“How do you know that?”
“He indicated that when we were on the stakeout.” Sam had been surprised that their part-time officer, Kevin Deckard, had apparently been well aware that Thorne might be setting them up. Kevin had come a long way in the few months since Tyler’s death. Sam hadn’t been so sure of his loyalties earlier in the summer, but he’d stepped up big time and gone above and beyond on the stakeout. Sam hadn’t taken him into his confidence about what he’d done at the crime scene, though. The only one he trusted with that was Jo.
A knock sounded on the door. Sam shot a warning look at Jo, not that it was necessary.
“Come in,” Sam said.
The door opened, and Kevin Deckard and Wyatt Davis came in. Kevin clutched a white bag of doughnuts from the local coffee shop, Brewed Awakening, in his hand.
“Hey, Chief. I’ve shown Wyatt the ropes.” Kevin raised the bag. “Including the important parts, like where Brewed Awakening is.”
“Thanks for coming in early, Wyatt.” Wyatt wasn’t supposed to start for two weeks, but given everything taking place with the investigation, they’d called him in to start that morning.
“No problem,” Wyatt said. He looked at ease in his uniform. Proud to wear it. Maybe a little too proud. If he had an overly developed sense of his own authority, Sam would have to deal with that later. It wasn’t as if applicants for this police job way up in the middle of nowhere were knocking down his door. Wyatt’s had been the most qualified of the few resumes that had crossed his desk.
Kevin gave the bag to Jo. She peered inside and pulled out a jelly doughnut then passed the bag to Sam.
The crinkling of the bag woke Lucy. She trotted over next to Sam and gazed up at him with hopeful eyes.
“Not today, buddy. These aren’t good for you.” Sam bit into a cruller and passed the bag to Wyatt.
“Any new ideas?” Kevin’s eyes drifted to the corkboard. “I brought Wyatt up to speed on what we have so far.”
Wyatt stepped in front of the board. “I hear the mayor wasn’t well liked around here,” he said without turning to face them, still studying the gruesome photos.
“Not really,” Sam said. “He made upholding the law difficult for us.”
“There was a reason. He was in deep with Thorne.” Jo wiped a blob of jelly off her shirt.
“He wasn’t a nice guy, either.” Kevin put the doughnut bag on Sam’s desk and bent down to pet Lucy. “If he had his way, we wouldn’t have Lucy here as our K-9.”
Wyatt turned, his dark eyes narrowed on the dog. “Animal hater?”
“Yep,” Jo said.
“Probably made a lot of enemies,” Wyatt said.
“No doubt.” Sam leaned a hip against his desk and looked back at the photos. “Dupont had set up a meeting with Jo and me that night. He was going to hand us evidence we could use against Lucas Thorne. But when we got there, he was already dead. Dupont must have been getting nervous about what he had gotten himself into. Either he couldn’t see any way out and took his own life, or Thorne got wind he was going to talk and took it for him.”
Wyatt’s eyes flicked to the photos. “You think it could be suicide?”
“Possibly. The gun was at the scene and in the right position,” Sam said.
Wyatt cocked his head to look at a photo from a different angle, doubt seeping into his expression.
“If he was murdered, leaving the gun doesn’t make any sense,” Jo said. “Unless the killer had a reason.”
“Like what?” Wyatt asked.
“To frame Sam or Jo.” Kevin’s words surprised Sam. Apparently, Kevin was much more insightful than Sam had thought.
“That would serve two purposes,” Jo said. “Avoid being prosecuted himself and put someone in place here at the police station that he can control.”
Wyatt nodded and reached down to pet Lucy, his face relaxing into a smile as his hands touched her tan-and-black fur. Her tail swished on the floor. Sam’s estimation of Wyatt went up a notch. Anyone who liked dogs was okay in his book.
Wyatt looked back up at them. “So, how do we prove it was him?”
Chapter Two
Jody Harris sat in the hard oak chair that Sam liked to use when questioning suspects. He’d sawn a quarter inch off of one leg so that it tipped back and forth. Came in handy for throwing suspects off balance during interrogations. Not so handy for taking notes in a police investigation, as Jo was trying to do right now.
Sam was in front of his desk, one hip leaned against the edge. Kevin and Wyatt took up the other two oak chairs. Lucy was back in her spot in the sun.
It had been almost a week since the murder. They’d done a fairly thorough job of looking for evidence at Dupont’s and had also interviewed all of his contacts. They’d been busy on the stakeout at the river where they thought Thorne would be making a drug drop, and that had eaten into time they could have spent investigating Dupont’s death.
Jody glanced at the new guy, Wyatt. He seemed competent. She supposed he was good-looking, tall with a trim-cut beard. Not as tall as Sam or as broad, but he had a certain boyish appeal. Not that Jo was looking; Wyatt was ten years her junior, and she wasn’t in the market for a man anyway. She appreciated that Sam had given her a chance to look at his resume and talk to Wyatt before making the final decision on hiring him. It made her feel like her input was important.
It was early yet, but Jo doubted she’d develop the same bond with Wyatt that she had with Sam and Tyler. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing considering that Tyler had ended up being a traitor. Wyatt seemed competent, and they desperately needed the help. Hopefully, they’d click over time. And now that Kevin seemed to be coming around, they might have a pretty tight team in place.
Her gaze drifted back to Sam as he went over the specifics of the case. His navy-blue T-shirt was a bit rumpled, but he radiated an exciting energy even though the salt-and-pepper stubble that covered his chin and the lines etched into his face betrayed the fact that he must be as tired as she felt. Sam was a good cop, a loyal cop, a trustworthy cop, and Jo was proud to work under him, even if he pushed them, no matter how exhausted they were, to solve this case.
She glanced nervously again at the photos. Had it been a mistake to move the gun? There was no telling what Thorne had planned, and while neither of them wanted to obscure justice, they’d try to work the case so that the outcome was the same even if they had to take a circular route. If they thought it best to try to get a ruling of suicide, they’d continue their efforts to go after Thorne. Either way, Thorne would pay.
Whichever way Sam wanted to play it, Jo would go along, because she trusted him. Especially because he’d trusted her with his secret that night at the mill. A pang of guilt picked at her stomach. Problem was, she hadn’t trusted Sam with her secret yet, and until she did, things wouldn’t be open between them.
“So you don’t mind doing that, Jo?” Sam’s question pulled her out of her thoughts.
Jo’s head shot up. “What?” The pencil tapping on her notepad increased.
“Making a few calls to some of the people Dupont met with the day before he died. Maybe one of them can give us some insight as to his frame of mind.”
“Oh, yeah. Sure. I have a list from his assistant. Of course, most of his meetings were with Jamison.”