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CHAPTER FOUR

I probably gaped at him. I know my brain gaped, so it was likely my face did, too.

Part of my mind recognized Clara did not express surprise or confusion at this new fact. But most of it grappled with my own surprise and confusion.

The murdered man was a convicted murderer.

A convicted murderer who was dying.

A convicted murderer who was dying when he was murdered.

“Just to be sure... Teague, you aren’t saying he was dying in the broad sense that all living creatures are heading toward a point when they will no longer be living, are you?”

“No. I’m saying dying in the sense that he had a fatal disease and was given a few weeks to live. He was in hospice.”

“They let him out of prison because he was dying?”

“It happens sometimes.”

My thoughts backtracked. “Compassionate release, you said.”

“Yeah. And sometimes it really is from compassion.”

“Other times?”

He lifted one shoulder. “Sometimes political—”

“Not this time,” Clara said. “If politics had entered into it, Derrick wouldn’t have been convicted in the first place,” Clara said.

“Agree the release wasn’t political.” Stopping there made it clear Teague didn’t agree with the rest. “Judging by calls the department’s getting — even though we had nothing to do with the decision — his early release is not a popular move, even with the guy now dead.”

Before Clara could do verbal battle from afar with those anonymous callers, I asked, “If not political, were there other reasons for his getting a release? I mean, besides compassion.”

“Practical. Some prison facilities don’t have much by way of hospice treatment. Better all-around if the dying prisoner’s family can assume responsibility for hospice care.”

“Responsibility for the care and the cost?”

“Yeah, there is that. First consideration is public safety. In this case, since he was nearly bedridden, certainly confined to the facility, it wasn’t like he was going to kill anybody in the time he was out.”

“No. But he was killed himself.”

“True.” Teague was calm, but not casual about this.

Me? I was still trying to sort my thoughts. “Why would someone murder a person who was about to die anyway?”

“Good question. In fact, an excellent question.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. Not because he didn’t mean the compliment. But there was more behind this.

“Why are you not telling us—” I waggled my hand from Clara to me. “—to meekly fold our hands, stop asking questions, and be good girls like you do all the other times?”

“I have never said anything like that.” He looked both surprised and faintly amused. I hoped the latter was at my turn of phrase.

Fairness made me say, “No, you haven’t. But you have wanted us to butt out.”

“I might have said that to you.” He bent to pet Gracie.

Oh-ho. The stinker thought that ended this discussion? Au contraire, mon ami . “What makes this time different?”

“Maybe he’s finally opened his eyes to how effective we are,” Clara said.

Still petting Gracie, he said, “Better question is who says this time is different?”

I wouldn’t allow myself to be distracted by whether his not addressing Clara’s hypothesis was an insult or an oversight. I answered promptly. “Your attitude.”

As he straightened, he lifted a shoulder, acknowledging my point with a tiny smile, which disappeared when Gracie poked him in the thigh with her nose, reminding him she had not signaled the end of petting duty.

Such pokes are not love taps. He withstood the reminder and leaned back against the edge of the counter.

“Let’s say the family members of the murdered man aren’t big fans of the sheriff’s department. ”

“I told you that,” Clara said. “That’s why Mamie wants our help figuring out who killed Derrick.

For her boyfriend — his son, Robbie — and Robbie’s mother, Dova.

Well, his step-mother officially, but she’s raised him and he considers her his mother.

Because he doesn’t remember anything of his birth mother. ..” She wound down.

I could practically see her retracing the path of her thoughts from her last words back to where she’d started.

She looked at Teague, her expression changed, and she added, “ That’s why you’re not trying to drive us away this time. You want us to do your questioning, to get answers where you can’t.”

She had blind spots about this situation, but she wasn’t wrong about that.

But I wasn’t letting where she was wrong slide by. “Which proves that the department and especially Teague are not going to do nothing.”

Still focused on him, she didn’t acknowledge my point. Instead, saying, “But we’re not going to just tell you what they say to us, will we, Sheila?”

Wrestling with that could wait. Who knew if we’d learn anything?

I also kept my focus on Teague. “What about the other family?”

“What other family?” Clara asked immediately.

But Teague gave me an approving look.

I said to that look, “The family of the person Derrick Dorrio was convicted of killing, the family of his first wife.”

“Ohhhh. Of course,” Clara said. “Jaylynn’s family. But the Carnells must be talking to the sheriff’s department already, aren’t they? Why wouldn’t they?”

Still looking at Teague, I said, “They might not be talking if...” I let it stretch long enough for a flicker in his eyes to confirm two of my thoughts, but I only spoke to one of them. “...they blame the sheriff’s department for Derrick Dorrio getting out of prison on compassionate release.”

He tipped his head sideways in subtle acknowledgment. The gesture also reflected light off the sprinkling of gray hair above his ears.

I loved running my fingers over that hair. He knew it, but surely, he couldn’t have planned the hair-glint to distract me, could he?

Instead of following up directly, I probed in another direction, “How was he killed?”

“I’m not sharing details of the case with you beyond what’s given to the public.”

“That doesn’t help us any and how can you expect us to report back to you with what we find out if you don’t share? That’s not fair,” Clara said indignantly.

“That’s exactly what I expect. Fair doesn’t enter into it.

This isn’t a game or a competition. It’s your civic duty.

It’s also your duty to be careful,” He pushed away from the counter’s edge.

“I have to go now, but listen to me, you two. I know nothing I say will stop you from talking to people, especially not with a weeping girl begging for your help—”

So the Clara-to-Ned-to-Teague game of telephone included that tidbit.

“—but you will keep me informed. And you will be careful — my idea of careful and Ned’s idea of careful, not the amount of caution you think is good enough. In fact, try using the amount of caution that will let Ned and me relax.”

