Lead-Pipe Cinch (6 page)

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Authors: Christy Evans

BOOK: Lead-Pipe Cinch
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I told myself it wasn’t my fault Blake had managed to drown in the few inches of water, but I still felt guilty. After all, hadn’t I just been wishing that he would go away and stay away?
It looked like I got my wish, but it didn’t make me happy. I’d wanted him gone, not dead.
Barry called the office and reassigned the crew to other jobs—except for Sean and me. We were at the McComb site until the sheriff let us go.
Barry said Sean had found Blake in the moat. What had Blake been doing out here before the crew arrived? The man I knew wouldn’t have been caught dead . . .
Ooh, bad choice of words.
Besides, he’d been here just yesterday.
He had a job. But was that a reason to come out here in the middle of the night?
Dr. Cox slid his way down the side of the moat to where Blake’s body lay, and I watched from above. The sheriff followed him down, and the two men stood at the bottom conferring as the doctor examined the body.
The doctor was only down there a couple minutes before the paramedics signaled to their crew above. A litter was lowered down the slope, and they rolled the body into it.
The irony was not lost on me. Blake Weston—the man who wouldn’t go to the dog park with me because he might get something on his shoe—had drowned in the dirty rain water at the bottom of an unfinished moat.
I wondered how he would have explained that to his friends. Would I even know his friends now?
Or at least his family. I seemed to remember a brother in Salinas—or something like that—and a mother in the Bay Area.
The stretcher inched up the side of the trench, but instead of having me look as they brought Blake up, the sheriff pulled me aside behind a truck.
“The doc said he’s going to need a little time with this guy, so he asked me to bring you by in a couple hours. Give him a chance to find out what killed him, and clean him up a little before you look at him.”
I nodded.
Truthfully, I hadn’t been overjoyed at the idea of looking at him at all. At least this would give me some time to . . .
To what? Think about it? To dread the encounter?
Maybe waiting wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe I should just get it over with.
But the sheriff already had me by the arm, and was walking quickly toward my car. “I could take you with me,” he said, “but that would leave your car stuck up here. Unless you want to have someone come get it?”
Something in his tone made me think that having my own car would be a very good idea.
The offer of a ride? Probably not a chivalrous gesture.
I turned down the hill away from the McComb site. A last look in the rearview mirror showed a covered litter sliding into the back of the ambulance. It was instantly replaced by the front end of the sheriff’s cruiser as he pulled in behind me.
I observed every speed limit all the way to the station, acutely aware of the sheriff a few car lengths behind me.
As I drove, I considered calling someone. But who would I call? None of my friends nor my mother knew anything about my life in San Francisco. A call to any of them would invite questions I wasn’t ready to answer.
I tried to remember the names of the people who’d been part of Samurai Security; people who might remember me or Blake, or both of us.
There were several names I would never forget. Their numbers had been in the company cell phone left on the executive desk with my letter of resignation.
And what would I say if I could call them?
Hi. Haven’t talked to you in years. By the way, have you seen Blake Weston lately? He just showed up in my hometown, and now he’s dead.
Yeah, that would make for interesting conversation.
No. I was on my own.
Sheriff Mitchell kept me waiting for nearly an hour in the lobby of the station. I passed the time sitting in an institutional molded-plastic chair that made my right leg go to sleep and reading months-old copies of police news magazines.
By the time he called me in to his office the initial shock had worn off, I had passed the point of semi-cheerful cooperation, and moved on to annoyed inconvenience. If I couldn’t work today, there were a lot of other things I would rather do than hang around the sheriff’s office waiting to tell him as little as possible about Blake Weston.
He waved me to a chair and sat down behind his desk.
The vinyl-padded, metal office chair was an improvement over the molded plastic in the waiting room, though not by much. I sat stiffly on the edge of the seat, waiting impatiently.
He kept looking at me, then back down to the file that was open on his desk—neither view improved his mood—and his face was as grim and clouded as the weather.
“Miss Neverall”—he shook his head—“what is it with you and my crime scenes?”
“It’s where I work! I was supposed to be there, just like I have been every morning.” I was getting tired of defending myself for turning up for work.
Then I realized what else he had said. “And, crime scene? What do you mean? Just because some idiot wanders into a construction site in the dark and manages to fall in a moat and drown?”
“If by ‘some idiot’ you mean a former associate of yours, and by ‘drown’ you mean suffer fatal injuries, then that is exactly what I mean.”
The second part stopped me, but only for a second. “Well, falling into the moat in the dark would cause injuries, wouldn’t it? I mean, there wasn’t any light out there.”
I sat back a little. This conversation was not going the way I planned. I waited for the sheriff’s reply.
“Let’s try this again, Miss Neverall. It appears you knew the deceased.” He looked at the file again. “Blake Weston, with an address on Bush Street in San Francisco.” He looked back up at me. “You knew Mr. Weston?”
