What Ted has for me is less than I’d hoped for. I’m not sure it’s worth the price I paid, but I remind myself that we’ll almost certainly never need to make good on our end of the deal. Even if the whistleblower has a list, from what I know of Rockton’s residents and their pasts, Ted’s case would be at the bottom of it. Worst scenario, the asshole gets his immunity, and I find a way to suggest to Frieda that there might be some truth in the accusation.
What Ted gives me is a lead. A tiny one, but that still makes it bigger than anything I have so far.
It starts off even more promising.
“It’s not a secret who did it,” he says.
I straighten. “So you have a name?”
“No, I just mean that people know. That’s the scuttlebutt—that some people in town know exactly who’s responsible because he’s taken credit.”
“He? You know it’s a man? Or are you just picking a pronoun?”
“I’m not picking one. Others could be, but I definitely get the sense they’re being specific for a reason.”
“You’ve heard this directly from people who know a name?”
He sniffs. “I don’t travel in those circles, Detective. I wasn’t chopping vegetables down south. I had a position requiring multiple postgraduate degrees. I didn’t come to Rockton to party.”
While he sneers the last word, envy shines in his eyes. It’s easy to place himself above the “popular” crowd. He’s too distinguished, too respectable, too educated for that. Truth is that the troublemakers are usually people just like him. Either they’re taking advantage of the opportunity to cut loose or they’re reliving their frat-boy days, acting like twenty-year-olds at a kegger.
“The culprit is part of that crowd, then?” I say.
“Part of one of them. There are many cliques here, Detective.” Another sniff. “It’s like high school. I can’t say exactly which one your culprit belongs to, but word is that he’s taken full credit with his cronies, basking in the warmth of his fifteen seconds of fame while positioning himself as a modern-day Robin Hood, bringing down the corrupt Sheriff of Nottingham.”
I frown. “They’re targeting Eric?”
He waves off my words. “I mean ‘sheriff’ figuratively. It’s a literary analogy.”
“I see. Well, do you have anything for me to go on? Anyone you know has heard this confession firsthand?”
“As I said, I don’t travel in those crowds.”
“Then can you tell me who you heard it from?”
“Two people, and no, I will not divulge their names. I am a man of honor, Detective, not a common stool pigeon.”
I pause, both to keep from making a smart-ass remark and to figure out a way to get that information. Before I can speak again, he says, “However, knowing this isn’t enough for you to go on, I made some discreet inquiries. I know how the culprit got the sign in place without being spotted.”
He pauses, as if for dramatic effect. Then he says, “It was there all day.”
I shake my head. “That’s impossible. I went by earlier that evening. There was just the usual…”
As I trail off, Ted smirks.
There was just the usual sign. The one that tells residents about the next movie showing.
“The whistleblower put his sign behind that one,” I say. “Then he rigged the movie sign to come off somehow?”
“Nothing so dramatic. He affixed the movie sign loosely. Eventually, it just fluttered away.”
I can grumble about the drama of that. Also the inefficiency. It was just as likely that the old sign would have hung there, half fastened, until someone climbed up to fix it and found the other one, which would have been a lot less impressive.
That plan was both to make a scene and to set up a mystery. To have us all—especially me—wondering how the sign got there when no one saw it being posted.
Yet someone still put it up. Not only put it up but needed time to affix the covering sign just right. They had to find a ladder or sturdy chair, drag it into the town square, and do the work without being spotted. That might be possible in the middle of the night, but it only takes one person hearing a noise to foil the plan.
Then the answer hits. The dead-obvious answer, and with it, a suspect.
The person who put up the sign must be the same person who posted the movie-night poster. They could take all the time they needed fussing with it and not raise a single eyebrow.
The last movie was five nights ago. The new sign would have gone up the following day. The problem? The person who puts it up is Devon.
EIGHT
“The movie-night sign?” Devon says as he takes a pan of cookies from the oven. “Sure, that’s my job.” He glances over. “You think whoever posted the sign about Will used my ladder. I borrow Kenny’s. That’s a good lead, though. Everyone uses his when they need to climb up somewhere, so he keeps it inside. Otherwise people would just borrow it and leave it wherever. He should be able to tell you who took it out the other night.”
He pauses as he sets down the pan. “It’s weird he didn’t mention it being borrowed that night. Maybe someone broke in and took it? Returned it before morning?”
“Sources tell me Will’s sign wasn’t put up that night. It was behind the latest movie poster.”
Devon frowns and stops, spatula in hand. “Someone climbed up and stuck it behind the poster? Why? They’d still need to pull off the poster later. That doubles the chances of being caught. I think someone’s messing with you, Casey.”
“Apparently the movie sign was loosely attached. They were waiting for it to fall off, and then I’d zero in on that time frame to figure out who posted it.”
He scrapes off a hot cookie and sets it onto a plate for me. “I guess that’s semi-clever. Still, they’d need to get up there in the first place, not just to stick up a sign but to remove the top one, put on the new one, and tape the original over it. Lots of opportunity to be spotted.”
“Not if you’re the person putting up the movie sign.”
He pauses. It takes a moment. Then he says, “Wait. You think whoever posted Will’s sign also posted the movie sign. That’s why no one would have noticed. They were doing their job.” He hands me the plate with the warm cookie. “Then I’m really glad I wasn’t the one putting up the sign this week.”
I exhale. “Thank you. That was awkward.”
He grins. “You still get a cookie, despite thinking I tried to destroy the nicest guy in town.”
Devon lifts a hand as I open my mouth to protest. “I’m teasing. You were following up on a lead. You had to ask. Putting up the sign is my job as head of the movie committee. This week, though, Gloria offered to do it. She had trouble reading my handwriting from a distance and wanted bigger letters. I suspect someone needs new glasses. She’s on the movie committee. No reason not to let her try her hand at sign writing. I offered to post it, but she said she’d do that, too.”