Next step: confirm Devon’s story.
I find Kenny in his workshop. April’s there, too, sitting on a chair and talking to him as he works. That’s almost enough to make me back out.
My sister is taking an evening off! She’s socializing! She’s with a guy she likes, who likes her back!
Yeah, all very exciting for sister Casey, but detective Casey has a job to do. I slip in with an apology for the interruption.
“Yes,” April says. “You should be more careful when Kenny has a saw in his hand. He could hurt himself.”
Kenny smiles. “If I cut myself every time someone walked in, I’d have bled out long ago. What’s up, Case?”
“The movie-night folks use your ladder to put up their poster, right?”
He leans against his workbench. “Yep. I thought of that, but no one borrowed it that night, and I had the workshop door locked.”
“Devon’s the one who puts it up each week, isn’t he?”
“Normally, yes. Gloria took it this week, though.”
“Did anyone help her?”
He shakes his head. “I offered, but she said she was fine, and it’s a bit awkward with my crutches, so I didn’t insist.”
“She was alone when she returned it, too?”
“It was outside the shop the next morning.”
April looks over. “I don’t see what the movie-night sign has to do with Will’s sign, Casey.”
“I’m presuming there’s a connection,” Kenny says. “Yes, Gloria borrowed the ladder alone. She put the sign up alone, too. I spotted her when I was heading home. She seemed to be having some trouble sticking it on. I asked if she needed anything, and she nearly fell off the ladder. I must have startled her. Felt bad about that. She said she was fine and seemed flustered, so I didn’t want to make a big deal of it.”
“Okay, well, my next step is finding out who she’s been dating.”
April frowns. “She’s no longer seeing Conrad?”
We both turn to look at her.
“Conrad?” I say.
“Yes. She came to see me about a confidential matter, which I will not divulge, of course. It doesn’t pertain to your case. Then Conrad came to see me about the same matter, and I realized their situations were related.”
“Ah.”
“Which is not why I say they are a couple. That would still breach confidentiality. It only put the thought into my mind, and then I saw them together in an intimate tête-à-tête, while I was taking my morning walk along the town border.” She pauses. “Or perhaps, given that I formed my initial opinion based on confidential appointments, telling you about the tête-à-tête is inadmissible. Fruits of a poisonous tree.”
I try not to smile. My sister’s reading has recently moved from police-procedural mysteries to court-drama thrillers.
“That’s debatable,” I say. “However, having no court here, there’s no one to argue the point, thankfully.”
“I didn’t realize their relationship wasn’t common knowledge,” she says.
“Which helps. It was a secret. Now it isn’t. And you may have just cracked my case.”
* * *
Conrad? Oh, hell. Part of me loves this solution. The whistleblower’s biggest fan is actually the whistleblower himself? That’ll lob a cannonball through his campaign against Anders. Yet it won’t detonate it entirely. Not unless I can prove Conrad is also a council spy sent to discredit local law enforcement.
No one in Rockton is a council supporter. Oh, they certainly arrive that way. After all, the council let them in. Saved their lives and gave them refuge. Then they arrive and realize they’re just widgets on a shelf, stashed in Rockton for what is, in some cases, a king’s ransom in gold. The only people committed to making sure they have a safe and comfortable stay are the innkeepers: us. The council is the corporation that owns the inn, purely interested in profit.
That’s the key then. Flip the narrative. Conrad isn’t a whistleblower. He’s a traitor.
Except half the town is already convinced I’m out to get Conrad. Sure, he’s an asshole, and they’re fine with me harassing him over the breakin, but accusing him of posting the sign? Of being a council spy? That’s taking a reasonable vendetta five steps too far.
I can’t accuse Conrad until I have proof. Gloria is the most likely source of that proof. While I have a feeling she’ll break under very little pressure, I don’t want to start there.
I want to start with Conrad. Stop by and claim to believe I was wrong about the breakin. From there … Well, from there, I have a plan.
As I rap on his front door, I rehearse my gambit. I must be careful here. He’s smart enough to lawyer up at the first hint of trouble. This isn’t usually a problem in Rockton. Our justice system is too streamlined for lawyers, and on the rare occasions someone recruits one, the lawyer ends up overcomplicating matters and turning a minor case into a major one, with potentially major consequences.
Technically, because we’re operating outside the Canadian legal system, I could refuse to let Conrad speak to Marissa. Yet I must avoid anything that even remotely smacks of totalitarianism. If he asks for his lawyer, I must stop talking until he gets Marissa, who will then see exactly what I’m up to and shut down this friendly meeting in a heartbeat.
I’m so busy rehearsing my lines it takes a few moments to realize Conrad hasn’t answered his door.
“He’s out,” a voice says behind me. I turn to find Jen standing ten feet away.
“He left about ten minutes ago,” she says.
“Any idea which way he went?”
“That way?” She vaguely gestures. “That’s all I noticed.” She shifts her weight. “You got more on him?”
Several people have slowed to eavesdrop.
Thanks, Jen. Really the conversation I want to have shouted across a ten-foot gap.
“No,” I say, as I walk to her. “I was just confirming something.”
She nods. “So he’s still a suspect?”
Really, Jen?
I clear my throat. “He has not been officially cleared.”
“But you’re moving in that direction?”
I peer at her. This isn’t a Jen-like conversation. She hadn’t been herself the night the sign was revealed and hasn’t been since.
Before I can decide how to pursue it, the community center door opens and Gloria steps out. She looks both ways. Sees me and backs inside.
I glance toward Jen, but she’s moved on. I hesitate. Consider. Then I stride off to confront Gloria.
NINE
“You do know that’s an emergency exit, right?” I say as Gloria slips out the community center rear door.
She looks from the door to me and then laughs nervously and hikes up a stack of books under her arm. “Guess I missed the sign.”
I look pointedly at the sign, red block letters six inches tall. Then I wave her back inside. She hesitates, but obeys. I shut the door behind us.
“You’re dodging me,” I say.
She shifts the books. “You make me nervous. You all do, after finding out what Will Anders did.”