I nodded. “Several years ago. We were business associates.” The rest of it had nothing to do with Blake’s accident. No need to go into ancient history.
“And Mr. Weston had made multiple visits to the job site?”
I nodded again.
The sheriff waited, but I didn’t add anything.
“And there was an encounter yesterday morning? Mr. Weston was”—he glanced at his notes—“ ‘ hassling’ you?”
I hoped the surprise I felt wasn’t evident on my face. Blake had been a jerk, but I’d lost my temper and yelled at him in front of the crew. Someone was evidently looking out for me.
“There was an encounter, as you call it. Mr. Weston came to the site. He was rude. I know you aren’t supposed to speak ill of the dead, but rude was pretty standard for him. His behavior yesterday didn’t seem much different from the last time I saw him.”
Understatement, much?
I glanced at the folder on the desk, but the sheriff kept it tilted enough that I couldn’t see what was in it. “You are sure it was Blake Weston?” I asked. “I mean, all I saw were his shoes, really.”
“It was Weston. There was a California license in his wallet.”
“So what makes this a crime scene? He wandered out there in the dark and fell in the moat.” I leaned forward. “I know that sounds pretty stupid, but you have to remember that Blake is—was—a city guy. It wouldn’t really occur to him how dark it would be out there.”
The sheriff gave me a sharp look. “How do you know so much about a business associate, Miss Neverall?”
Whoa. Maybe I was being a little too helpful.
“We worked together in San Francisco, and it was obvious to
everybody
that Blake was a city guy. The closest he came to outdoor activities was an occasional sidewalk café.”
The sheriff nodded and scribbled something in his file and closed it. He folded his hands on top of it.
“That’s all for now, Miss Neverall. I don’t think we will need you to identify the body, after all.” He glanced at the closed file. “It’s not something you want to see anyway.”
I took the hint and let myself out.
It wasn’t until I was driving home that I realized he had never actually answered my questions.
Why was the moat considered a crime scene?
Was the death of Blake Weston really an accident?
chapter 8
When I pulled into the driveway, I was greeted by frantic barking from inside the house. Daisy and Buddha knew the sound of the Volkswagen’s old four-banger, and they knew it meant a trip to the backyard.
On my way through the kitchen to the back door, I glanced at the answering machine. The light was blinking. No surprise there. News traveled fast in a small town. Everyone I know probably called to find out what happened.
I wished I had an answer.
But before I could listen to the calls, there was a knock at the front door.
“Georgie?”
It was Wade.
His expression was a mixture of concern and exasperation when I opened the door.
“Are you okay?” he asked, coming in without an invitation and putting his arm around me.
“I heard you were at the sheriff’s office for questioning about the body they found this morning. But by the time I got there you had already left.
“I got here as quick as I could.”
I gave Wade a quick hug. His concern was sweet, but the gossip machine had obviously been working overtime.
“The guys are out back,” I said, leading him back through the kitchen to check on the dogs.
They were exploring the backyard as though it was someplace new and exotic, even though they had been out there only a few hours earlier. It made me smile.
I turned back to Wade. “I’m glad you came to check on me, but it really isn’t a big deal. The sheriff heard I knew the guy, and he wanted to ask me about him.”
“You knew the guy?” Wade reached out and took my hand. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Sure,” I said brightly, as though I was accustomed to ghosts rising up out of my past and then dropping dead. “It’s not like we were best friends or anything,” I lied.
Guilt rolled over me. Lying was becoming a habit since Blake Weston had reappeared. It was the only way I could keep my secrets, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.
“Seriously?” Wade looked in my eyes, and I forced myself to hold his gaze, mentally begging him to accept my story.
He finally nodded, and squeezed my hand. “If you say so,” he said.
I could see the political scales tilting in his brain. How to cope with the latest scandal by association? Months earlier I had helped solve the disappearance of Martha Tepper, and Wade had to work out a balancing act.
Daisy and Buddha appeared at the back door, whining for their treats.
Wade released my hand and the moment passed. I knew he had reservations about my story, but he trusted me not to mess up his life.
I hoped his trust wasn’t misplaced.
“Was this that guy Gregory was harassing you about at dinner?” Wade asked.
“You thought he was harassing me?” Apparently Wade hadn’t missed the antagonism in Gregory’s questions.
“Well, badgering, at the very least. He seemed to think he was entitled to some information or explanation, or something.”
“Yeah. Well. Not that I owe him anything. No matter what his thing is with my mother.”
Wade arched an eyebrow at me. Everybody seemed able to do that but me and it was annoying. “You’re actually referring to his relationship with the inimitable Sandra?”
“Not in specifics!” I warned. “Just that they’re a couple, and he thinks it gives him special status with me. Not likely.”
Even though I was a grown woman and my mother had been a widow for more than four years, her romantic entanglements made me uncomfortable. She was dating Gregory. Beyond that I chose not to go.
Wade took the hint. “So what was it he thought you should tell him? I mean, if this guy is dead, maybe you should talk about him.”
I shook my head. “We were business associates. I didn’t like him much.” That was an understatement. By the time I left the city, I loathed the man.

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