets much better than Reba Chestnut does, bless her.”
We both laughed.
“And you keep everything in confidence? No matter what horrible thing they tell you?”
Pastor Tom took another drink. “No, not everything. If someone confesses to me about a crime against a person, I’ll report that to the authorities.”
“I thought that was against the rules.”
“If I were a Roman-Catholic, it would be, because I would violate the seal of confession. But I have to look at it from the other perspective too. I can’t stand by knowing that someone could have committed a rape, or assault, or even murder and not be accountable for it. In those cases, I would persuade the confessor to go to the authorities themselves, and if they didn’t, I would.”
“So, if I told you I stole a Snickers bar from the grocery store, you’d keep that secret, but if I shot the store clerk during the act, you would tell the cops?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“I’ve never heard of that before.”
“I believe I’m the exception, not the rule. Ah, here’s lunch finally.”
Lisa dropped off the food and left without another word. Pastor Tom bent his head and said a prayer, and although I wasn’t really religious, I stayed silent as he did so to respect his beliefs. When he finished, we dug into our meals.
Pastor Tom had indeed made an excellent suggestion. The meatloaf was moist, seasoned properly and, in a word, excellent. It was so good; I ate three quarters of it, instead of my usual half. Then again, I had skipped breakfast, except for the tea. When I finished eating, I pushed my plate to the side.
“So Sherman Stier came in to confess about something. Since they didn’t arrest him for anything, I assume that means he didn’t confess to physically hurting anyone.”
I looked over at Pastor Tom. He stayed silent, but he gave me a nearly imperceptible nod.
“Can you tell me what happened?” I asked.
Pastor Tom finished his meal, wiped his mouth with his napkin, then wiped up the crumbs on the table in front of him.
“He gave me his confession, begged me to keep his secret, and left in a hurry. A week later, he handed me a sack full of cash and told me to consider it a gift to the church for my help.”
“He wanted to buy your silence.”
“Yes. Although I would have kept his secret, anyway. I’ve heard much worse things during my time in the church.”
“What are you going to do with the money?”
“I considered returning it to him, even recently, but now that he’s gone, I suppose I’ll keep it. That kind of money will go a long way to feeding the hungry and clothing the needy.”
I couldn’t find fault with that logic.
Pastor Tom rose suddenly. “Thank you for letting me join you for lunch. I have to run over to the retirement home. Don’t worry about the check. I’ll pick it up on the way out.”
I smiled. “Thank you, that’s quite kind.”
Pastor Tom turned to leave, but came back, leaned close, and whispered in my ear. “You know, love is a strange thing. When people fall into it, they’re so happy. When they fall out, sometimes they’re sad, other times they’re angry. Furious, even.”
Pastor Tom stood, gave me a wink, and left me sitting by myself. I finished my water, left a tip for Lisa, and exited the diner.
I didn’t have any place else I needed to go, so I jaywalked across the street, and did some window shopping as I ventured to the bus.
Our lawn chairs weren’t outside, the area looked cleaned up, and the door was locked tight, so I used my key to enter.
“Hello?” I said as I entered. “Anyone home?”
Silence greeted me, so I stepped over to the table and saw the note. Bozeman had gone for a run. Bozeman liked to keep active, and with our constant time spent on the road, he liked to use any downtime to exercise when he could. If we were in a town large enough to have the gym he had a nationwide membership for, he’d go there. If he didn’t have that opportunity, he’d trade in his six-gallon hat and cowboy boots for a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, and running shoes. I had the place to myself.
There was a pile of black and white fur on the bench seat, curled up beneath the window, and although it could be mistaken for Gibson, I knew it was Merle. Merle lifted his head to watch me as I moved to the fridge and pulled a handful of raspberries from a pint.
“What are you doing up here? Fighting with your sister again?” Merle perked up when I sat next to him and waited for the treat he knew I would give him. First, though, I had to make sure the raspberries were nice and sweet, so I ate a couple myself. The little red morsels exploded in my mouth, and I moaned in delight.
