My office?” Carl Haight stared at us like we were half a bubble off plumb.
Jay and I had raced straight over to the sheriff’s department and basically insisted that Carl talk to us even though it was barely eight a.m.
“Tackett told an inmate at Greensville that he had a trump card that he could play at any time to get a better deal,” Jay said.
“The tape?” Carl asked.
“He didn’t say what it was, just that it was being protected by none other than the sheriff of Tuttle County himself.”
Carl frowned. “What the hell? I am not—”
“No one is suggesting that you’re somehow in cahoots with Tackett on this,” I said quickly. “But remember, this used to be Tackett’s office.”
“That’s why we think he must have hidden it somewhere in here before he was sent to prison.”
“Does anyone else know about this?” Carl asked. I knew he was thinking about what Skipper Hazelrigg would do with this information during the campaign. I could practically see the headlines myself: Sheriff sits on evidence of local murder for years without knowing it.
“No,” Jay said, “not at this point. But I can’t promise it’ll stay under wraps. The sooner we find whatever he’s hidden, the better.”
Carl sighed. “All right, let’s get to it then.”
The three of us each started in different corners of the room, feeling along walls and baseboards for anything that seemed out of place. We looked under shelves and behind light switches, and double-checked every creaky floorboard.
“If the attack was the work of the cartel,” I said as I checked under a chair in the corner of the room, “they won’t be happy to hear the job’s not done. Tackett could still be in danger.”
“I talked to Sheriff Clark this morning,” Carl said. “They’ve got security outside his room.”
“DEA has issued an order for all agents who have informants working with the Romero cartel to keep an ear out for any plans they hear about concerning Tackett,” Jay added, as he felt along the top of the shelving unit on the back wall of Carl’s office. “We think Tackett must be in a position to deliver some very valuable intel if the cartel attempted to take him out so brazenly.”
That couldn’t be good. The Romero cartel was known for being extremely well organized, thorough, and ruthless. “What if they just wanted to scare him?” I asked, trying to find some glimmer of hope. “Maybe they don’t care if he’s dead as long as he doesn’t talk?”
Jay made a doubtful sound. “He’s a loose end—and the Romeros don’t like loose ends.”
Carl unscrewed a vent cover on the wall to check behind it. He paused and turned to Jay, “Do you people have a plan if he recovers?”
I couldn’t help but notice the slightly adversarial tone in Carl’s voice with the use of the words “you people.” I understood where he was coming from—I mean, my tone had been way worse not even an hour earlier—but now that I knew Jay had been on our side all along, I felt defensive, and maybe even a little protective of him. “Jay wants to find out who killed Albert and Flick as much as we do, Carl,” I said.
It felt like my words had landed on the floor with a dull thud. No one said anything in response. I looked up from the book I’d been thumbing through. Carl and Jay had stopped what they were doing too—Carl’s mouth formed a thin line, and Jay looked down at the ground.
“What?” I said, looking from one to the other.
An excruciating few seconds of silence ticked by. Finally, Jay said, “Given what happened, if he survives, Tackett’s likely going to be transferred to another facility.”
It took a couple of seconds for me to realize the implications of this. I slowly, carefully set the book I’d been holding back on the shelf. “But—but that’s what he wanted all along,” I said. “Now he’ll have no incentive to tell us anything. The only reason he was even willing to talk in the first place was to get out of Greensville. Now, if he recovers, he’ll never talk.” I felt defeated, like everything I’d been hoping for had just burst into flames.
“That’s why it’s so important that we find the recording,” Jay said, trying to refocus me. “If we find it, we don’t need Tackett.”
Carl looked at me and nodded. “C’mon. Let’s keep looking.”
We spent the next hour going over every square inch of Carl’s office. We found nothing. By the time we replaced the last knickknack back on the last shelf, we were all thoroughly demoralized. Our optimism had been replaced by a growing sense of doubt regarding the likelihood of finding Tackett’s recording.
“I’m gonna call Sheriff Clark and check on Tackett,” Carl said as he walked me and Jay out to the reception area. “I’ll be in touch if I hear anything.”
Jay excused himself and went back to the Ottoman Inn, saying he had phone calls to make, and I decided to head over to the Times office. There were a few things I needed to do as well, having spent more time than I should have on this over the past couple of days. Besides, I was ready for a break from thinking about how all my hopes and dreams of finding out what happened to Granddaddy and Flick were about to die with Joe Tackett.