Page 87 of Death on Riddle Road

“You’ve met her?”

“Yeah.”His syllable did more than confirm that he’d met her.It also agreed that Rose was as likely to be right about this as fallible humans can be.

“The pillow must have still been there,” I mused.“Since Rose let only the assistant coroner in the room until your guys got there from what I’ve heard.”

He didn’t confirm or deny by sound or motion.

“So you’ve got people tracking down that pillow — if you can.”

Nothing.

“Knowing the manufacturer is a start on whether it was sold around here.Of course there’s also online ordering.And even finding out who bought the pillow doesn’t tell you who brought it to the room or who used it — if, in fact, Rose Gleiner is right about—”

The door to the meeting room started to open, revealing Deputy Eckles.

I met the younger deputy at the same time as Deputy Hensen.

One’s a mensch and a dog-lover.

Eckles is not.

Teague maintained he was a thorough, methodical deputy.I’d take his word for that.

For sure, Deputy Eckles was a lousy actor.I saw the proof of that as he assumed surprise, along with unconvincingly saying, “I didn’t know you had someone with you—”

Teague squinted in a way that meant he wanted to roll his eyes.

Eckles stopped his lie as I finished my interrupted sentence.“—Derrick’s cause of death.”

Eckles’ head snapped around to Teague, who said, in warning, “Deputy Eckles—”

But the deputy cut him off.

“Youtoldher he was smothered?You shared details of the case withher?”Eckles didn’t ask, he accused.

“Hey,” I snapped.

Eckles wasn’t done.“Pillow talk—” Did he recognize what he said?He showed no sign of it.“—with a civilian is unprofessional—”

Teague interrupted, focused on the deputy.“It’s a cliche, but, no, I didn’t tell her.Youdid, Eckles.You just told her the COD was asphyxia.”

****

“Oh, I betthat was fun,” Clara crowed when I finished my account over the phone as I drove home.

“It was.”

“Did you tell him about Payloma and Derrick?”

“I totally forgot.The pillow was top priority and then the stuff with Eckles ended our dinner.I’ll tell him tomorrow.”

The delay clearly didn’t bother her.

We agreed to another dog park outing tomorrow, though closer to our usual hour than the previous two days.We’d use the time to go over what we’d learned to date and what our next steps should be.

In the meantime, I spent productive hours in my office typing away as I followed Mary Chase Rodgers and Whit Kendall’s progress on their journey to reach a happy beginning on Lattimore Mountain.

It wasn’t easy, but it was satisfying.