“Want one?” I held one out for Merle, and like a gentleman, he took it in his front left foot and shoveled it into his mouth. He seemed to enjoy it as much as I did. I gave him my last raspberry, and he then crawled onto my lap and rolled over to get his belly scratched. My skunk was such a ham.
“Tell me, what’s going on?” I knew he had gotten into a scuffle with Dolly. Although they loved each other most of the time, now and then they got into a minor argument, much like two dogs, or two cats, or two human siblings would do. When that happened, we usually brought either Merle or Dolly onto the bus, whoever was less grumpy at the moment, just to separate the two for a brief period. Obviously, a scuffle had ensued while I was gone, and Bozeman had to step in and be the mean parent.
“Where’s your twin?” If I had to guess, Gibson was in his usual spot on the pillow tower atop my bed. “You’ll never believe the last couple of days I’ve been having. Every time I seem to have a handle on this thing, it just slips away from me again. So frustrating, you know?”
Merle raised his head. One would think he was paying attention. In reality, I knew he just wanted me to scratch the little white stripe that ran down his forehead between his cute black eyes. Merle has always been a diva.
“I’d better go see what your sister is up to. Do you want to go back downstairs?”
Merle answered that question by rolling off my lap and curling back into a ball on the cushion beside me. I took that as a no, so I rubbed his cute little ears and got up to go see what Dolly was up to.
I opened the door to Dolly’s cage and glanced inside. As usual, Dolly had snuggled up in her blanket. Bozeman had given her a bowl of vegetables, but they didn’t look touched.
“Hey Dolly. How’s my girl?”
Dolly raised her head and looked at me. I rubbed her head and scratched her back. Usually she loved it, but on this occasion, she turned around and ignored me. Dolly could hold a grudge when she wanted to. Since she didn’t want to be sociable, I looked under her blanket for her most recently collected treasures. I found two more rocks that I added to her growing pile. She had found the bowl end of a plastic spoon broken in half. She also had a bent Eisenhower dime, and a silver button, and all those items I took with me onto the bus and tossed them into the kitchen trash.
I thought for a moment about what I wanted to do to pass the time, then elected to write some music. There was a song I’d been working on for the better part of a week that was giving me some trouble. I had the lyrics where I wanted them, but there was something about the melody that I didn’t like and wanted to change. The hard part was figuring out what that change was. Having the desire to figure it out, I went to my room, grabbed my notebook and my Martin, and took them back to the parlor. I got comfortable and strummed the guitar. I woke Merle up with the noise, but since he and the other animals were used to music on the bus, he put his head down again.
For several minutes, I worked through some chord progressions before changing the tune to a different key altogether. It turned out I hated that even worse, so I changed it back again, and worked through different iterations until I had something I was almost happy with. I picked up my pencil, made a few notations, and then, as was my habit, rather than put the pencil back on the table, I moved to place it between my lips. I lost fewer pencils when I chewed on them while I wrote. Just before the pencil touched my lips, I looked down and noticed a white substance against the yellow-painted wood. I brought the pencil closer to look at what it was, and then I saw the index finger and thumb of my right hand contained particles as well.
I moved over to the sink, turned on the water, rinsed my fingers, and watched as the substance combined with the water and disappeared down the sink.
Where had I seen that before?
I watched the water swirl in the bowl for a moment, then shut it off.
“Wait. Wait, a moment...”
I grabbed the kitchen trash bin, tipped it over, and then watched as the contents spread over the counter. Among the banana peels, a few crumpled sheets of paper, and a small amount of other random kitchen trash, I found what I was looking for. The button I had just thrown away. I picked it up and saw right away the white substance I had transferred to my fingers. I realized I had seen it before, and it took a simple swipe through the remaining refuse to find the flower stem I had thrown away the day before.
Certainly, I wasn’t a chemist, but they looked the same to me, and at last the synapses in my brain connected enough to realize I’d seen it before. Literally right on the tip of my nose.
Flour.
From the bakery.
Somehow, Dolly had been exploring the area and brought back two items covered in flour. I studied the button and realized I had seen that before, too. I closed my eyes and mentally replayed conversations I’d had with anyone over the last few days. There was only one person I could remember who was wearing a jacket with buttons like this.
I smiled.
I had a new suspect.