Clara snorted. “That would be sitting at home knitting and not talking to anybody ever.”

“That would be a start,” he said solemnly.

But he gave Clara’s elbow a friendly squeeze as he went past her and kissed me on the forehead as acceptable PDA.

Then he paused at the door. “With me working all hours on this case, Murphy—”

“I’ll get him,” Clara said immediately. She might be irked at the human, but she wouldn’t take that out on his dog under any circumstances. She had a key to Teague’s place for such contingencies, as well as impromptu play dates at the dog park.

“He could stay here,” I said.

Teague’s brows rose slightly at me. Possibly because I’d sounded possessive.

And I felt possessive. A little. Understandably, though. Why should Murphy always go to Clara’s? He was as much Gracie’s friend as LuLu’s.

And that, of course, was all this was about.

Clara sailed past that and any other subtext. “Either way, Murphy’ll be fine and we’ll let you know where he is.”

“Thanks,” Teague said. “Both of you.”

Right after the door closed behind him and Gracie gave a solitary bark to express disapproval of her flock diminishing, Clara said urgently, “You’re not going to back out now, are you? Ned and Teague worry needlessly, because we are careful.”

“No, I’m not backing out.” Even if her urging and my curiosity didn’t do the trick, the novelty of Teague tacitly encouraging us might have.

Especially after what felt to me like Clara’s unfair — if oblique and/or secondhand — aspersions on the sheriff’s department and, by extension, on Teague. If this was how I could show him support, that was good, too.

Still... we’d made no promises about spilling all to him.

Yeah, it was complicated.

It was strange to have Teague not resisting our asking questions about a murder. Though his departing reminder about being careful did return us to familiar territory.

As for being careful, he might have a whisper of a point there. We certainly intended to use caution. Always. In retrospect, we might have pushed the envelope a time or two in the heat of the moment.

Clara, not being privy to this meandering thought stream was satisfied with my statement that I wasn’t backing out, and moved on. “There was something else you didn’t say to Teague, wasn’t there?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What? No, wait. Don’t tell me outright. Tell me what made you think about it, first. The more I understand, the more I might be able to think of these things myself.”

“It’s nothing brilliant—”

“I bet it is. Tell me.”

“I was wondering why someone who was going to die soon anyway would be murdered.”

Her frown of concentration cleared. “Because someone didn’t want to wait. Or they couldn’t get to him when he was in prison, but they can now. Or because someone thought dying naturally was too good for him. Or they thought he deserved to be murdered. Or all of those.”

“See? That’s all really good, Clara.”

“But there’s more, isn’t there? I can see it in your face.”

“Well, there is the possibility that beyond being happy that Derrick Dorrio is dead — murdered — they had something to do with it. In other words, someone could be reluctant to talk to the sheriff’s department because they know they’re predictable suspects or even because they’re guilty.”

“Of course, of course, of course. You’re saying there are two sides that’ll talk to us. People like Robbie and Dova and the rest of Derrick’s family will talk to us because we’re no threat, when they know the sheriff’s department will suspect them.”

“ Might talk to us.”

She ignored that cautious caveat. “And then there’s the family of his first wife. They must have been happier with the authorities over Derrick’s conviction, but not about his getting compassionate release. And if they did something about it—”

“Something being murder.”

“—they might not see us as a threat like the sheriff’s department. I knew it was brilliant.”

“We’ll certainly have to try to talk to them — both sides.”

“And we’ll succeed.” Apparently, her line of thought went back to Teague, because she grumbled, “Civic duty to tell him everything... Teague wants his cake and eat it, too.”

“Don’t we all?”

“Well, maybe. But that doesn’t mean we have to give it to him.” She looked at me from the corner of her eye. “Does it?”

“We’ll need to tell him some.”

“Oh, right. Or he’d get suspicious about what all we know. Good thinking.”

“And because it’s the right thing to do,” I added.

“Right, right.”

“Really, Clara. The goal is to find out who killed this man and relieve the mind and heart of his son, as Mamie asked you to.”

“Asked us.”

I skipped over her correction. “If telling Teague whatever we find out makes that happen faster, that’s what we do.”

“What about Teague? If he told us everything he knows that might make it happen faster, too, so he should share. In fact, the whole sheriff’s department should.”

Hard to decide which was less likely — Teague or the entirety of the sheriff’s department taking us completely into their confidence about a case. I focused on Teague, as the aspect more likely to make her see reality. “It’s his job. His profession.”

After a couple beats her frown cleared. “Oh, you’re thinking about his job security. That if he doesn’t help them solve cases, the sheriff’s department won’t have any reason to keep him on as a consultant. But you shouldn’t worry about that. Harris—”

Teague’s partner in the Chicago area department he’d left after being declared legally blind in one eye and long-distance buddies with Clara since she sought him out during a visit she and Ned made to Chicago.

“—says that even if their old boss who let Teague go was too stupid to tie his own shoes, lots of other departments in the area know how good Teague is and would take him in a heartbeat.”

Her frown immediately returned and she gave me no chance to respond before she turned another verbal corner.

“But that would mean he was back in the Chicago area and unless you moved up there—No. No. You can’t do that. So he can’t do that. You’re right. We have to see to it that he gets all the credit for solving this murder. Even if we have to spoon-feed him the information.”

I tucked the insides of my cheeks between my teeth. “I don’t think we need to go to that extreme, Clara. As you said, Harris said Teague’s a pretty good detective all on his own. Let’s play it by ear and see how this works out.”

“Great. Who do you want to talk to first?”

“You.”

She grinned. “That’s exactly why I came over. I don’t know a lot of details, but ask away.”