He pushed. “You can’t lie to me. It’s not very polite, and you are my boss. You’re supposed to set a good example.”
I glared at him. “Fine, you want to know what I have?” I pulled out my notebook where I’d started writing out clues. “Nothing. I have nothing, and it’s driving me crazy.”
He held out his hand. “Let’s see. Maybe two heads are better than one.”
I paused, wondering what his game was today. “You’re going to be in trouble with Greg.”
Toby shrugged. “Actually, I won’t. He’s told me I won’t be working the case. Something about the mayor and overtime issues so he’s not allowed to devote any hourly manpower to the investigation, unless the DA approves another suspect. I guess the mayor isn’t in the Save Austin camp.”
“So you thought you’d work the case in your spare time?” I grinned. “Seriously Toby, when do you sleep?”
“Right now, after this thing with Elisa, I don’t sleep very much.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Can you just give me a break here? Working helps keep me sane, and I need the distraction.”
I didn’t want to pry about why Elisa had called it quits. Okay, I really wanted to know, but I didn’t want to ask. I kept hoping Toby would just tell me. I looked at my notebook. “I’ll share on one condition. You can’t even think that Sadie or Nick are suspects.”
“You’re kidding me, right? The pie lady and her soon-to-be-president son? You think I might consider them falling off the path of good to the dark side?” He tapped the notebook. “Just what have you got in there?”
“I need your promise.” I thought about Sadie’s tearful confession about how she’d harbored bad feelings in her heart for Kacey. The woman would take the fall for her guilt alone even though I knew she couldn’t kill anyone.
Toby sat back in his chair and looked at me. “You’re really serious here, aren’t you?”
I watched his face for a tell or reaction to my condition.
Finally he put his hands up in the air. “Fine, I’ll take them off the possible suspects list no matter what I see in the notebook or what we find out later. You just better be right.”
I opened the notebook and started walking Toby through what I’d considered so far—especially my notes on Taylor. Of course, he hadn’t done anything wrong, really. As I listed off the evidence, I could see the dismissal of Taylor as a real suspect in Toby’s eyes. As I shared my facts and theories with my new sleuthing partner, I prayed that Sadie didn’t look half as guilty to him as she did on the surface to me.
When we finished, Toby stood and refilled both our coffee cups without saying anything. Finally, he sat down and pushed the untouched cup away. He tapped the book. “You’re right. The circumstantial evidence all points to our pie lady.”
CHAPTER 17
Toby and I made a plan of attack for the day. He’d go and research what was happening with Austin, but we both knew that hoping Austin was the killer was far-fetched even for South Cove. The guy just didn’t have it in his DNA. I needed to tie up Sadie’s alibi for the night the food truck was vandalized. We agreed to meet again over breakfast Saturday morning with what we’d found out.
After Toby left to get a few hours of sleep before his next shift at the shop, I took Emma for a run, my mind filled with what-ifs. I kind of liked having someone besides Aunt Jackie to bounce ideas off of. I knew that he couldn’t be totally impartial since he was an actual police officer, but Toby was classified more as the brawn of the force than the brain. That was Greg’s job, and apparently Toby had been restricted to his normal traffic cop, bar bouncer duties.
But one thing was clear in my mind: No matter who was helping me think through this puzzle, I needed another suspect. If Austin was too granola to kill, and Sadie was too nice, there had to be a third suspect and probably a different reason. Taylor and the club presidency seemed a little far-fetched, even for me. I started thinking about the food truck. I’d already considered and discarded Lille, but what if the food truck break-in was just a distraction? And what better way to set someone up by giving Sadie her recipes back?
I plopped down on the warm sand and watched Emma play in the surf. The seagulls were swarming around her and playing with the waves as she chased after them. What if Kacey was involved with the mob? Okay, a totally crazy idea, but I needed to separate out the real from the possible. If she was killed as part of a mob hit, she’d have a bullet hole rather than being killed with an overdose of wheat germ.
Which told me what?
My eyes widened. The method of death told me it wasn’t a random or professional murder. Someone she knew killed her because only someone she knew would know that she was that allergic to wheat products. There was a big difference between following a gluten-free diet for your health and doing it because of a deadly allergy.